Snapchat puts the spotlight on video content with TikTok-y redesign

Snapchat doesn’t seem to know whether it wants to be considered a social media platform or not–but either way, it wants to compete with TikTok. The app has announced its first major redesign, one that streamlines and simplifies its user interface to put the focus on short-form videos from creators and Snap’s various partnered media publishers.

This revamp divides the Snap app into three tabs, and puts Spotlight, Snap’s first stab at competing with TikTok, front and center, with an endless swipeable feed of content. The other two tabs are the user’s camera, and their DMs with friends.

At the annual Snap Partner Summit in Los Angeles, Snap’s VP of Product Ceci Mourkogiannis said the goal here is to zero in on the three central things Snap allows users to do: “Chatting, Snapping, and watching entertaining videos.”

“By simplifying the experience, we’re really doubling down on how people actually use their phones, chatting, making Snaps, and watching content, which are the three main pages here,” Jim Shepherd, Snapchat’s Director of Global Creator and Content Partnerships, added to The Hollywood Reporter. “We really feel strongly that those behaviors really reinforce each other.”

Shepherd went on to explain that Snapchat sees an opportunity to push users who open the app to send and receive messages from their friends toward watching a little creator content while they’re at it.

“Hundreds of millions of people are coming in every day, first and foremost, to talk to their friends, sometimes 30-40, times a day,” he said. “By bringing creator stories there, I think we’re really excited that this is going to be great for creators.” And, of course, he added, “it’s going to be great for the brands that are buying ads in their story.”

Video ads are the name of the game for virtually every platform these days, and after Snap’s somewhat dismal Q2 earnings and Q3 guidance dropped its shares more than 25% last month, the fact that it wants to make more money specifically on high-CPM video ads isn’t surprising. (To be clear, it began selling ads on Spotlight content in May 2023, but seems to be doubling down now.)

Snap CEO Evan Spiegel got even more specific, telling The Verge

he thinks “bringing content closer to communication is going to fuel a real flywheel for us.” The platform hopes people will tab between messages and content on its own platform, instead of watching videos on YouTube, TikTok, or Twitch while waiting for friends to reply to DMs. It wants to keep them within its own app for the entire engagement.

(Something interesting to note: Of all platforms with short-form video, YouTube is the only one that doesn’t allow direct messaging. Snap, TikTok, Instagram, and even X all allow users to communicate directly with one another between watching content. But YouTube doesn’t have any kind of messaging functionality…for now?)

To keep users wanting to watch, Snap is using a recommendation algorithm to curate what videos users will see in the content tab. Shepherd told The Hollywood Reporter Snap wants to “make it easier for people to find content that they love,” and that an algorithm is “going to make it easier for us to show the right content to the right people.”

“So like, if you love food content, for instance, then we’ll start to learn about your watching habits, and we’ll be able to show you content from one of our Snap Stars, who’s a chef,” he said.

With an algorithm in place, Snap will be able to sell more targeted ads, like YouTube has been doing for years. And there can be a big difference in ad performance and marketer recommitment if ads are served alongside relevant content, to already interested audiences.

Mourkogiannis said onstage that this redesign is currently being tested. We don’t know when it’ll roll out to the full user base, or if there will be any changes before it goes live. But from the preview Snap showed during its Partner Summit, we can see Snap is putting itself forward as a short-form video destination with all the trimmings of a social media platform, while simultaneously pitching itself as “an alternative to social media” where the focus is on messaging friends and family. Whether it can blend those halves of itself successfully remains to be seen.