Snapchat offers audience analytics to content creators

While YouTube and Facebook actively courted high profile users of their platforms with offerings of services, Snapchat has finally stopped dragging its heels.

It is offering to share information with content creators on the audiences that they have created through the platform.

Snapchat has 187 million daily active users. The amount of user growth had started to fall in recent times, but the company has effected a turnaround.

It added 8.9 million users In the fourth quarter of 2017 and its revenue jumped 72% to US$285.7 million.

The analytics will be provided to those creators who have “cultivated a large audience” or operate accounts that broadcast curated feeds, known as Stories, to the public.

Data offered include total Story views (divided into time periods), time spent viewing Stories, daily reach metrics and audience demographics divided by gender, age, geography, and lifestyle interests as film and TV, food, fashion and sports.

Response from creators is that the offer is valuable and long overdue.

By being able to tailor their content for what their public wants, they can make more money by targeting new sponsors and product placement deals.

They say the offer also provides them with greater incentive to interact with their audiences and other Snapchat users.

One of these, US artist and comedian Shonduras, who pulls in lucrative sponsorship, told TechCrunch, “I have been dreaming of these analytics for YEARS!! and now that they are here i can honestly say… yes they are good!”

Shonduras admits he had recently been moving away from Snapchat. But that has changed.

“I have been able to learn a ton about my audience, my male/female ratios on snapchat are significantly different than all my other platforms! which really helps me create content that is better served for my snap audience!”

Snapchat at this point needs the support of such creators.

Its upcoming redesigned app separates content created by friends and families, and those by professional creators like celebrities and brands.

The idea is to make Snapchat more accessible to a broader audience by alerting users to new professional content creators that they have not discovered yet.

But this has triggered a backlash, and a Change.org petition requesting that Snapchat revert back to its old design has generated over 860,000 signatures.

Getting the support of high profile creators will mean Snapchat is stickier for users and increase its ad revenue.

The smart money is that Snapchat will start sharing ad revenue with the pro content creators.

Evan Spiegel, CEO of Snapchat’s parent company Snap admitted, “We have historically neglected the creator community on Snapchat that creates and distributes public Stories for the broader Snapchat audience.

“In 2018, we are going to build more distribution and monetization opportunities for these creators in an effort to empower our creative community to express themselves to a larger audience and build a business with their creativity.”