‘There’s more opportunity’: Publishers on TikTok are taking branded content into their own hands

By Kayleigh Barber

While many insist that TikTok monetization is still difficult, there are some emerging bright spots for publishers who have been on the app for almost as long as there has been an app to be on.

Over the last year, as their audiences on the social app have grown, a flurry of publishers — including U.S.-based Group Nine and Bustle Digital Group and U.K.-based Global and Dazed Media — have turned to tactics such as brokering influencer partnerships and developing branded content campaigns to explore new commercial opportunities.

For commercial radio company Global, its early forays on TikTok got it closer to TikTok’s media and partnerships team and global business solutions teams, which support advertisers with organic and paid media strategies on the app respectively. The relationship started at the beginning of 2019 and since then, the media owner has amassed more than 1.1 million followers and 25 million likes, per TikTok.

“We’re now the single largest media brand in the U.K. producing original content,” said Charles Ubaghs, audience development director at Global. “We don’t license viral clips for the content we post on TikTok. Everything you see there is ours.”

It’s an informal relationship in that there’s no revenue share on any of the branded content Global publishes on the app. Instead, the publisher gets support on creative alongside regular updates on upcoming product launches.

Group Nine was also an early adapter to the social app, which was a natural play for the publisher as it receives 90% of its traffic from mobile, and it too works with TikTok as a creator to grow its own presence. But as for monetizing the social platform, the media company is on its own, according to its chief revenue office Geoff Schiller.

More than a year ago, Group Nine’s five brands — PopSugar, NowThis, The Dodo, Thrillist and Seeker — started growing their TikTok channels and in the past six months alone, the company doubled its total audience to more than 5 million followers, Schiller said.

Since the end of the second quarter this year, Group Nine has been monetizing its presence on the platform, signing close to 10 branded content campaigns for PopSugar and The Dodo.

There are signs, though, that suggest TikTok could eventually create a full-bodied commercial proposition around branded content from publishers.

And publishers may not have to wait too long for it.

Global worked with TikTok to ensure that the content it posted organically from the account for its Capital FM radio station on behalf of eBay would be seen by and targeted to the advertiser’s audience. In other words, the app amplified the branded content. The deal was part of a larger digital outdoor campaign run by Global, helping to extend the reach for eBay with Capital’s core target audience.

“This is the first publisher monetisation campaign we’ve run in Europe, whereby one publisher brand has activated its own branded content campaign for a client on the platform,” said Sonia Gleeson, who leads brand partnerships and entertainment at …read more

Source:: Digiday