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The days of monetizing creators on TikTok could end this December, according to creator industry expert Sameer Chaudhry, opening new doors to ways to make money on the social media app. That's what it means.
This week, TikTok announced that the program's last day will be Dec. 16, ending its first Creator Fund. When first announced in 2020, the fund was a $1 billion pool and the company announced it would pay out creator funds to users. Create more content. TikTok has popularized small voices and helped create some of today's best-known digital culture brands, but many creators have expressed frustration at being paid less. Payments were determined by a combination of views and engagement, and the amount got smaller as more users joined Creator Fund. Popular video blogger Hank Green said in a 2022 YouTube video that he used the Creator Fund to earn 2.5 cents for every 1,000 views on TikTok, even though he had 8 million followers.
Following the closure of the Creators Fund, the social media site is shifting its focus to creativity programs. The program, currently in beta testing, is the app's strong attempt to distribute higher payouts to high-performing users. Similar to Creators Fund, users must be over 18 years old, have more than 10,000 followers, and have at least 100,000 views in the past 30 days. However, under the new program, only videos longer than one minute will be eligible for rewards, excluding short clips. According to TikTok, the creativity program gives creators the chance to earn “up to 20x the amount previously offered by Creator Fund.”
says Chaudhry, who is one half of Colin and Samir, a YouTube channel and business dedicated to helping creators make the most of their money. rolling stone TikTok's old payment scheme forced users to rely on a more stable source of income, and the change could allow more TikTok-based content to grow and remain on the app, the company said.
“Funds” [are] A temporary solution to encourage creators to upload. The problem they face is that the amount is fixed,” Chaudhry said. “This means that the more content is uploaded, the less and less money creators have. So the reality is that anything is only a temporary solution. Best Monetization in the Creator Economy is a revenue share.
Chaudhry points out YouTube's monetization. YouTube evaluates creators based on views and subscribers and rewards them with revenue from ads hosted on their videos. Chaudhry said short-form vertical videos, such as what TikTok is known for, are much harder to monetize because viewers can watch so many videos in a short amount of time. So for the same reason it's so hard to leave TikTok's For You page, it's also hard to pinpoint which creators are worth how much money. New Creativity He says that's most likely why the program only rewards long videos.
“The length of the video corresponds to the depth of the connection, and deeper connections mean more monetization opportunities,” Chaudhry says. “The core of what we do in the creator economy is building depth with your audience. And depth suggests that people are willing to sit with you for a long time. .”
At the moment, the Creativity Program is still in beta development, but TikTok has announced plans to make the program one of its primary monetization formats. “The Creativity Program was developed based on learnings and feedback from our previous Creator Fund,” a TikTok spokesperson said. rolling stone In a statement. “As we continue to develop new ways to reward creators and enrich the TikTok experience, we value feedback and first-hand insights from our community to inform our decisions.”
Chaudhry says rolling stone What matters is that creators truly connect with their audiences to turn their content into a living.
“If we remove some of the top creators from TikTok, [the app] is still fun to watch, but I think the next chapter is building the brand. People need to look for you. So I think the future of the creator economy is for creators to understand that they need to build depth with their audience, not just viewership. And I think the platform needs to support and provide the time it takes to do that. [creators] A sound foundation and a reward for building on it. ”
