Snapchat is giving away $1 million per day to users who post content using the new ‘Spotlight’ feature, allocating the money based on popularity.
Spotlight is being described as Snapchat’s answer to TikTok as it allows users to create similar types of content.
With Spotlight users can create short videos up to 60 seconds in length and edit them with creative tools such as:
- Captions
- Licensed music
- Original sound recordings
- Augmented Reality filters (referred to as Lenses)
- GIFs
- Hashtags
The spotlight feature is designed to highlight entertaining videos from all users, regardless of the amount of followers or influence they have.
The $1m-a-day payment would run until at least the end of the year, but if successful it could potentially continue into 2021, the company said.
Videos have to be submitted to the scheme to be eligible for the earnings. How much a video makes for its owner depends on a complicated formula – but includes how many views the video has.
Snapchat has not, however, said how many people the $1m a day will be split between, or what the maximum individual earnings might be.
Users have to be 16 or over to be paid, and obey a host of rules around copyright, sponsorship, and drugs and alcohol, among other things.
The company says it will moderate the feed for violations – and for anyone attempting to game the algorithm.
“We actively monitor for fraud to ensure that we only account for authentic engagement with Snaps,” it warned.
Snapchat rose to prominence for its 24-hour disappearing messages almost a decade ago. In the years since, the idea has been co-opted by competitors such as Instagram Stories and, most recently, Twitter’s Fleets.At the same time, TikTok has emerged as a favourite platform for original viral content, fuelled in part by its focus on easily adding music to posts.
Despite the competitive market for users’ attention, Snapchat recently announced that its daily user numbers had surged to almost 250 million during the pandemic.
