Don’t Have 10,000 TikTok Followers? Sorry, You Can’t Join the Creator Fund
In February, the ByteDance baby declared it would require content creators to make videos longer than a minute to be eligible for its billion-dollar creator fund indicating a shift towards longer-form content.
TikTok Illustration by Nick Barclay
The Verge
For the last few months, the Creativity Program has been invite-only but things have officially changed as of today.
The program will pay top-tier users for their content under the condition they meet the necessary requirements. The original TikTok creator fund planned to pay users $1 billion over three years to encourage creators to do what they do best – create content.
How do you get into the cool kids club?
To be eligible for the bag, the Creativity Program requires the following:
Publish videos longer than one minute
10,000 followers
100,000 authentic views in the last 30 days
Welp, I guess I’m out, but that’s ok.
However, you may be surprised to find out that Statista reveals nearly one-third, about 30%, of TikTok users have between 5,000 - 20,000 followers, and that as of 2021.
This strategic rollout is [un]shockingly clever.
There are millions and potentially tens of millions of American Tik Tokkers with 10,000 followers that would love to have a piece of that billion-dollar pie.
Why wouldn't you activate them?
The older creator fund is still accessible, but the three years will soon expire as the new program expands.
As a creator, you are not able to participate in both funds and must make a choice.
What are the potential drawbacks?
Not many, other than previous participants in the original fund claimed they weren’t making much dough through the program despite the virality of the videos.
According to these users, TikTok is holding out on what they claim to be willing to pay out so they’re not as confident in the newer Creativity Program.
In February, TikTok declared that the new fund would allow for higher-revenue potential but declined to over specific metrics.
In March, the Chinese social media company announced that popular creators [exact follower count is unspecified] would benefit from new monetization features like being able to put up a paywall, including 20-minute-long videos, to boost personal account revenue.
With live streams, creators can earn generous tips while targeting specific audiences that are more likely to have disposable income.