After announcing dismal quarterly earnings yesterday, which caused its stock price to plummet by 15%, Snapchat may be looking to reverse course in its relationship with the digital influencer community — which CEO Evan Spiegel conceded that the company has “historically neglected.”
“While we have made significant progress in our work to empower the creation of user-generated content from friends and premium content from publishers, we have historically neglected the creator community,” Spiegel said yesterday in a prepared statement. “In 2018, we are going to build more distribution and monetization opportunities for these creators in an effort to empower our creative community.” These updates could include sharing ad revenue from Stories with creators, as well as providing professional tools to help them develop premium-style content, he said.
At the same time, parent company Snap announced that it would undertake a redesign of its flagship app to make it easier to use, including sorting users’ Stories with an algorithm (as opposed to chronologically).
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Snap has long had a contentious relationship with the influencer community, which has reportedly been defecting from the app in droves in favor of Instagram — a trend that first began to rear its head back in March. In August, Snapchat sought to ingratiate itself with the influencer community by offering some creators verified status (via emojis), customized Lenses for special events, and posts designated as ‘Official Stories’ — meaning that they show up more prominently within search results.
