As an “old” social network acclaimed by young people, Snapchat struggles to exist beyond its loyal user base, in the eyes of valuable advertisers and influencers. A puzzle that the application must absolutely solve if it wants to achieve profitability one day. “750 million people use Snapchat every month, the vast majority of them aged 13-34 in more than 20 countries,” said Evan Spiegel, who co-founded Snap in 2011, on Wednesday.
The boss opened the company’s annual conference with these figures showing that it has nothing to envy its competitors in terms of attendance. But unlike Meta (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp), Snapchat has never managed to earn enough advertising revenue to make an annual profit. In 2022, its net losses tripled to $1.43 billion.
The Californian group has therefore undertaken a forced diversification, after laying off 20% of its workforce last summer (more than 1,200 people). On Wednesday, Snap presented its strategy to attract more content creators, encourage users to subscribe to the paid subscription and convince advertisers and companies of the potential of augmented reality.
The application must however “be careful not to stray too far from its origins and its primary purpose as messaging”, underlines Jasmine Enberg, of Insider Intelligence. According to the analyst, the platform must find a happy medium between “the sense of community and private exchanges”, which it has cultivated since its creation, and the need to create more “public spaces” remunerative.
Snapchat invented “stories” in 2013, a format of ephemeral photos or videos then copied by its rivals. He is also a pioneer in visual communication and augmented reality. But, today, “nobody talks about them”, remarks Carolina Milanesi, of Creative Strategies. “Even on the platform regulation side, it’s all about Facebook and TikTok.” A difference that Snap claims loud and clear. “People are tired of popularity contests on social networks,” Evan Spiegel said on Wednesday. “We are tired of having to be beautiful and perfect in all the photos, tired of the race for likes, tired of misinformation. We just want to have fun with our friends and family,” he added.
Snapchat is partly resisting the TikTok phenomenon, emulated by Instagram: a thread of short, entertaining videos posted by content creators, sorted by user, to be consumed like candy. The ghost app opens by default on the camera, offering the user to film himself, or his environment, with or without a filter, for private or public publication. And the new tools presented on Wednesday are primarily aimed at users, with new story formats and a more dynamic map.
My AI, its chatbot based on generative artificial intelligence, will be able to be personalized and the 3 million subscribers to Snapchat, the paid formula launched last summer, will soon be testing its visual capacities: the program will respond to photos with automatically generated images.
Snapchat cannot, however, ignore influencers, who attract the public and therefore advertisers. Jack Brody, a vice-president of Snap, thinks that “creators can really benefit from this culture that we have developed (…), which allows them to be themselves”, without having to abandon other platforms. . “On TikTok, I was doing a lot of pre-written sketches. It wasn’t really me,” says Alyssa McKay, a 23-year-old American designer, invited by Snapchat. Thanks to its 2 million subscribers and the advertising revenue sharing program, it derives “90%” of its income from its content on the app. “I have a strong relationship with my fans because they feel like they know me. You don’t have that on other platforms,” she told AFP.
But for most influencers, Snapchat “isn’t essential,” says Alessandra Angelini, the founder of Influur, a service that connects brands with creators. “Snapchat is not very buoyant for us. Influencers earn their money mainly through Instagram and TikTok,” she explains Wednesday, Snap extended the possibility of monetizing content to more creators and improved their chances of being “discovered” by the public. The group also recently launched “ARES”, a software suite for online stores that want to integrate augmented reality tools, such as virtual clothing fittings. Half-messaging, half-social network, Snap is launching for the first time in business services.
