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Vicky Banham was surprised to receive the phone call. It's a marketing company that decided to take Ibiza, 21, to the launch party of DJ Sigala's new album.
In a few days, Banham was on the Spanish island and was celebrating alongside the DJ. "It was so weird, so cool and so unreal," she says. "It was 24 hours of madness – so much fun."
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Banham was invited to attend the event because of its 1.3 million fans on TikTok, a Chinese-owned Bytedance smartphone app, where users share short videos, often based on memes, whose popularity has skyrocketed.
No official transaction related to the trip, other than the payment of his expenses, nor any obligation for Banham to post the event on his profile: "He just wanted people from TikTok to be there."
The invitation partly illustrates the emergence of TikTok as a more important player in the social media landscape. In February, it was downloaded for the billionth time on Apple and Android smartphones, according to the sensorTower monitoring company. In 2018 alone, more than 660 million downloads took place, 220 million more than Instagram during the same period.
"The two immediate comparisons are Snapchat and Vine, both of which specialize in short content, both of which seemingly specialize in early adoption by young people," said James Whatley, a strategic partner of Digitas UK. "And that's where you see authentic and fun creativity become viral."
And with an avid audience of hundreds of millions of teens and teenagers, it's a dream for advertisers.
The earning power of influencers on other platforms such as Instagram and YouTube has been well documented – those who have a very large number of follow ups can earn six-figure sums for a single sponsored post. Does the same thing apply to the stars of TikTok?
Young platform
Promoted videos show how TikTok stars make money, which is different from the rival YouTube video platform. "On YouTube, you get money from the views you get, but on TikTok, you do not get any for the moment," said Javi Luna, a Spanish actor and creator of TikTok, who counts 4 million fans.
Luna started publishing on TikTok in the summer of 2018, quickly gathering an audience loving her original comic skits based on relationships and love. The platform is closer to Instagram, he said: "When you meet a lot of followers or views, brands send you emails that they want to work with you. "
This is an opportunity for entrepreneurs like Josh Shepherd, who founded a TikTok arts agency called Influentially, about a year ago. His company represents 15 of the stars of the site, which gather 15 million fans. They ran 35 campaigns in the last seven months, and paid £ 1,500 ($ 1,937) to send TikTok stars to events such as Formula E races. Compared to influencers at other Social media, these fees are minimal – Shepherd says that a YouTube influencer with a similar audience could get £ 50,000 ($ 65,000) for a similar promotion.
The income disparity is simply due to the youth of TikTok as a platform. Unlike YouTube, where creators have been making money from advertising and sponsored content for years, TikTok is a relatively new, untested proposition.
The fortune of the stars of TikTok may well be about to change. Until recently, influencers like Luna totally did not know who was watching their videos. Now, they receive basic information – such as the location and age of their audience, as well as the easily visible size of their reach – that help brands make the decision of whether they want to make a decision. badociate with a creator.
"That's the only thing that has stopped brands from putting pressure on TikTok," says Shepherd. "That someone has a million followers, but we have no idea who they are or their age." Now, if anyone wants to target 25 years in London, we can access this information. "
"They do not rush"
Although app designers have contacted advertisers in recent months, promoting actions such as sponsored hashtag challenges and branded lenses (such as those used by Snapchat), TikTok deliberately takes things slowly to not repeat the mistakes of other applications, said Banham.
This pace can create frustration for creators seeking to benefit from their large audience.
Hannah Snow, a 26-year-old teenager who has won 700,000 fans by posting videos on TikTok, is pulling out of the app to focus on her presence on Instagram and YouTube, where the advertising market is already well established .
But others, like Banham, who publishes videos of his highly detailed body art creations, makeup tutorials, and "general blunders on the Internet," are not worried about the lack of business opportunities.
She started using Musical.ly, an app that merged with TikTok, in 2017, to create an audience on the advice of a friend who said, "Launch the application and try to monopolize.
"When I started a few years ago, I knew full well that there was no brand contract, no stuff," says Banham. "They have not rushed into what they do, which is frustrating for the creators, but they are waiting their turn – I think it's important."
Javi Luna has the same feeling. "To be honest, you do not earn a lot of money, but it's a great platform."
Why creativity is key
Despite the slow movement of the application, advertisers have become aware of the power of attraction of new stars. They are particularly fond of the young user base, which is thrown into a stream of catchy and fun videos designed to keep you in the limelight. Unlike YouTube, the user is quickly presented with autoplay video, drawing attention right from the start.
The main application method for consolidating its user base is to participate in challenges – users follow a defined video format, such as performing a particular dance movement, which promotes a sense of belonging and a community.
"Engaging in TikTok's challenges in a very effective and creative way makes it possible to see this content and make it viral," says Whatley.
"Brands are walking there," says Banham, who has seen an increase in the last six months in the number of companies sponsoring influencers to publish videos that mention their products. "It will take a brand that takes the leap to make a huge campaign and it will be the case study," she adds.
This could be a double-edged sword, though. While such an action could make TikTok's celebrities famous, YouTube and Instagram both struggle to advertise their streams, making creativity and originality a priority.
The caution with which the application introduces advertisements suggests that TikTok draws lessons from its predecessors
However, the caution with which the application introduces advertisements suggests that TikTok draws lessons from the lessons of its predecessors.
And those who work there feel that he will keep his creative core. "In general, the TikTok app can only get stronger," according to Banham. "It's really the monopoly of short vertical video. They did things right. "
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