TikTok has announced an expansion of its Creativity Program, its latest creator funding initiative which aims to get its top stars paid, in order to keep them posting to the app.
After rolling out the program to all U.S.-based creators back in May, TikTok’s now expanding its Creativity Program Beta program to users in Brazil, France, Germany, Japan, Korea, and the U.K.
The initial beta Creativity Program was launched with selected U.S. creators back in February, and is essentially the next evolution of TikTok’s Creator Fund, providing more monetization opportunities for the app’s top creators.
Though it does have a different focus to the original Creator Fund.
As per TikTok:
“The Creativity Program is designed for you to create longer, high-quality videos and unlock real-world opportunities. This program offers higher cash incentives with earnings based on qualified views, giving you the potential to earn 20 times the amount previously offered by the Creator Fund.”
So more money for more content, while also incentivizing a broader content focus in the app.
Which will be a welcome addition for some of the top TikTok stars, and those who haven’t drifted off to YouTube as yet. Though the thresholds for entry remain fairly steep.
In order to qualify for the Creativity Program, you need to have at least 10,000 followers in the app, and have generated 100,000 video views in the preceding 30 days.
Depending on your perspective, and where you are in your TikTok development, that could be a lot, but for those that do meet these requirements already, it’ll provide another means to generate income from their efforts, giving them more incentive to focus on building their presence in the app.
Will that be enough to keep creators aligned to TikTok, instead of moving to greener pastures?
Providing adequate incentive, via revenue share, has been a key challenge for the app, because while interest in short-form video continues to rise, you can’t just chuck in pre- and mid-roll ads on 30 seconds long clips. That makes direct content monetization more difficult, which is why TikTok’s been leaning into other elements, like live-stream donations, and in-app shopping, in the hopes of providing supplemental income opportunities for its stars.
But you can make direct money from your long-form content on YouTube, which also has Shorts to drive users to your channel, while Facebook and IG also offer more direct revenue streams. TikTok doesn’t yet have the means to rival them on this front, but maybe, through dedicated funding programs like this, it’ll be able to provide more pathways to keep its top talent paid.
And a lot more users are now set to qualify for entry. The program is still in its early stages, but if you’re interested, you can learn more about the TikTok Creativity Program here.