As the recent Snap Partner Summit wrapped up, it also brought some good news for Snapchat in the MENA region. Spotlight is the new entertainment platform within Snapchat, and it’s releasing across the region.
What is Spotlight?
Spotlight solves the community and discoverability of Snapchatters, surfacing the most entertaining snaps from the community all in one place. Each user’s Spotlight feed will be tailored based on their preferences and favourites. Snapchatters will be able to see what’s going viral and/or trending.
It sounds like TikTok has influenced it, but there are some differences to it.
- Content submitted to Spotlight is pre-moderated by both a computer and a human reviewer before distribution. This ensures that it doesn’t breach any of Snapchat’s content regulations.
- The Snap is tagged with certain topics (just like hashtags), and shown alongside other pieces of content in the same category.
- Once a Snap passes a certain threshold of views, it’ll move up to the next category alongside similar videos. This process will repeat itself to a certain extent.
- Distribution of the Snap is not influenced by the audience size of the user’s profile. It all comes down to engagement.
- Users can post to Spotlight, anonymously or with a public profile showing your account details. Since there are no comments, it’s all about just consuming the content and sharing it.
Snap Inc’s recent data sheds some good insight about their users, which greatly justifies the expansion of this new product:
- There are 75 million users on Snapchat across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.
- Consumption rates of content are higher than the global average, with 85% of daily users in the MENA region interacting with Lenses every day.
- From their recent press release, 90% of Snap Stars (the equivalent of Verified accounts) in the Middle East receive Story Replies from their own fans.
Shine on Spotlight, earn from Snapchat
Spotlight’s launch also brings Snap’s earning program to the MENA region. This rewards the creativity of local Snapchatters and offering creators a chance to earn a share of US$ every month. Users don’t have to be a celebrity, influencer, or public figure to earn from their Snaps. This makes Spotlight fair, entertaining, and rewarding the work of users.
How can you start earning? Snapchat users need to be 16 or older and obtain parental consent (where applicable).
Prefer to share polished vertical content made using desktop apps? Snapchatters can submit their video content to Spotlight via any web browser. You can also watch Spotlight content without a Snapchat account on the desktop as well.
I personally feel that the Snapchat app itself has plenty of creative tools built within the app: AR lenses, Face Lenses, Landmarkers, Visual filters and Geo-filters. Those can easily help empower users to create and post their Snaps, limited only by their imagination.
Snap’s owns data states that 5bn Snaps are created each day on average. Spotlight’s rollout gives users the opportunity to reach a large audience in a new way.
Spotlight is widely available across the following countries: UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, Bahrain, Jordan, Iraq, Egypt, Algeria, and Morocco.