Brief:
- Reddit got Dubsmash, a short-form video-sharing social media platform that promotes a varied developer base, per a business post. The offer marks Reddit’s very first significant acquisition, though its financial terms were not divulged.
- Dubsmash will continue to run its existing platform and brand, but Reddit will integrate the app’s video-creation tools into its own product. Another motorist of the acquisition was Dubsmash’s audience: Around one-quarter of Black teens in the U.S. use the app, according to the blog post, while 70% of its user base is female.
- Dubsmash declares to draw around 1 billion month-to-month video views, with 30% of users visiting every day to produce material. The news recommends that user-generated video is a crucial piece of Reddit’s quote to grow a bigger ad service, a technique that squares with how the remainder of the social networks world is moving in the wake of TikTok’s breakout success.
Insight:
Reddit is in the middle of an ambitious strategy to grow a larger advertising business, and it’s increasingly clear that user-generated video content is a linchpin to its overall strategy. The company notched $100 million in advertisement earnings in 2015 and claims it is on a course to create $1 billion in income within the next couple of years, per Ad Age.
Dubsmash, founded in 2014, might be an accelerant to fulfilling those objectives. The platform shares several qualities with TikTok, the ByteDance-owned app that has taken social media by storm thanks to a video-recommendation algorithm that promotes viral short-form material. Like TikTok, Dubsmash lets users lip-synch to videos featuring music or lines from TV shows and motion pictures. In 2016, the app began promoting brands to sponsor channels on its network, Adweek previously reported, pointing to where Reddit might see marketing chances.
It’s difficult to overstate the impact TikTok has had on comparable services. Triller, a rising competitor, has relocated to draw in more of TikTok’s leading developers to grow its appeal, and recently scored brand deals with high-profile online marketers like Pepsi and E.l.f. Cosmetics. Dubsmash itself has experienced a considerable resurgence and landed near the top of the video-sharing app charts thanks to users browsing for options to TikTok, TechCrunch reported in January.
Dubsmash looks to separate from the pack by promoting a varied user base, something Reddit could be glomming onto as it attempts to broaden who it gets in touch with and guarantee brand names that it’s a safe place to advertise. Reddit has frequently grappled with the existence of racism on its online forums, and in the past has preferred a complimentary speech position while disallowing open calls to prompt violence. Nevertheless, the site’s tune has begun to alter lately, as reported in The Atlantic, particularly in reaction to the demonstration motion for racial justice that swelled over the summertime.
Dubsmash has put a more focused effort behind assisting its Black and Latino influencers to generate income. Last month, it debuted a function called Shoutout that permits users to commission videos from celebrities or their favorite creators in a manner akin to Cameo, according to Forbes. The app does not take a cut of the revenue generated from Shoutout videos. In basic, Dubsmash does not produce much in the way of earnings at all, according to TechCrunch.
Historically concentrated on text-based forum conversations around a range of subjects, Reddit has also increased the number of video-creation tools it offers in the last few years to satisfy consumer needs. The site debuted native video functions in 2017, decreasing reliance on third-party hosting sites. Reddit Public Gain Access To Network (RPAN), its live-streaming video service, has landed in the spotlight as homebound customers invest more time seeing live video during the pandemic.
Content shared through RPAN was explained by The Brink as “wholesome.” In general, Reddit says users have doubled their posting of videos in 2020. The uptick in video engagement– and the interest in Dubsmash– is potentially reflective of a shift in Reddit’s audience towards its mobile app and away from the desktop website. Reddit currently commands 52 million everyday active users, a figure up 44% over in 2015, The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this month.
The entire Dubsmash team, consisting of co-founders Suchit Dash, Jonas Drüppel, and Tim Specht, will sign up with Reddit as part of the transaction.
