Heavy! Snapchat Launches TikTok Rival Spotlight Globally

When it was just launched, Spotlight has covered 11 countries including the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Germany and France; recently, Spotlight was launched in India; and this week, Spotlight is officially going global!

The launch of Spotlight started in November last year. To compete with the popular short video platform TikTok, Snapchat launched Spotlight, allowing creators to upload their videos and snapshots.

“While Snapchat has not historically been a fertile ground for social media creators, Spotlight was created to change that,” said Maarten Boon, senior product marketing manager at digital asset management startup Bynder.

To this end, Snapchat also pays $1 million every day to reward the best-performing videos. The rewards program was originally scheduled to expire at the end of 2020, but Snapchat decided to extend the offer. To date, Snapchat has provided a total of more than $110 million in funding across Spotlight's major markets.

As of January 2021, two months after Spotlight was officially launched, its monthly active users have exceeded 100 million, and creators submit an average of 175,000 videos every day. At the time the app launched in just 11 countries, its global expansion now means even more users will flock to the app.

Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel didn't specify when he would start selling ads in Spotlight, saying his priority right now is increasing user engagement to support the platform's long-term operations.

It’s worth noting that many creators who have benefited from the rewards program say they will continue to use the app even after the program ends because they have built a fan base, which may help with future brand deals and other aspects.

eMarketer predicts that brands’ U.S. in-app video ad spending will increase 28% this year to $18 billion. Snapchat hopes Spotlight can become a primary channel for advertisers and brands as more marketers use video ads.

However, it is still unknown whether Spotlight can have a considerable number of users and truly attract large brands.