TikTok is looking to strengthen its bond with top creators through the addition of a new Creator Effects Funding Program for top AR creators in the app. At the same time, TikTok’s also expanding its Creativity Program, which provides direct funding for top-performing clips.

New TikTok Cash Course

Right into the nitty gritty of things, let’s start with Creator Effects – TikTok announced a new Effect Creator Reward initiative that will pay creators for high-performing effects. Check out TikTok’s official Tweet. According to TikTok:

“The $6 million dollar fund, available to creators in select regions, will offer payments to creators based on the community’s engagement with their effects. At launch, for every effect that’s used in 500K unique videos within 90 days of being published, a creator will collect $700 USD. For every 100K videos published thereafter within the same 90 days, creators will collect an additional $140.”

The program will provide extra incentive for AR creators to focus on TikTok, and add new, original experiences – which also have higher than normal potential to go viral, thus sparking more interest in the app.

True enough, Snapchat has seen big success with its Creator Effects program, with over 300,000 AR creators having built over 3 million Lenses through its Lens Studio platform. These creations have sparked several in-app trends, with TikTok looking to replicate the same with its AR funding push, as it works to deepen its ties with its user community, further embedding its economic impact.

As discussed so far, TikTok has made it a critical focus to expand its economic impact, shifting its priority, in particular, to maximizing creative talent to keep luring more users to come back. In addition, TikTok’s also expanding its Creativity Program, with more creators now able to apply to take part in content funding. TikTok’s Creativity Program is the next iteration of its original Creator Fund – its version of a direct revenue-share creator monetization model.

Payments under the Creator Fund have varied significantly, which is why TikTok is now looking to further build out a workable solution to ensure that creators get paid based on relative content performance. Now, more creators can sign up for the initial program, but TikTok hasn’t released an overview of exactly how the updated payment process works. The idea is that it’s looking to establish a more sustainable, consistent pathway to monetization, based on performance.

This is a critical focus, because short-form content monetization is hard, and revenue sharing is even harder because of the inability to insert pre and mid-roll ads. Just imagine how mind-boggling it would then be to equate relative monetization impact based on aligned exposure. Such was the dilemma that eventually killed Vine. While TikTok already has a more sustainable process than Vine ever did, if it can’t catch up to the level of YouTube and Instagram, then creators will still eventually jump ship.

The Wrap

Ideally, this new Creativity Program offers more solutions on this front, though TikTok says that this system will not reroute money from ads, so how sustainable it will be for the long term remains to be seen. Regardless, both are critical initiatives for the app, as it looks to further cement its presence and build stronger foundations for success.

Sources

https://bit.ly/3ofxC1Z