Gomez: “I haven’t dabbled into [sponsorships], really, but now that I’ve got a year of Live Pro and have hit certain benchmarks as far as following goes, I have a case to confidently approach brands. I didn’t want to go to my brand networks without a heavy-hitting approach, with numbers and stats and data. I was going to be pulling on relationships that I respect, and I would never draw on those relationships without a proper business approach.”

Digiday: Gomez has been a TikTok Live Pro for over a year, and has been livestreaming daily on TikTok for over 18 months. Although she’s interested in growing her sponsorship business — charging sponsors between $1,500 and over $6,000 per activation, with specific rates dependent on the nature of the livestream and post-live usage rights — the fact that she is just now building that revenue stream is telling. Gomez’s experience shows how the lucrative nature of TikTok’s live gifting can discourage creators from leaning more heavily into sponsorship deals. 

Gomez: “Followers and livestreams don’t necessarily go hand in hand. You could have 27 million followers and have 20 people in your livestream — they’re totally separate. As far as followers go, I’m still gaining at a steady pace. There was no viral moment, as far as my livestreams go. It was slow and steady growth, and I will take that all day over a quick flash in the pan.”

Digiday: Gomez’s experience shows how TikTok Live creators are incentivized to focus on different performance metrics than the platform’s short-form video creators. Standard metrics like follower count and video viewership are not particularly relevant to her work. Although her most-watched video has reached 1.1 million views on TikTok, this number pales in comparison to viral videos posted by short-form video creators with similar followings; TikToker Kaylee Marina, for example, has a similar follower count of about 340,000 but has had over a dozen videos reach over 1 million views. Gomez’s strength is in her ability to reach a dedicated core fanbase for an extended period: she often goes live for up to 12 hours, maintaining an average concurrent viewer count of around 200 throughout the streams.

Gomez: “As far as TikTok goes, it’s built so that you are focused and engaged with the chat. If you’re diverting your focus, or if you’re saying names that aren’t in the chat, it’s going to be very confusing. That’s why I respond to every comment that comes in. I’ve seen some creators go live on multiple platforms, and they’re diverting attention. They have two phones, so their eye contact is over there and their TikTok channel is over here. You might get some looky-loos who come in, and so their numbers are inflated, but is that engagement good? Probably not.”

Digiday: Although multi-streaming — going live simultaneously across several platforms — has become an increasingly common practice for livestreaming creators on platforms like Twitch, Kick and YouTube, Gomez’s answer shows how the best practices of TikTok Live differ significantly from those of rival livestreaming platforms, largely due to their divergent approaches to monetization. Twitch and Kick creators make most of their money through subscriptions and brand deals, using the inflated metrics that come with multi-streaming as an added incentive for prospective sponsors. On the other hand, TikTok Live creators who are focused on live gifting over subscriptions or sponsorships are more directly incentivized to interact with individual fans to keep the dollars flowing in, with metrics that could help them sign brand deals as a secondary concern.