SNAP COLLAB – FILTERED BRAND INFLUENCING
SnapChat is the subsidiary of parent company Snap and boasts over 750 million monthly users on it’s app, with the vast majority of them opening the App almost “40 times a day.” From an African standpoint, Southern Africa is third in terms of the highest number of users at approximately 5.7 million active users, which is relatively low in comparison to Northern Africa with 29.2 million users and followed by Western Africa at almost 11 million users, with Eastern Africa sitting on the bottom end of the SnapChat usership scale. Like all other social media apps and networks, SnapChat has also made it even easier for its content creators to monetize what they do, this is also essential for brand buy-in and app continuity.
In an effort to encourage influencers continued support of the App and enable brands to connect with them quickly and easily in order to collaborate on campaigns, Snap has introduced it’s Collab Studio in support of the creation of sponsored content. One of the toughest parts of social influencer campaigns is quantifying them in order to prove actual campaign return on investment (ROI). Thankfully there are a number of platforms and tools on the market that now facilitate the reporting side of things and keep track of the metrics that matter, now including Snap’s Collab Studio. According to Snap, Collab Studio “help companies identify the best talent for their campaigns, execute contracts, and track deliverables with thousands of creators on the platform.”
The program currently has four main partners, Influential – a branded content tech platform, Whalar – a commerce company known for creator enablement and monetization, Studio 71 – a global media company and lastly, Beeline by Brat Tv. TikTok and Instagram already have well-established content creator programs that allows their creators or influencers to make a living through their brand partnerships on the respective platforms. Previously SnapChat incentivized creators based on the achievement of specific engagement metrics, namely unique video views and videos being saved as favourites etc. In 2021 as part of it’s Spotlight program, SnapChat paid out around $250 million to over 12,000 Snapchat influencers or rather content creators, this has changed significantly as the App now pays out “millions a month, not a week.” SnapChat lenses have also been an effective way for creators to make money through the platform.
The Collab Studio is currently only available in the US to start but will most likely be rolled out in other countries down the line.