TikTok has launched a new way for creators to make money and brands to develop partnerships with some of TikTok’s most famous faces via its new Branded Mission program.

According to the platform, the new ad type will let advertisers crowdsource content from creators, turn the most popular videos into ads and improve brand affinity.

TikTok Newsroom

“Branded Mission brings brands closer to communities on TikTok by empowering creators to contribute to a campaign while giving them the power to boost the top-performing content that resonates with their brand.”

Putting ads out to tender

Essentially creators will take part in content challenges, from which marketers can select the best clips for their new campaigns.

To plug into the wisdom of the crowd, brands need to post challenges from which popular creators (those with over 1,000 followers) can choose to participate in. Creators must also be older than 18. Successful creators will receive a cash payment for their efforts, along with the promise of boosted traffic, and marketers will get a fresh new video to play with.

Creators can see how much a Branded Mission could make them if their video is selected, so there will be a competition element between brands here. Make sure you balance the payoff/visibility.

How can businesses use it?

Here’s how to get cracking with it:

• Set up your mission and decide what you want to see creators do (for example, you could specify a Branded Mission including the use of a Hashtag Challenge, or it must show your product, or use your logo).
• Once the mission is live, eligible creators are notified and can submit up to three videos.
• TikTok’s algorithm recommends top-performing, brand-safe videos.
• Those videos are boosted as sponsored ads.

If all goes well, the videos will increase brand visibility and community engagement. But that’s not all – TikTok says advertisers can tell their brand story in a relatable way and discover a diverse range of creators who drive culture on TikTok.

TikTok Newsroom

“TikTok creators can decide what Branded Missions they are inspired by and choose to participate in the Mission. Brands will select their favourite original creative videos and amplify them through promoted ad traffic.

“Brands now have more opportunities to discover and engage with a broad ecosystem of creative and talented creators. Creators who are at least 18 years old with more than 1,000 followers will be eligible to participate in a Branded Mission.”

Follows hot on the heels of TikTok Pulse

Branded Missions isn’t the first time TikTok has worked to help branded better leverage creators this year. Last month, it was announced that TikTok Pulse would let marketers place adverts next to top-performing content in the For You Feed.

Top-performing is defined as the top 4% of all videos on the app, which will let brands drive engagement and actions with the communities for videos represent. From a budgeting point of view, it also guarantees that Pulse ads will be seen by as many people as possible.

Marketers can place ads in 12 categories, while creators and publishers with at least 100,000 followers will be eligible for the program.

Pulse was designed to provide better monetisation pathways for its creators, who currently have to strike advertising deals independently of the platform.

Being a place where creators can earn a full-time living will be crucial for the long-term future of TikTok. Sure, it may be the hottest app around at the moment, but if the people that make it so popular start leaving for YouTube or Instagram or Snapchat, then its popularity will fade and die.

Competitor YouTube has an excellent path to monetisation – in fact, it paid out more than $30 billion USD in the three years leading up to November 2020.

Over at Meta, which looks after Instagram and Facebook, creators also have good options for how creators can make money via ads and brand partnerships.

But with TikTok making serious moves in this space, marketers need to keep a close eye on proceedings. TikTok’s marketing investment is set to treble this year, and businesses will undoubtedly look at how best to make inroads into the 1.5 billion user giant.

One way or another, leveraging creators looks set to be a big part of that play.