#FinTok is taking on a whole new meaning.
With its ecom hub TikTok Shop expected to generate more than $100 billion in GMV this year alone, TikTok has been exploring how it can get even more cash flowing through its app. Earlier this year, it applied for two financial licenses: one, a “direct credit company” license, which would allow it to lend money directly to user; the other, an “electronic money issuer” license, which would let it function like Venmo.
The latter license we saw come into play in August, when TikTok began testing ways for users to send money to one another over DMs. Around the same time, it also started experimenting with digital payments in Vietnam, Malaysia, and Thailand.
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At last week’s TikTok Creators Summit, the platform announced another new financial feature–this one aimed at getting creators reliably and quickly paid for their sponsored content.
This change comes to TikTok One, TikTok’s version of YouTube’s BrandConnect. It contains the TikTok Creative Exchange, where brands and creators (with at least 10,000 followers) can find one another for new campaigns.
One has other ways to make money too: Creators can make ads for brands to post on company accounts (rather than the content being posted on creators’ accounts, as in usual brand deals), and can also earn back-catalog cash by letting brands retroactively use their already posted, nonsponsored/organic content as ads.
Now, TikTok’s introducing One Pay, where creators can get paid for all kinds of brand deals directly through the TikTok One marketplace. And, according to Mashable, TikTok is doing this for free, taking zero cut of creators’ earnings.
On top of the regulation and assurance that (hopefully) comes with having payments mandated by the platform, TikTok says creators will get paid faster than the standard net 60 or 90.
“Payment lands in under 30 days after a video posts, which is quicker than the traditional terms common in the industry,” it said.
We think a system like this is especially useful on TikTok, where many very new creators end up making branded content early in their careers thanks to a viral video or two and lightning-fast account growth. Plenty of these nascent creators don’t yet have a manager to help them negotiate deals–and if an unscrupulous brand decides not to pay them, or withholds payment for months, there’s often little they can do, since legal action is expensive and complicated.
TikTok enforcing brand payment could help creators feel assured they’ll get what they earn.
Also at the summit, TikTok introduced TikTok OnePlus, an invite-only collection of “high-quality content creators” who will collectively get shots at exclusive brand deals. Sounds an awful lot like YouTube Select: Both platforms are putting top-performing, brand-safe creators together in a single premium package they hope will be catnip for brands as influencer marketing spend continues to grow.
