"It was all about consistency and probability. The method was to post multiple videos per day. Prior to June 1, that was the rough threshold for knowing a video would get paid, she said. The goal was for her videos to get at least 100,000 views in a 24-hour period. is a crude acronym popularized by Kanye West and Jay-Z, which roughly means to do something excessively.) "I work from home, so I kind of made it my second full-time job when I had little breaks in between my job."Īnvar focused her content on just making short, catchy videos designed to grab audiences' attention and lead them to watch multiple times, wracking up her videos' view counts. "After we got those initial first payments around February, then we started going H.A.M.," Anvar said. But not long after, one of her friends was paid $100,000 by Snap for two of his videos that went viral. The first time Anvar got paid, she received a modest $3,000 for one of her videos. She began making Spotlight videos in February after hearing from some friends that there was money to be made. Neda Anvar, 23 of California, was among them.
These creators would upload numerous videos a day in hopes that one or two might go viral and warrant payment.
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That pile of cash drew in numerous teens and young adults with a surplus of free time during their virtual school and work days throughout the pandemic. The company rolled out Spotlight along with a daily pool of more than $1 million as an incentive to motivate users to submit content to the new feature. Snap launched Spotlight in November 2020 as its answer to TikTok and Facebook's Instagram Reels. Snap also noted that restructuring its payout program allowed the company the flexibility to support creators who cater to niche communities, as opposed to determining pay outs based solely on the absolute engagement that a single video gets. "While this growth has made our incentive program more competitive, more creators are receiving Spotlight payouts than ever before, and we have recently rolled out a wide variety of new programs and tools to help creators continue to grow and monetize with Snapchat." "We have seen incredible creativity and growth on Spotlight this year, including a tripling of daily submissions quarter-over-quarter and all-time highs in the daily number of creators posting to Spotlight since June 1," a Snap spokesperson said in a statement. The company, however, did not specify an exact figure for this all-time high. "If they keep on skipping people like this, I feel like a lot of people will leave," said Melles, who now spends his time creating YouTube videos.ĭespite these complaints, Snap's spokespeople told CNBC that the company remains heavily invested in paying creators and is now reaching all-time highs for creators who submit content to Spotlight on a daily basis. Companies like Snap, Facebook, Google, TikTok and Twitter are courting creators to try and get them to spend more time on each individual platform, so they can fill the app's content feeds to draw more advertising revenue. Social media companies are in a fierce battle over getting creators to prioritize individual apps. Melles is among a migration of social media users who are taking their content-creating talents from Snapchat's Spotlight feature and heading to other paying services. "It's sad because I worked really hard every day putting the hours in, but they haven't paid me," he said. Although he was once posting as many as 100 videos per day, Melles said Snap's erratic payments since June 1 have demotivated him from creating more content for Spotlight. Now, these creators are complaining that payments have dwindled since that change, and searching for other short-form video platforms where they can find the kind of hefty payments they used to get from Snap.ĭespite making a living off Snap for the better part of this year, Melles said he hasn't posted a video to Spotlight since June. A Snap spokeswoman told CNBC the new payout amount is in the "double-digit" millions each month, but declined to give a specific figure. Instead, Snap would pay "millions" per month starting June 1. But that all began to change when the company announced on May 20 it would no longer pay $1 million per day. The social media giant minted a new class of millionaires, changing hundreds of lives. The company promised it would continue to pay these awards at least through 2020.
Snapchat set the bar last year when it announced it would pay out Spotlight creators from a pot of $1 million per day. "I was just in shock," said Melles, 18 of Colorado.