TikTok's Creativity Program, Latest and Greatest Updates for Meta Reels and TikTok's Pulse Premiere

Creativity Program Beta Now Available For Eligible U.S. Creators

Good news for TikTok creators in the United States: The latest version of the Creativity Program Beta is now available for all eligible U.S. creators. TikTok officially announced the program expansion on May 3rd with an update to their original announcement from February. If you have more than 10K followers and 100K views on your page in the last 30 days, you may have received an email from TikTok congratulating you on your eligibility as a creator. The Creativity Program Beta was only available on an invite-only basis for U.S. creators up until their recent announcement.

What sets apart the Creativity Program from the current TikTok Creator Fund program is its new guidelines pertaining to video length. TikTok distinguished that original high-quality content monetized via the Creativity Program must fulfill a minimum length of one minute in addition to abiding by Community Guideline regulations. Creators may need to shift their content-production structure to meet the new time guideline in order to earn revenue on their views.

Creators can apply for the Creativity Program or transfer from the TikTok Creator Fund under the conditions that they meet the minimum follower and view counts and have an account following Community Guidelines. Creators transferring from the Creator Fund to can enjoy additional perks including an updated performance dashboard for content insights.

How could TikTok improve their new program for creators? We’ll see what the top social platform has in store.?

Next Level Advertising with Pulse Premiere

TikTok is launching Pulse Premiere, a new premium extension of the platform’s Pulse Ads. Pulse Ads were first released in May 2022 as an engaging advertising method of placing brands at the “heart of TikTok communities” alongside current trending content. Advertisers utilizing Pulse Ads may place their content alongside TikTok clips on users’ feeds that are of the top 4% of creators on any given day based on their views and engagement.

So what exactly is Pulse Premiere? TikTok shared in their announcement that Pulse Premiere is their “newest solution to give advertisers control and predictability to place their ads directly after content from premium publisher content on TikTok's For You feed.” With Pulse Premiere, brand advertisers have the power to place their content adjacent to TikTok’s premium publishing partners.

TikTok shared in their announcement that their inaugural team of publishing partners includes Buzzfeed, Conde Nast, Dotdash Meredith, Hearst Magazines, MLS, NBCUniversal, UFC, Vox Media, and WWE. With so many partners in diverse content categories, brands have the control to align their advertisement with engaging, niche content on TikTok which suits their brand.??

More expansions coming to Pulse Ads on TikTok include Pulse Seasonal Lineups, TikTok’s first moment-specific ad offering, and Max Pulse, which allows brands to run ads along all top 4% creator content. With Pulse Ads having been proven to increase brand recall by more than 9.8% and awareness by more than 6.8%, TikTok is looking to new ways to further dominate the digital advertising territory.

Latest and Greatest Updates for Meta Reels

New updates for discovery and personalization controls are coming to Facebook Reels! Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg shared a rundown of all the newest updates coming to Facebook Reels in a Facebook post. From discovery to longer content, Facebook users will have a whole new approach to consuming content on Reels following the updates.

Users now have the option to refine their feed with a new control to indicate what they want to see more or less of. By clicking the three-dot menu on the right-hand bar of a Reel, users now have access to “Show more” and “Show less” options alongside your traditional sharing and preference options. This control is similar to the “Not Interested” control on TikTok but has the power to discover new content as well rather than relying on an algorithm and calculated watch time to recommend videos.?

Discovery is a central theme for Facebook’s Reels updates. Similar to TikTok, Facebook Reels will now have a display bar at the bottom of each video distinguishing why it was recommended to users. Not only will you have the ease of discovering new content thanks to your friends’ engagement, but you now have easier access to Facebook Reels as it has been moved to the top of Facebook Watch.

Another key update to Facebook Reels is support for longer content. Users may now watch and post Reels up to 90 seconds long. Content creators on Reels can utilize new templates and other creative tools to edit and post their content.

Stepping into the advertising territory, Facebook is introducing augmented reality aka AR to Reels Ads and Facebook Stories. Meta announced the integration of AR during a pitch to advertisers last week at IAB’s NewFronts. Sephora was one of the first to test AR on Facebook Reels for a recent campaign before the official launch on the platform.

With AR ads coming to Facebook, Meta is lining up to the competition with Snap. AR filters on Facebook Reels have been proven to be engaging immersive experiences for users, especially Gen-Z users who were primarily targeted in AR Reel ad campaigns. Although Snap has been in the AR game longer than Facebook, Meta has had a diversified mix of AR on several platforms and content styles. AR ads were offered by Meta in the form of Instagram Stories and posts to both the Facebook and Instagram feeds before being integrated into Reels Ads and Facebook Stories.

So what’s next for Meta? Will they continue to set the bar as one of the OG social networks, or turn to taking inspiration from newer, on-trend platforms like TikTok? Be sure to tune in for more updates on all things social.