TikTok Creativity Beta

[Gavster]

Very specific moan here because I'm bloody pissed off. Just need to vent this.

As some of you are aware I've been making videos on TikTok for a few years. Last year in September TikTok launched the Creativity Beta program which pays creators for their content. At the moment it's the best-paying short-form video monetisation scheme, far better than any other platform.

When I first downloaded TikTok back in 2019, I was in Ecuador. What I didn't know at the time is that TikTok creates some kind of geotag on your account linked to where you first used the app. I'd occasionally come across peculiarities with my account, however everything still worked fine.

Until they launched the creativity beta. They've clearly locked down onto the geotag and blocked me from all of the monetisation features because of "my region". TikTok won't fix it either, they are aware of the issue and I'm not the only one who's locked out, but the the app can't be updated to change the location of a user, and they're concerned about abuse of the system if they build a new feature to allow people to relocate themselves.

As a result I've already missed out on anywhere between £5-10k in payments in the 4 months the scheme has been running. I'd been given hope by someone at TikTok UK office in December, however they came back yesterday to confirm it's a hard no. Gutted to say the least. I get very little income directly from my content/brand deals (maybe ~£3k last year), almost all of my income comes from other consultancy work. I make the 200-300 short videos a year virtually for free.

But at the same time, being pragmatic about it, TikTok could very easily whip this scheme away or cut the payments in half like YouTube have in the past, it never would be a reliable source of income on it's own. If anything it's a reminder to keep pushing my work outwards in multiple directions and diversifying.

[Simon]

Is there anything to stop you creating a new channel and directing your users towards it? Slow work maybe, but it'd pay off in the long run.

[Gavster]

I'm definitely considering that. It would be worth keeping my main channel running as that's the highest value account I currently have in terms of total reach. However, a second channel would work, if it was specifically about a certain type of content - e.g. a lot of people have a second account for less polished/edited content. The only risk with this approach is that these monetisation schemes are always changing, so there's a chance that TikTok could massively change the scheme by the time the account grows to a decent size. In general, content is best when we create it for the fun/enjoyment of creating it, as opposed to for the money.

[Sundayjumper]

It really sucks but it sounds like you need to get that second account up & running. There's (probably?) never going to be any advantage to keeping the Ecuador account.

Could you game the system by going on holiday to America and setting up a spare account while you're there ?

[mik]

Weird that their process is so "fixed" when you can easily demonstrate UK residency and citizenship.

I read Simon's question/suggestion as :

1. Create new account and continue doing what you do on new channel
2. Post daily/weekly/monthly/whatever vids on old account reminding people you've moved and this account is dead

Obviously that carries a risk that followers don't migrate to your new channel, and its doesn't mitigate against TT changing the monetisation model in the future.....

[Gavster]

It really sucks but it sounds like you need to get that second account up & running. There's (probably?) never going to be any advantage to keeping the Ecuador account.

Could you game the system by going on holiday to America and setting up a spare account while you're there ?

The 'old' account has value in that a brand deal is calculated on the reach of that account. E.g. someone with 200k followers can ask for roughly double the fee that someone with 100k followers can. Although, having said that, I'm not exactly overwhelmed with brand deals so maybe not as much of an issue for me.

[Simon]

Weird that their process is so "fixed" when you can easily demonstrate UK residency and citizenship.

I read Simon's question/suggestion as :

1. Create new account and continue doing what you do on new channel
2. Post daily/weekly/monthly/whatever vids on old account reminding people you've moved and this account is dead

Obviously that carries a risk that followers don't migrate to your new channel, and its doesn't mitigate against TT changing the monetisation model in the future.....

Basically this. If you can't monetise what you have then you're not losing so much.

[Carlos]

Youve done it before therefore you can do it again

[Gavster]

Appreciate the support guys

[Alex88]

What a load of absolute 'computer says no' BS.

I get what they're saying about no wanting people to be able to change their location themselves, but the fact that TikTok themselves won't do it is just nonsensical. So they'd rather have a creator be operating with incorrect information? It's plain silly

As others have said, perhaps use your current platform to promote your new one and start trying to push traffic through to it. Videos that do well only get a follow up on the other channel, or something. I appreciate it's a slog, though.. Also, can you change the name of the channel? So that your main becomes the '2' and the your new one becomes the main?

[Simon]

Very specific moan here because I'm bloody pissed off. Just need to vent this.

As some of you are aware I've been making videos on TikTok for a few years. Last year in September TikTok launched the Creativity Beta program which pays creators for their content. At the moment it's the best-paying short-form video monetisation scheme, far better than any other platform.

When I first downloaded TikTok back in 2019, I was in Ecuador.

Just a thought - although they claim they can't fix this in the backend, could this be as simply as deleting the app, making sure all of its files are gone, rebooting the phone then redownloading the app again?

[Gavster]

Would be worth a try for sure! I was thinking about it last night and I also remember that when I was in Ecuador I had an Ecuadorean SIM card which might also have had an impact too. Will give your suggestion a go

[240PP]

Belt and braces, try logging in on someone else’s phone who has never been to Ecuador…

[Gavster]

Taken the plunge and started a v2 account with a strong video and also going to take a slightly different direction with the content on there. First target is 10k followers asap. Might have to pull an old food challenge out the bag for that one.

https://www.tiktok.com/@gavinwren

[dinny_g]

- following!

[DeskJockey]

Good luck with it!

[Gavster]

Cheers guys!

[DaveE]

I wonder if, on the flip-side Tik-Tok have loads of people in Equador (and other places they don't run this program) registering via a VPN so they can get around this?

[Gavster]

I wonder if, on the flip-side Tik-Tok have loads of people in Equador (and other places they don't run this program) registering via a VPN so they can get around this?

That's what I think the issue is - payments for content vary massively between countries and are completely unavailable in others. Opening this up could cause untold issues around the world with peple trying to game the system. Someone else suggested that TikTok could help people on a case-by-case basis, however I would imagine that if they opened up a channel for people to apply to change their account location, they would get overwhelmed with applications and the majority of them would be spurious or totally ineligible.

[Gavster]

Quick update - the new account hit 10k followers in less than 30 days so I started earning on the creativity beta programme yesterday

Thanks for all of your comments on this, they really helped. It was quite a mental leap to abandon an account with 180k followers to start a new one with 0 followers, however it was definitely the right choice.

Hey, maybe this new one will grow more than the old one did now that it's categorically a UK account. I suspect the old account was also being distributed in some other countries, which would have limited it's growth.