TikTok recently announced that it’ll be expanding its Creativity Program, which will provide direct funding for top creators based on their in-app content performance. That’s all well and good, but as mentioned by several experts and marketing analysts, direct funding programs, at best, are only a piecemeal solution, and won’t fully resolve the broader issue that is scaling monetization. Perhaps TikTok’s changing the recipe up a bit? Let’s dive right in for a dissection.
A Worthwhile Expansion?
Initially launched with select creators back in February, the Creativity Program marks the next ‘evolution’ of TikTok’s Creator Fund, providing more monetization opportunities for its top creators. Now, anyone can join – all they have to do is meet the required engagement thresholds.
If you meet all of these elements, then you now have a new way to make money from your TikToks. However, how much money that is remains murky. In its original overview of the Creativity Program, TikTok explained that the process doesn’t re-route money from ads, with payouts instead based on ‘qualified views and RPM’. This means that actual payouts would be impossible to calculate, at least right now, and may never achieve full transparency, unless TikTok provides full insight into these calculations.
Such has already been a key criticism of its Creator Fund, which is a set pool of money that’s collected from creators based on video performance. The problem with a set amount is that as more creators meet the requirements, the less funding there will be overall, so while creators continue to grow their talents and content quality, their payouts will invariably continue to decrease.
In short, the more successful TikTok gets, the less money you’re likely to make because more people would want a slice of the pie, which does seem like a backwards form of motivation and has already led to much creator angst. The Creativity Program aims to address this by providing more incentive, leading it to become a more valuable, viable way to funnel money to the app’s top stars, should it be a workable process.
The Wrap
TikTok definitely needs as much moolah as it can get right now. The app mainly generates its revenue from China through in-stream commerce, which, as noted several times in the past, hasn’t really clicked with Western audiences. Without affiliate sales as a supplementary revenue stream for creators, there really isn’t much of an equitable pathway for creators to maximize their earnings based on TikTok’s popularity, which, eventually, will see larger creators de-prioritize the app in favor of better opportunities elsewhere.
That could have major implications for TikTok’s usage and engagement, which is why it needs more monetization opportunities to keep its creators aligned in the app. Perhaps this offers a solution, of sorts, on this front – or, you know, maybe it fizzles out, taking TikTok back to square one.
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