On a recent day in late June, a conference room on the first floor of the Hyatt Regency in Anaheim, California had been transformed into The TikTok Galaxy. Though windowless, the place was aglow with neon signs, a faux starry sky and hot lamps warming vegan tacos. It was all part of the company's latest attempt to wow creators at the annual VidCon Anaheim conference, the largest gathering dedicated to social media stars. But by and large the creators weren't raving so much about the free Nature Valley bars and TikTok logo hats. Rather, they could not stop talking about TikTok’s new Creativity Program Beta (CPB) that pays them to publish videos over 60 seconds.
“It’s pretty great,” says Cassie Sorensen (SmallBizCassie on TikTok), who is lodged between enormous glowing touchscreen TikTok placards that serve as main light sources in the TikTok Galaxy, about CPB. “I mean, the fact that they're rewarding longer content on the platform—it’s encouraging.”
