Snapchat, the company which took the world by storm with ‘Stories’, before the feature was eventually copied by every other social media platform, has a massive following, but still doesn’t do nearly as much business as some of its competitors. To solve this issue, the platform is trying to become friendlier for creators. The chatting-through-pictures platform announced on Wednesday that it is close to launching a new Creator Marketplace to try to make it easier for businesses to find and partner with Snapchat creators (including those responsible for the Lens, and the AR, as of now).
With this new addition, businesses will be able to easily partner up with content creators on the platform, which can then create ad campaigns for them. This will not only allow a robust financial institution to exist on Snapchat, but also help make it a more viable option for advertising needs, a market that is currently dominated by Facebook and Instagram.
The feature will later be expanded to also take the Creator Biggies at Snapchat, who are known as Snap Stars, under its banner, latest by 2020. Developers and Partners will also be included. During its initial rollout, the main focus will be on connecting AR Creators to businesses, for coming up with AR ads.
Snapchat has been quite slow when it comes to making its Creators more accessible to the market, and had first tried its hands at it only in 2018, way later than most of its contemporaries through its program- Snapchat Storytellers. Back then, the program had attempted to link brands to five of Snap’s most influential Creators, including the likes of Mplatco, Shonduras, and Cyrene Q, through ads and creative direction. It might be worth mentioning that this feature was quite akin to Facebook’s Brand Collabs Manager.
So far, Snap Inc. plans to open the doors to the Creator Marketplace later this month, and will first be focusing on AR Creators who are part of Snap’s Lens Network. These creators will help make Snapchat’s AR ads more feasible for brands, by directing the setup of quality AR experiences, without much expenditure on complicated procedures.
By 2022, the company plans to increase the coverage of the Creator Marketplace programme to include all professional Creators and Storytellers under Snapchat’s banner, so that they help guide businesses and brands in their ad campaigns by working closely with them and providing them with a better insight into the workings and interests of the user base of the platform.
