Read an exclusive 24-page deck about Snapchat’s invite-only creator program Snap Stars, which breaks down best practices, how to get in, and more
- At Nas Summit, an annual industry conference in LA, creator economy professionals traded advice.
- Snap exec Brooke Berry shared best practices for making money on the platform.
- Read Berry’s 24-slide presentation, and their advice for posting on Snap, below.
In recent months, rumors about Snap’s invite-only creator program have spread throughout the industry. Creators want to know how to get accepted into the program and earn money from Snap.
Nas Summit, the annual creator economy conference, brought together creators and industry professionals on October 7 in Los Angeles to network and share secrets to online success.
Nuseir Yassin, the CEO of Nas Company and a Facebook and YouTube star, founded the conference. Speakers at the event included YouTube creators Samir Chaudry and Jordan Matter, as well as industry experts Brooke Berry, Snap’s head of creator development, and Eric Wei, cofounder of Karat Financial.
Berry discussed Snapchat’s invite-only Snap Stars monetization program, providing tips on how to get accepted as well as details on how the program works. The Snap Stars program compensates creators through an ad-sharing model. Creators can earn money by placing ads between their stories or by posting vertical videos to Snap’s Spotlight feature.
In March, one creator, who spoke on the condition of anonymity but whose identity was revealed to Insider, stated that he believed Snap chose people for its Snap Stars beta program who were well-known in the influencer community and had millions of followers — or who had a direct relationship with someone on Snap’s team.
According to Fortune, stars such as David Dobrik and Hannah Stocking have said they have earned thousands of dollars from the program.
Earnings from the program were mentioned as one of the driving forces behind creators applying in Berry’s presentation, along with the ability to gain a new audience. Berry also emphasized the critical steps creators should take once accepted to maintain their engagement and growth on Snap.
Read the full presentation with Berry’s Snapchat success tips below:
Inside Snap school, an exclusive Snapchat program for creators.
Snap School is an exclusive Snapchat experience where 35-50 creators get together to learn Snap’s latest best practices, create awesome content, and meet other creators and Snap team members. Since launching Snap School in 2022, we have hosted over 10 Snap Schools and have has presence in Los Angeles, Atlanta, Miami, and USC, with more planned this year. We have tailored Snap School to a variety of different audiences — from creators, to industry professionals, to the next generation of leaders.
90% of Snap’s demographic are users 13 to 24.
Snap Stats:
- 393 million DAU’s in 2023.
- 5 billion Snaps sent per day.
Snap’s Demographic:
- 90% of Snap’s users are 13 to 24.
- 75% of all 13 to 24 year olds are in over 20 countries.
50% of Snap’s audience is not on TikTok.
From the slide:
…And our audience remains unique to Snapchat.
Exclusive daily reach of Snapchatters (18%)
% of Snapchatters who do not use this platform daily
- WhatsApp: 81%
- Twitter/X: 66%
- Messenger: 55%
- YouTube: 50%
- TikTok: 47%
- Facebook: 38%
- Instagram: 32%
Perks of being a Snap Star include partnership opportunities and a Shopify integration.
Amanda Perelli/Insider
From the slide:
Perks of being a Snap Star:
- Get discovered by new audiences on the Stories page
- Stories Revenue Share Program
- Snap Star Collab Studio
- Exclusive experiences
- Partnership opportunities
- Shopify integration
To qualify for Snap’s Stories Revenue Share Program, creators must have at least 55,000 followers.
Amanda Perelli/Insider
From the slide:
Stories Revenue Share Program Qualification:
Audience:
- 55,000 followers
Engagement:
- 25 million+ views or 12,000 hours view time
Posting:
- 10 days, each with at least 20 Snaps
Snap Stars gain access to the platform’s brand partnerships service: Collab Studio.
Amanda Perelli/Insider
From the slide:
Snap Star Collab Studio is a turn-key service available in the US that allows brands to source, partner and drive results with Snap Stars. The studio offers managed service production from four initial production partners: Studio 71, Beeline by Brat TV, Influential and Whalar. These teams handle all elements of a brand deal from identifying the most relevant Snap Stars for their goals to executing across contracts and final deliverables, producing bespoke ad creative.
Creator Discovery API
We’re rolling out our Creator Discovery API to all the major platforms like Influential and Captiv8 Brands. For these platforms to source creators for partnerships it’s important you opt in to share the stats brands care about so you can attract more revenue opportunities from brands.
Content on Snapchat can be distributed three ways: Stories, Spotlight, and Map.
Amanda Perelli/Insider
From the slide:
Why Creators Love Snap!
- 1:1 direct relationships with their audience
- Our creative tools make it easy to create on Snapchat
- Snap is a content playground and creators can be their full selves without being restricted to certain content themes
- Their content can be distributed across different audiences withinSnap:
- Stories
- Highlights the in-between moments in the life of creator
- Spotlight
- An easy entry point to start the creator journey!Snapchatters can share a moment, compete in a challenge, or get in on a trend.
- Map
- With place tags, creators’ will appear on Place profiles on the Snap Map.
- Stories
Best practices for a Public Story include Saved Stories and Story “Chapters.”
Amanda Perelli/Insider
From the slide:
How to crush your Public Story:
- The Power of the First Snap
- Telling A Story With Your Stories
- Snap Star Features
- Tile Merchandising
- Story ‘Chapters’
- Saved Stories
To increased time viewed, maintain a clear connection between the tile and your Story content.
Amanda Perelli/Insider
From the slide:
Maintain a clear connection between the tile and your Story content. When Snapchatters tap your tile and enter your Story, they expect to see content that is related to your tile. If there is a strong disconnect between your tile and the rest of your story, users will quickly tap through (or even exit), as they aren’t being shown what they expected.
Hook your audience immediately with a strong storyline that incentivizes them to stick around till the end. If viewers make it through the first 5-10 Snaps of your story, the likelihood of them staying until the end increases substantially.
Add Story captions to increase view-time.
Amanda Perelli/Insider
From the slide:
Add black bar captions to provide additional context. Many Snapchatters watch Stories with their sound off, so adding captions and text on screen will encourage them to spend more time viewing.
Build a community with your audience. Using quoted Story replies is a great way to make your Stories more interactive…plus, Snapchatters love seeing themselves in your Stories!
“Average time viewed” is calculated based on how much time a user spends on a Story.
Amanda Perelli/Insider
From the slide:
How To Crush Your Stories!
Tips for Increasing Time Viewed
Monitor the “average time viewed” metric
The “average time viewed” metric is calculated based on how much time a Snapchatter spends consuming your Story.
The longer a Snapchatter spends in your Story, the higher the likelihood is they will see an ad within your Story.
Keep fans engaged by sharing a subscriber’s reply to a public story.
Amanda Perelli/Insider
From the slide:
Explore Creator Features
Story Replies & Quoting
Try our fan engagement tool that makes it easier to share a subscriber’s reply to your Public Story. It’s an authentic and easy way to keep your fans engaged.
Gifting
Subscribers can show their support and love by sending you Gifts while watching and replying to your Public Snapchat Story!
Creators can share who has access to post and manage their public profile.
Amanda Perelli/Insider
Form the slide:
Explore Creator Features
Add Roles
Get help managing your Public Profile from Snapchatters you trust by assigning them a Role.
Types of Roles:
- Profile Admin
- Profile Collaborator
- Story Contributor
- Insights Viewer
A story chapter separates content into divided sections.
Amanda Perelli/Insider
From the slide:
Story ‘Chapters’
It helps segment out your content into unique story ‘chapters’ and build awareness and anticipation among your audience. Think of your posts like chapters in the book of your life! Being strategic around when you posted and what you designate as your tiles, will help increase your completion rate.
Saving a story allows you to pin it to your profile.
Amanda Perelli/Insider
From the slide:
Saved Stories allow you to permanently pin Snaps to your profile.
3 Reasons to Save Stories:
- Saved Stories get distribution in Stories
- Brands are looking at your profile for opportunities
- It incentivizes audiences to follow you
A ’tile’ is a most-recent story post on Snapchat.
Amanda Perelli/Insider
From the slide:
Tiles are the most recent post you posted. To optimize this, it’s best to bulk upload content in batches throughout the day with a strong tile that editorializes your Snaps.
Spotlight is Snapchat’s TikTok copy-cat.
Amanda Perelli/Insider
From the slide:
Spotlight is our entertainment platform within Snapchat. It’s a great way for Creators to get exposure to the broader Snapchat community.
Spotlight highlights quality content from creators, regardless of how many followers they have. Many of our Snap Stars have surpassed their Instagram followings largely due to Spotlight.
Similar to other platforms, Snapchat has trending topics, lenses, and sounds.
Amanda Perelli/Insider
From the slide:
Content on Spotlight
Trending Page
- Get insights into the latest trends on Spotlight. Tap the Upward arrow icon in the top right corner of the Spotlight screen for a peek at all the trending #Topics, Lenses, and Sounds.
Spotlight Challenges
- Spotlight Challenges is a feature on the Trending Page that gives Snapchatters the opportunity to win cash prizes for Spotlight submissions that meet specific criteria.
Spotlight videos should be recorded vertically and always have sound.
Amanda Perelli/Insider
From the slide:
Spotlight Best Practices
What you should do:
- Vertical, always with sound, 4-60 secs long.
- Use Snap creative tools: Timeline, captions, Lenses, Sounds, GIFs & Stickers.
- Add #Topics on the “Send To” page to give your Spotlight videos more exposure.
- Content should fill the full frame (no letterboxing).
- Follow Community Guidelines, Spotlight Guidelines, Terms of Service, and Spotlight Terms.
Still images and horizontal videos won’t get on Spotlight.
Amanda Perelli/Insider
From the slide:
Spotlight Best Practices
What not to do:
- Still-image photos, horizontal Snaps, blurry Snaps, and text-only Snaps won’t show up in Spotlight.
- Avoid watermarks and music that’s not on our Sounds playlist.
- Only post your own original content. We promptly remove infringing material reported to us.
- Don’t submit sponsored Snaps or any Snap that is selling a service/good.
- Don’t use attachments or URLs on Spotlight Snaps.
Creators can moderate their replies to Spotlight videos.
Amanda Perelli/Insider
From the slide:
Spotlight Replies
Approve or deny pending replies individually or all at once from the “Pending” tab in the replies tray.
Once approved, replies will move to the “Live” tab.
Report or delete live replies in the “Live” tab.
Location tagging on Snap Maps helps creators expand their reach and audience.
Amanda Perelli/Insider
From the slide:
Snap Maps
The Map is an excellent discovery tool for people curious about what’s happening around them. Stories on the Map are curated and moderated by the Editorial Team at Snap with user-generated content that’s sent to the Snap Map. Creators can expand their reach by tagging locations in their Snaps and Spotlight videos.
Snap Stars to know, like lifestyle creator Tabitha Swatosh.
Amanda Perelli/Insider
From the slide:
Snap Stars to Know
- Tabitha Swatosh: 742,000 followers on Snapchat.
- Cheyenne Davis: 96,000 followers on Snapchat.
More Snap Stars to know like animation creator Nutshell.
Amanda Perelli/Insider
From the slide:
Snap Stars to Know
- Nutshell: 2.2 million Snapchat followers.
- Beasteater: 893,000 Snapchat followers.
Snap released its paid subscription service Snapchat+ in 2022.
Amanda Perelli/Insider
We introduced Snapchat+, our premium subscription service. Subscribers around the world have access to exclusive, experimental, and pre-release features.
