As an “old” social network acclaimed by youth, Snapchat struggles to exist beyond its loyal user base, in the eyes of valued advertisers and influencers. A puzzle that the app absolutely must solve if it is to achieve profitability one day.
“Do not stray from your origins”
The boss opened the company’s annual conference with these figures that show 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 ad revenue to turn an annual profit. In 2022, its net losses tripled to $1.43 billion.
The Californian group has thus undertaken a forced diversification, after laying off 20% of its workforce last summer (more than 1,200 people).
On Wednesday, Snap laid out its strategy to attract more content creators, encourage users to sign up for the paid subscription and convince advertisers and companies of the potential of augmented reality.
However, the app must “be careful not to stray too far from its origins and its primary purpose as messaging,” says 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 remunerative “public spaces”.
Snapchat invented “stories” in 2013, a format of ephemeral photos or videos later copied by rivals. He is also a pioneer in visual communication and augmented reality.
But, today, “nobody talks about them,” remarks Carolina Milanesi, from Creative Strategies. “Even on the platform regulation side, it’s about Facebook and TikTok.” A difference that Snap claims loud and clear.
“We are sick of having to look beautiful and perfect in every photo, sick of the rush for likes, sick of misinformation. We just want to have fun with our friends and family,” she added.
New story formats
Snapchat is partly resisting the TikTok phenomenon, emulated by Instagram: a stream of short, entertaining videos posted by content creators, sorted by user, to be eaten like candy.
The ghost app opens by default in the camera and offers the user to film themselves or their surroundings, with or without a filter, for private or public posting. And the new tools introduced Wednesday are aimed primarily at users, with new story formats and a more dynamic map.
My AI, its chatbot based on generative artificial intelligence, will be customizable and the 3 million subscribers of Snapchat+, the paid formula launched last summer, will soon put their visual abilities to the test: the program will respond to photos with automatically generated images.
Source: BFM TV
