ICYMI: TikTok Creator Fund Backlash
Here's what happened on social media this week, January 28
[via YouTube]
💻 ROADMAP
👀 TikTok is working on a LinkedIn-like Profile Views feature. This would let you see the people who visited your TikTok profile in the past 30 days. It’s a feature they used to have but removed and there’s no explanation for its return. But it seems like it might lead to a surplus of a burner accounts or people logging out of the app for anonymous browsing. Does anybody really like having their viewing habits tracked?
🗓 Instagram is improving scheduled Live streams. You can now schedule as many Lives as you’d like, Adam Mosseri announced on Wednesday. Plus, you get a little alert badge on your profile to help improve discovery and let people know there’s a Live coming up.
▶️ YouTube’s CEO Susan Wojcicki shared the company’s priorities for 2022, which focused heavily on creators (now supported with 10 ways to get paid!) and innovation around Shorts. Some highlights for this year include:
Testing new ways for Shorts creators to build branded content through BrandConnect, YouTube’s program that matches creators with brands.
Rolling out one of its top-requested features, Gifted Memberships.
Opening up live shopping to more creators and brands by partnering with commerce platforms like Shopify.
Expanding into podcasting as an area of focus.
Creating better live discoverability and more chat features for gamers.
Considering NFTs to help creators capitalize on emerging technologies.
👆🏻 CLICK THRU
🚫 TikTok’s Creator Fund sucks. That was the verdict this week when several big creators shared exactly how much they make on videos with millions of views.
Hank Green — VidCon creator, YouTuber and younger brother to author John Green — was the first to speak up in a video titled So… TikTok Sucks. He pointed out that he currently makes about 2.5 cents per thousand views from the TikTok creator program (he used to make 5 cents).
Safwan AhmedMia, a British tech TikToker, tweeted that he made just over $150 for 25 million views. To which YouTube and TikTok star Mr. Beast replied that he made just under $15,000 for what he estimated was roughly a billion views.
In its first year, TikTok's creator fund paid out $200 million and is expected to "grow to over $1 billion in the U.S. in the next 3 years,” according to the company. But the amount is based on a static pool that’s shared among creators. So as the platform grows, the fund is distributed to an ever-growing list of video creators.
“Literally, when TiKTok becomes more successful, TikTokers become less successful,” says Green. “When TikTok makes more, creators make less.”
By contrast, YouTube paid out about $10 billion to creators last year — a figure that’s based on a percentage of the revenue earned by ads on the videos.
This is a watershed moment for TikTok. YouTube is a more lucrative platform for creators. Instagram is still the leading choice for marketers looking to invest in influencer marketing. TikTok needs to develop a solution that’s equally appealing to advertisers, creators and app users. Without that balance, it’s like 2017 Snapchat all over again.
Unless they want to wind up a nostalgic footnote in the proliferation of short-form video, TikTok needs to listen to the demands and concerns of its creators. Says Green: “We don’t have a platform without you. But you don’t have a platform without us.”
📲 Amazon has ended a controversial program that paid warehouse workers to tweet nice things about them. Amazon’s Twitter army was originally picked for its “sense of humor” but poor reach, public mockery and parody accounts doomed the initiative.
🔥 Internal data from TikTok suggests nine in 10 users don’t ever post a single video — so making a challenge go viral requires motivating people to post who predominantly don’t want to.
Still, researchers tried to crack the code to going viral on TikTok but social contagion isn’t easily achieved. The biggest takeaway shared: You have to be interested in the particular niche the challenge is appealing to in the first place in order to participate in it. Which means broader challenges are more likely to have the widest appeal.
📺 By this point, you’d think reality TV stars would be smarter about what they post online. Apparently not. So it bears repeating: Don’t be racist; don’t post racist stuff on social; don’t do either of these things while appearing on TV. You’re welcome, Alina Kozhevnikova and Jennie Nguyen.
📖 ALSO ON MY READING LIST…
Chipotle Changes Twitter Handle to “Chicotle” After BTS Member Mispronounces Name – PR Week
‘American Idol’ Creator Simon Fuller Unveils First Group Formed on TikTok, The Future X – Variety
The New Personal Website Isn’t Really a Website at All: Instagram and TikTok stars are helping transform simplistic “link-in-bio” pages into sprawling, interactive displays – The Atlantic
Why Online Stars Are Mad at Apple: Creators who want to make a living online say the fees are too high – New York Times
'Melting face' and 36 other emojis arrive with Apple's iOS 15.4 beta – Engadget
