You may have noticed TikTok‘s gotten kinda quiet on the development side while the whole will-it-won’t-it ban–and executive exodus–has been happening. But with an ever-growing list of potential U.S. suitors lining up and the Trump administration apparently keen to keep the app operating (unless tariffs screw that up…), its potential future in the States is starting to look brighter.
And it wants to make sure top-performing (and top-revenue-generating) creators stick around for that future instead of moving somewhere like Reels.
To accomplish this, it’s offering a new, invite-only reward program that pays creators to make content in high-traffic niches.
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The “Specialized Rewards Program“–not to be confused with TikTok’s Creator Rewards Program, the name for its default monetization system–will give creators bonus earnings for “standout, high-quality content,” TikTok said in an Instagram post (ironic, we know).
At launch, it’s looking for creators to make content around film & TV, automotive, education, and sports.
“You’ll help drive the future of TikTok’s most impactful content while building a community that shares your passions,” according to an infographic about the program.
from TikTok
As we mentioned above, the program is invite-only (“for now,” TikTok says), but TikTok appears to be pulling candidates from the pool of people enrolled in the Creator Rewards Program. How it judges who deserves an invite and what counts as “standout, high-quality content” isn’t yet clear.
To us, this sounds like a mix of Snapchat‘s Spotlight program, which used to shell out $1 million a day to top-performing videos, and things like Twitch‘s bounties, where creators can accept specific brand deals for bonus cash. Obviously TikTok’s program doesn’t involve creators directly making content for specific brands (at least, for now?), but it is a way for TikTok to manually generate more content about certain subjects, which it could use to woo advertisers in those niches. Maybe it wants to work with more luxury car brands, so it taps someone like Supercar Blondie and pays her bonuses for her videos. Or it could tap a smaller creator whose whole brand isn’t built around cars, but makes car-adjacent content, and encourage them to make more of what it’s looking for.
That’s all hypothetical. What’s certain is that this program gives TikTok a way to almost commission creators for the content it wants.
As for what it’ll pay and whether creators will think the bonuses are worth it…that remains to be seen. The debut of this program does indicate, though, that TikTok expects to stick around in the U.S.–and it clearly wants creators to know that if they don’t jump ship in anticipation of a ban, they could get some extra cash.
