After announcing that it was bringing its Creativity Program out of beta earlier this month, TikTok has now officially launched the updated monetization initiative, under a new name: “Creator Rewards Program.”
As you can see in these images, the new Creator Rewards Program includes a new in-app dashboard where you can track your performance and payouts, while more creators will now also be eligible to take part in the initiative.
The program is designed to ensure creators get paid for uploading high-quality, longer content, with only videos over a minute long eligible for participation. The more views that you get, the greater your payouts from the scheme, though there are some more specific qualifiers factored in.
TikTok says that rewards payouts are based on four key metrics:
- Originality refers to quality content unique to the creator, showcasing their point of view or creative thought process in a way that resonates with their community.
- Play duration accounts for both watch time and finish rate. The new formula rewards accounts with content that is clear, and engaging, rather than favoring accounts with an excessive amount of videos.
- Audience engagement includes likes, comments and shares, all contributing to increasing creators' content value within the program.
- Search value is a metric assigned to content based on popular search terms. Content that aligns with in-demand search topics increases its value for searchers.
So it’s geared around driving content more aligned with usage trends, with longer videos also providing more potential for time spent.
And longer videos, according to TikTok, have been gaining traction in the app:
“We first introduced longer videos in 2022, and since then, interest in longer-form storytelling has only grown. So much so that the TikTok community now spends 50% of their time on TikTok watching videos longer than one minute.”
TikTok says that payouts for the new program will be better than ever, besting the previous Creator Fund by up to 20 times in overall value.
To be eligible to take part, creators need to have at least 10K followers, and have driven a minimum of 100K views with their content in the preceding 30 days. So the entry thresholds are fairly steep, but if you meet these marks, then you could be getting paid for your TikTok clips.
Along with the new name, the updated dashboard will also provide more advanced metrics, including view trends, insights, and explanations.
TikTok’s also updated its Creator Academy education resources to help participants get the most out of the program, with breakdowns on how to maximize your earnings through the program.
It’s an important initiative for the app, because just like Vine before it, if TikTok creators can’t earn money via posting to the app, they’ll eventually go elsewhere, where they will get paid for their work. Meta and YouTube offer more incentives on this front, with the short-form focus of TikTok reducing direct opportunities, and as such, TikTok needs to provide alternative pathways to monetization, or it risks losing momentum over time.
The Creator Rewards Program, along with advanced in-stream commerce, are TikTok’s main drivers in this respect, though it remains to be seen if either, or both, will be enough to keep top creators around in the long term.
And when you combine that with concerns around the potential for the app to be banned, TikTok really needs to be pushing more incentives to maximize its potential in this respect.
You can read more about the Creator Rewards Program here.
