TikTok launches a ‘Talent Manager Portal’ that allows creators’ managers to negotiate branding deals.

To make it easier for brands to work with its biggest creators, TikTok has updated its Creator Marketplace to include a Talent Manager Portal, inviting talent managers to oversee and analyze brand opportunities and campaigns presented to their clients. The new service enables talent managers — with creator authorization — to access the Creator Marketplace and manage deals, negotiate contracts on behalf of their talent, handle creative feedback, and review various metrics about a campaign’s performance.

The new expansion allows TikTok to cater to the needs of smaller creators and those at the “celebrity level” alike. It makes sense that stars like the D’Amelio sisters would want their talent agency reps to review brand inquiries on their behalf and negotiate deals through a portal designed for that purpose rather than doing it themselves.

TikTok’s Talent Manager Portal is in alpha testing right now, the company has confirmed. Several agencies have signed up for the free service, but the names of specific testers cannot currently be shared. TikTok notes that talent managers will have access only to their clients’ Marketplace accounts, not their creators’ full TikTok accounts.

The latest addition to TikTok’s Creator Marketplace aims to complement its existing offerings, geared toward brands that want to capitalize on creator-led advertising, which the company says delivers higher ad recall among 71% of brands surveyed. 

The TikTok Creator Marketplace first launched in 2019, playing a vital role in the growing creator monetization ecosystem and borrowing concepts from similar platforms offered by Facebook, Instagram, Snap, and YouTube. Before these companies began offering such marketplaces, brands looking to work with top creators had to do a lot more of the legwork themselves, scrolling apps and using search terms to discover creators but without the ability to search specific parameters. 

TikTok’s marketplace enables brands to curate creators using keywords, the content posted and filters around metrics such as audience size and demographics. Brands can choose to work with talent either with direct outreach or through “application campaigns.” The marketplace’s match functionality also uses AI and natural language processing to map creators based on their content, which helps automate finding potential creators.

TikTok says brands who work with creators see a 26% increase in brand favorability and 22% in brand recommendations. Meanwhile, 71% of TikTok users say that a creator’s authenticity motivates them to purchase from a brand.