Yesterday Snapchat announced “Creator Shows“, a new format that will deliver regularly published content from some of Snapchat’s most popular stars. The company wants to take advantage of the fact that in the last year the time spent watching Shows on Snapchat has tripled.
The company isn’t disclosing viewing time or other metrics, although, the social network is aiming to capitalize on its strong ties to young viewers. Snapchat says it reaches 90% of all 13-24 year-olds; more than Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger combined, and 75% of all 13-34-year-olds.
The initiative for the Creators Shows on Snap is to provide a way of giving its most popular creators to extend to their reach, and keep them invested in building their businesses on Snapchat through monetization, as YouTube has done for years.
Snap will provide a revenue share of advertising for Creators Shows but isn’t disclosing terms of the partnerships. However, according to industry sources, Snapchat’s standard deal with media companies is to share 50% of revenue but that can vary. Both Snap Ads and Commercials can appear in Creator Shows.
According to Snap, Creator Shows will be first-person, vertical video shows with themes like beauty, fitness, dance, fashion, and more. It’ll be a new format addition to Snapchat Shows.
Snap is also rolling out a new product update for official accounts, Highlights which is a collection of photo and video content for creators to add to their profiles from their Snap Stories or camera roll. For the first time, creators will be able to save and share their favorite creative moments with new and existing fans. Highlights will show up on the redesigned official accounts profiles, which will also have a link to Creator Shows when they launch.
Just like all Snapchat Shows, the Creator Shows will appear on the Discover page, to the right of the camera. Studios partnering with Snapchat on this includes Brat, BBTV, and Studio71.
Some of the celebrities and influencers on the Creator Shows include:
- digital native creators, such as Emma Chamberlain, Loren Gray, Rickey Thompson, Baby Ariel, and FaZe Banks;
- personalities including Maddie Ziegler, Keke Palmer, Mackenzie Ziegler, Jordyn Jones, Denzel Dion, and Chantel Jeffries;
- athletes like Serena Williams;
- Hollywood icons like Arnold Schwarzenegger;
- A-list comedians like Kevin Hart;
- and international creators like Norway’s GeeohSnap.
The shows will air for three- to five-minute and will have eight to 10 episodes per season which will air starting this summer and they range from sitcoms to mockumentaries to animation.
A selection of Creator Shows rolling out include:
- Trend or End with Rickey Thompson
- Apocalypse Goals with Olivia DeLaurentis and Sydney Heller
- All Dog$ Get Money Gerald Grissette
- Relationship Goals with Ben Waller
- The Daily Realness with Skyler Fulton
- Glow Up with Loren Gray
- Throwback Toys with Jordyn Jones; a retro toy unboxing series
- Keepin’ It Real with Keke Palmer
- Get Creative with GeeohSnap
- Rules of Success with Arnold Schwarzenegger; a show featuring motivational advice from the former California governor and bodybuilder
- Chasing Clout with Spencer Pratt; a show featuring the “pop culture oracle.”
- In The Wild with The Real Tarzann
- Yet-to-be-named shows with Serena Williams, Kevin Hart, Maddie Ziegler, Emma Chamberlain, Baby Ariel, Chantel Jeffries, Mackenzie Ziegler, FaZe Banks, Denzel Dion, Teala Dunn, and Jibrizy.
We can all agree that these are pretty big changes for Snapchat, which has renewed its push to compete with competitors like Instagram, whose IGTV has been courting creators to post exclusive content on their platforms, luring them with studio space and money to fund their shoots. Not to be left behind, Facebook has also been working on its own monetization options for creators, with monthly fan subscriptions and packs of Stars that viewers can purchase and gift to their favorite creators.