TikTok is non-stop with its innovation to develop new ways to help creators grow on the platform, with a focus on increased monetization, this time through a new program called ‘Agency Center’. When activated, Agency Center will signal to talent agencies they’re open to additional guidance and support where available.
Welcome To The Center
As usual, the ever-dependable app researcher Matt Navarra shared some screenshots of the new option, which is now available to some users via their TikTok LIVE settings, enabling creators to tap through the ‘Agency Center’ menu. For there, users can then activate the ‘Agency Invitation’ option, which when toggled on, enables your TikTok profile to be ‘searched and invited by the agency’.
TikTok gave this explanation:
“LIVE agency is a function that allows creators to be discoverable by LIVE Talent Agencies to help develop/coach growth within LIVE (i.e. tips and tricks, best practices, etc).”
TikTok says that LIVE Agencies will eventually be able to invite creators to join their network, where said creators will then be trained and connected with their community of experienced LIVE Creators to improve their broadcasting approaches. The idea is pretty much still in development, but the idea is that it’ll enable creators to refine their live broadcasting strategy, enabling them to better build audiences, likely incorporating additional tools into their streams.
Ultimately, the program is another element in TikTok’s broader effort to improve its monetization opportunities, helping its top creators also improve their growth and make connections within the app that can lead them to new partnerships. TikTok’s aiming to create a more organic, simplified brand partnership ecosystem, thus facilitating more monetization opportunities, reducing the likelihood of its top stars migrating to other platforms that offer higher income streams. If TikTok wants to keep its growth momentum, it needs to retain its popular creators, which it can only do so by maintaining a relatively competitive monetization model – one that could at least hold its own against the likes of YouTube.
In the simplest words, TikTok should avoid what happened to Vine. Much like it before, Vine had hundreds of millions of users at one stage, until its top creators demanded more money for their efforts. Then-parent company Twitter did not grant this because it didn’t have an adequate monetization model to compensate. Vine’s top stars eventually moved on to other, more lucrative platforms, and the rest was history.
The Wrap
TikTok is aware that it’s now larger than Vine ever could have been, but also that vultures are circling; just waiting for an opportunity to snatch its audience away with their bigger, more appealing offers. For smaller creators, it probably won’t matter as much, but for its bigger, more established stars, it matters that a platform can essentially ‘afford their content’.
Any way you look at it, even if TikTok had the best digital, creator-centric environment available, the appeal would quickly decline in the face of asymmetric monetization models. Socio-economics becomes a more important element of social media, with expression and finances working in tandem to service specific markets.
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