Snapchat is lowering the reward creators can get for creating content for the platform’s TikTok competitor — again.
Business Insider reports that the pot of money up for grabs for users creating Spotlight videos is now millions of dollars a year. In February, Snap said it was offering millions a month to creators who create high-performing short videos for Spotlight. Even that was a dip from when Spotlight first launched in Fall 2020, and Snap made smashing promises to pay out $1 million a day for a period of time to people making TikTok-esque videos.
Snap spokesman Farrin Jay confirmed the fund is sitting at “millions of dollars” year-round and said the company is focused on rewarding Spotlight creators in more markets.
as the Business Insider story details, making Spotlight videos was lucrative for content creators — at least for a while. One creator could at one point make between $20,000 and $50,000 a month until Snap started cutting payments. Another said they were making about $15,000 for 150,000 views on their videos in 2021, but are now getting $15 for the same amount. Snap has also introduced Spotlight Challenges, which pay users when they create hit videos with certain lenses or sounds or perform certain activities.
While payments to creators are declining, Spotlight still seems to be a priority for the company: In a leaked internal memo from September, CEO Evan Spiegel told staff he wants 30 percent of users on Spotlight by next year.
Plenty of other platforms have tried to throw money at their TikTok-esque issues. At one point last year, to get users to create Instagram rolls, the company scolded $35,000 a pop as part of a “bonus” program. But like Snapchat’s Spotlight fund, the creators told the Financial times those payments were reduced this spring. In 2020 TikTok itself announced a $1 Billion Makers Fund and later added ad revenue sharing with some creators.
Times are tough right now, even for the still very rich tech platforms, and many are going all in to take over TikTok’s dominance. Snap laid off about 20 percent of its employees this summer, and while it’s far from alone in cutting its workforce, the cuts were deep compared to other tech companies.
