At the May 20 Snap Partner Summit 2021, the company said it has made payments to around 5,400 creators, with 250 of them receiving more than $100,000 each for content they created for Snap's short-form video platform.
Snap also announced an upcoming gifting feature that allows subscribers to send payments to content creators on Snapchat Spotlight. That follows the introduction in early May of Snap's Creator Marketplace, which helps brands connect with users for paid partnerships.
“Snapchatters are continually rewarded for their creations, and anyone can earn from the millions per month we offer to those who make top videos,” Reesha Sodha, head of product marketing for Snap, said at the summit.
Snap also debuted Story Studio, an app for creators to make and edit content on mobile devices. Story Studio will launch on app stores by the end of 2021.
Snapchat Spotlight has attracted 125 million users since its launch, the company reported in its quarterly earnings on April 22. The number of users watching content on the Spotlight platform jumped more than 70% between January and March, Sodha said at the Summit.
The platform’s video content competes with short-form social video giant TikTok, which has more than 700 million users worldwide.
In the first quarter of 2021, Snap reported 280 million daily active users, an increase of 22% year over year. The company brought in $770 million for the quarter, a spike of 66% from the $462 million it made in the first quarter of 2021.
