Video sharing platform TikTok has announced its plans to follow in the footsteps of Twitch and give people the opportunity to support content creators by subscribing to their accounts, with this feature being tested from May 26th.
According to a video announcement by TikTok themselves, subscribing to another person’s account will also come with a number of perks, such as access to a private chat room, where they’ll be able to message the creators personally, and a series of emojis and badges which will be exclusively created by the account holders themselves and given out to their most faithful followers.
The announcement comes with a number of videos from the platform’s most popular figures, who share their support in this new initiative by TikTok. The benefits towards viewers and subscribers of course may come in the form of private conversations or exclusive stickers, however it’s difficult not to point out that this move by the company gives greater motivation towards the creators themselves to keep working towards generating greater content – both in volume and in quality – as they now have the ability to monetize their audiences.
@tiktoklive_creator Welcome to LIVE subscription – connect with your community on a whole new level! #LIVESubs #TikTokLIVE
And this isn’t the only source of revenue for TikTok creators, with the company announcing just a few days ago its plans to share a piece of its revenue from ads with them. Of course, not everyone will be able to receive this cut and there are prerequisites for eligibility but it still gives those who are on the platform a reason to continue making videos, besides gaining people’s attention of course.
The price of this new subscription-based service, which will be called “Live Subscription”, will reportedly begin at around $7/month, although there will be different options which could go up to around $35. This won’t be very different from Twitch, where people have a paid subscription choice which gives them access to videos of their favourite content creators. Additionally, TikTok users will also have the option of giving “Gifts” to the videos that they enjoy (which will of course go into the accounts of the creators).
TikTok has stated that in order to become a subscriber to someone else’s account a person will need to be at least 18 years old and for content creators to offer subscriptions they will need to have a minimum of 1,000 followers to their account.
