Amid rising revenue pressures, which forced the company to issue a profit warning to the SEC last month, Snapchat is exploring a new potential monetization pathway with a new subscription service that it aptly calls ‘Snapchat+’. This could give users access to a new range of exclusive and experimental app features and tools.
Hit That Subscribe Button
You might have already seen his name from the announcement above, but in case you didn’t, app researcher Alessandro Paluzzi once again shares an example of what Snapchat+ would bring to the table, offering various payment tiers, along with a one-week FREE trial.
For now, this early version of the subscription includes:
- Access to exclusive Snapchat icons.
- A new profile badge to show that you’re a Snapchat+ user.
- New data insights, including the capacity to see your friends’ location history (over the last 24 hours) and info on who’s rewatched your Story.
- The capacity to pin a user in the app as ‘your #1 best friend’.
None of these are exactly revolutionary or game-changing, but again, the feature is still in its early days – there could be a lot of change between now and its official release, provided it reaches that stage.
When asked about Snapchat+, Snap responded with this:
“We’re doing early internal testing of Snapchat+, a new subscription service for Snapchatters. We’re excited about the potential to share exclusive, experimental, and pre-release features with our subscribers, and learn more about how we can best serve our community.”
Essentially, it’s like Twitter Blue, but for Snapchat. That isn’t the most promising comparison either, seeing as Twitter Blue doesn’t have the hottest take-up right now. In Twitter’s most recent performance update, it reported that subscription-based revenue and other non-advertising sources totaled $94 million in Q4 2021 – a 31% decrease YoY.
How would Snapchat+ fare any better? Perhaps part of why Snapchat is feeling a bit more confident lies in the fact that it’s a more personally-aligned app, with users having a strong affiliation with the platform to meet private messaging and interaction needs. Snap streaks, for example, show that Snapchatter arguably has a more compelling connection with the app, seeing as how some of them would keep their daily interactions alive no matter the cost.
The Wrap
Perhaps this stronger innate connection with Snapchat will see more users willing to sign up, while additional data is always a nice bonus for those looking to maintain more insight into their connections. That might actually even be a strong selling point, at least more than what Twitter Blue is currently dishing out. While still early to tell exactly how things will play out, Snapchat must keep on trying new initiatives.
Subscribe to our ‘Bottoms Up!’ Newsletter. Get the latest social media blogs about news, updates, trends, and effective social media strategies to take your business to the highest level from Tristan Ahumada and Jeff Pfitzer.
Sources