For content producers and advertisers alike, TikTok has been a game-changer in the social media sphere. Brands that want to stay relevant will need to make some drastic changes quickly, but the bright side is that the explosion of short-form video has spawned a new crop of talented artists who are ready to be marketed to.
TikTok made early investments in its creators and enabled win-win partnerships between brands and influencers through its Creator Marketplace. Now that the Creator Marketplace API is available, TikTok is making it easier for creators, brands, and other third parties to work together and profit from the platform’s influencer data.
An open application programming interface (API) has been made available for the Creator Marketplace.
With the release of the Creator Marketplace API, collaborating with influencers on TikTok has never been simpler for brands and agencies.
With its 2019 debut, TikTok Creator Marketplace (TCM) has established itself as the go-to hub for all official TikTok brand and creator partnerships.
The marketplace is home to more than 10,000 creators, any one of whom can be discovered by brands looking to form partnerships or launch paid marketing campaigns. There is a straightforward interface for monitoring and controlling one’s collaborations within the system.
Brands can benefit from Creator Marketplace and Creators
Using the now-ubiquitous short form video format popularised by the TikTok platform, content creators can aid brands in providing engaging material.
Brands can’t compete in the modern era without the creators who help them achieve a level of authenticity that was previously impossible. The following are some of the ways that TikTok improves advertising campaigns:
TikTok’s short-form videos are ideal for producing user-generated content (UGC), allowing marketers to capitalise on the genuine connection an influencer has with their audience to produce original content for their brand. That material can then be reused in various contexts.
Trust in a brand can be built with the help of an approachable influencer. According to a survey conducted by Edelman, a public relations firm, in 2020, trust in the media (including search engines, traditional media, and social media) fell dramatically. However, “a person like themselves” was viewed as an extremely credible source of information about a company by about 53% of respondents.
Get your message out to the youth of today; TikTok has become an advertising powerhouse, particularly among the Generation Z crowd. 5W Public Relations conducted a survey among internet users 16 and up in the United States and found that 10.1% of respondents had made a purchase based on seeing it on TikTok. In a survey of people in TikTok’s target demographic (those between the ages of 16 and 21), 28.2% said they had.
The Creative Marketplace on TikTok was developed with the intention of allowing brands to take advantage of the platform as the potent consumer decision maker that it has become. The following are some of the ways in which TSM helps marketers find and manage influencers:
Credible Data – TikTok itself is the source of all data (performance and video) and ensures its accuracy. Both influencers and their followers contribute to the data pool.
Influencer marketing on TikTok in the present day
Since the launch of the Creator Marketplace in 2019, TikTok has made substantial investments in the creator community. There have been some major shifts, including:
Grants to creators with high engagement and subscriber counts will be available from the Creator Fund beginning in June 2020.
Live Gifting (due out in July 2021) will let users present their favourite TikTok creators with virtual goods in real time.
In order to improve their chances of being accepted into the Creator Marketplace, users will have access to the Creator Portal in January 2021.1 Here, they will find helpful hints for developing an original content strategy, creation essentials, and foundations for success.
TikTok Jump (June 2021) will allow creators to insert “jumps,” or links to external content, into their videos.
The emphasis that TikTok places on quality content has made its creators ready for potential sponsorship deals. Since the platform is expected to surpass 97 million total users in the U.S. alone over the next four years, marketers will want to look in the direction of the platform and its advertiser-friendly influencers.
What this means for influencer marketing in the future
Brands looking to partner with agencies on campaigns, as well as marketers on the hunt for and in charge of TikTok stars to promote their wares, can all benefit from the Creator Marketplace. Marketers can now access first-party data like audience demographics, growth trends, top-performing videos, and real-time campaign responses by connecting with TikTok influencers directly through the Creator Marketplace API.
With the Creator Marketplace API, we hope to help brands improve key metrics like familiarity, affinity, purchase intent, and recommendation intent, as well as provide tools to boost branded content and monitor campaign performance.
To what extent does using only the API have restrictions?
The Creator Marketplace API’s most glaring restriction is that it can only be used to gather TikTok influencer data.
Instagram and Facebook continue to be the most popular social media platforms among marketers, but the number of brands using the platform for influencer marketing has grown faster in recent months.
Including TikTok in your influencer marketing strategy has many advantages.
Creators on Instagram have to put in more time and effort to attract new followers because the platform is so popular and has so many users. Instagram stars with slick camera and editing skills are the norm. Create content for TikTok with less professional experience but more creativity.
Conclusion
While the TikTok API has made it simpler for influencer marketers to connect with influencers and creators, it still falls short of the functionality of a platform like GRIN.
Although TikTok has quickly risen to prominence as a platform where brands can make a splash, the best return on investment (ROI) for influencer marketing campaigns comes when they employ a multi-channel approach that targets a wide range of demographics and interests.