???BULLETIN NEWS: Report – TikTok is working on a new paywalled posts feature
There's already a proven willingness for people to spend money within TikTok: around $6.3bn of lifetime consumer spending by the end of Q3 2022 according to Sensor Tower. With that in mind, reports that the app is working on a feature to paywall individual videos is very interesting:
- First reported by The Information, then followed up by Insider and The Verge, the claim is that TikTokers would be able to set a price to watch some of their videos – $1 is the example given, although it seems creators could choose other amounts too
- All the big social platforms now have layers on top of that business model for superfans to spend money on their favourite stars and channels, whether that's perks around the free content (to stand out in the chat for example) or to access paywalled material.
- Music streaming is still largely about free, ad-supported tiers and service-level subscriptions, with efforts around superfan spending on top of that largely restricted to merch and tickets
- The phrase 'tips economy' rubs some artists and music industry folk up the wrong way - 'tips' is associated with busking, and busking is associated with amateurs - but are we missing a culture shift?
- As more musicians explore the tips and subscription economies, and as those companies roll out new ways for fans to spend money on their favourite creators, it's hard not to see all of this cross over to music streaming in a more serious, focused way sooner rather than later.
?? Music Ally archive: TikTok
??? TOOLS: Hoo?be – an invite-only smart link service with good analysis and media kit tools
Hoo?be is a social hub which aims to convert social media followers into engaged audience members. It allows creators to build a relationship on a channel owned by them, and provides one centralised location, acting as an audience migration tool. From there, creators can direct their audiences towards a desired location on the web:
- Real-time, on-demand analytics: creators can see and compare the page views, link clicks, profile visits and more, over a chosen period of time, to see which of the channels has the most engagement. The platform will also show where the audience is coming from (TikTok, Instagram etc.) and their demographics
- Creators can own their audience data by collecting emails and phone numbers. A sign-up form is embedded on the page so users can sign-in directly and creators can track their community expansion. Creators can then download and export contacts
- Hoo?be also offers link shortening - for use in Instagram story swipe-ups, Tweets, and so on - and creators can track insights on these links in the analytics tab
- Other features include the ability to personalise websites and embed content, enable fans to purchase tickets to Ticketmaster events, collect tips on creator pages, and more
?? Sounds useful? Read more: Tools: Hoo?be
?? A LITTLE SOMETHING EXTRA...
Our daily Bulletin newsletter is loved by subscribers for its instant industry analysis - but secretly, the part they like most is the ‘A Little Something Extra’ section at the bottom of the email.?
- Are you stressing over that Powerpoint presentation that you absolutely have to finish for your boss before EOD today? Here, have some perspective: a massive image of the Milky Way, with 3.32 billion individual objects, with hundreds of millions of locations where life could conceivably exist.
- There's definitely, absolutely, certainly no way anything could possibly go wrong if you subcontract your romantic-messages writing to an AI...
- (There are more weird links in The Knowledge every week…)
This is only a glimpse into this week's newsletter – subscribe for FREE to The Knowledge and every Friday it’ll arrive in your inbox, with:
??? The best new platforms in TOOLS, ?? Our utterly vital COUNTRY PROFILES, ?? ??? Some great and/or strange music in SOMETHING 4 THE WEEKEND, A look back in TIME MACHINE, The Music Ally Focus PODCAST, and ?? more links to our favourite unusual stuff in A LITTLE SOMETHING EXTRA.
