TikTok gained notoriety through its quick and easy vertical videos designed to go viral. Now Snap, which owns Snapchat, wants in on the viral vertical video game, and it’s new Spotlight feature copies the basic concept of TikTok. But, it might actually pay you if your video goes viral.
Snap knows that merely copying another social networks’ feature isn’t enough to make users actually care about it. All you need to do is look at Facebook, Twitter, and others’ attempts to copy features to understand that basic lesson.
To encourage Snapchat users to create Spotlight videos, the company will put up a $1 million pool every day through the end of the year. The most popular video creators each day will split the pot.
You don’t need a lot of followers to win the money either. Snapchat will declare winners solely based on the number of video views, not followers. And you don’t need a public account either, unlike TikTok. You can stay private and share videos with the public.
Spotlight will get a dedicated tab in the Snapchat app, starting in 11 countries, including the United States and Germany. Videos you post can go to the regular Snapchat feed or to the company’s “Our Story.” If you share a video from a private account, it will go out with attribution.
Snapchat says Spotlight is live starting today on iOS and Android.