A few years ago, Alexzi Girma noticed a pattern that disturbed her: Very few creators of color were represented in the campaigns she helped organize while working on brand partnerships. And those who did participate weren’t paid as much as their white counterparts.
It prompted Girma to think about how she could leverage her experience to help BIPOC creators build their businesses.
Today, Girma is TikTok’s Black creator community development manager, leading #BlackTikTok, a virtual space on the social-media platform that amplifies the voices and content of Black creators. Under this umbrella, she’s helped launch several initiatives for Black creators, including a program with a dedicated fund to pay participants and a three-month incubator that offers access to TikTok execs and other support.
“It was really important to me to take the insight I learned from working with brands to uplift Black creators and make sure they’re not only getting the credit but the capital they deserve,” she said.
Data on pay inequity between white and BIPOC creators is sparse, though a 2021 study conducted by the MSL Group, in partnership with The Influencer League, showed a 29% gap. And dozens of creators Business Insider spoke to over the past year say they’ve been consciously or subconsciously discriminated against.
One travel creator, Jessica Ufuoma, who’s earned more than $50,000 this year, said she was paid almost $20,000 less than a white creator with the same audience size and content deliverables for a sponsored brand trip.
Her story isn’t an anomaly.
“Social-media platforms prioritize whiteness through their practices, the censorship of nonwhite creators, and how the same message said by a white creator often receives more visibility,” said Janice Gassam Asare, a racial-equity consultant who works with companies to spearhead diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.
To address this, platforms from Meta to TikTok have introduced various programs over the years that intentionally center nonwhite communities.
BI spoke with executives at TikTok and Snapchat who lead the initiatives short-form content creators say have been the most helpful to them.
These programs offer tailored knowledge, connections, and funding for diverse creators like Gabrielle Cerberville, who has 1.1 million followers on TikTok.
“I wouldn’t have been able to grow my brand to what it is now without the program,” she said of #CasaTikTok. “To have a community made up of people who look like you, I can’t really describe what that feeling is like.”
Initiatives were developed based on conversations with creators and executives’ own experiences
Kayla Zapata Fory, TikTok’s Latin creator community lead, said being in “near-constant” communication with hundreds of creators helped her build #CasaTikTok.
The company initiative aims to uplift the voices of Latinx creators on the platform through funding, community-building activities, and professional-development opportunities. The community focuses on two elements — education and access — to increase financial opportunities.
“The No. 1 issue creators of color outlined was pay disparity. They wanted to earn just as much money as their white counterparts did,” Fory said.
The initiative was also based on her own experiences as an Afro-Latina woman in media. Throughout her career, she said she’s found very little space for Latinx people in the industry and wanted to help people feel seen and heard.
The CasaTikTok cohort, which currently has 500 creators, includes workshops on topics like personal finance and crafting media kits, feedback calls with TikTok executives, and panels with top brands on how to collaborate with them on paid opportunities.
Fory also works closely with Girma on joint initiatives to shrink the pay disparity for both communities, such as the Sephora and TikTok incubator program that partnered with BIPOC beauty brands and brought representatives in to speak with Black and Latinx creators. Fory said those brands committed over $100,000 toward brand deals with these creators.
“Programs like this kick open the doors for creators to make really valuable connections with brands and people who they might not have had the opportunity to meet otherwise,” she said.
Snapchat took similar steps to become more inclusive through its 523 program, which spotlights creators from underrepresented communities. The idea was based on conversations that members of Snapchat’s creator partnerships team, including Varshini Shah and Francis Roberts, had about how to support creators of color.
The program provides $10,000 a month to 25 creators to help them develop and film content for Snap. Other key components include one-on-one mentoring with Snap’s executive team, workshops on content best practices, and community events. Over the course of a year, the platform invested over $3 million in emerging Black creators to help them build their brands, according to the company.
Roberts said he and his colleagues, including Shah, went to Snap’s management to persuade them to invest in 523.
“It’s something that’s been ingrained in me, as a Black man, trying to understand that when I do have a seat at the table, how can I make sure we’re having those conversations that are uncomfortable in order to make a platform better for people of color,” he said.
Those conversations can be especially difficult as some firms have recently cut back on programs that focus on inclusivity in the workplace amid budget pressures and the uncertain economy.
Roberts and Shah, who received tens of thousands of applications for the first 523 cohort in 2021, said the company wants to add more tools for Snapchat creators selected to participate in the future.
“We’ve all heard the stories and had conversations about the pay gap, and I’ve seen firsthand what that pay gap is like,” Roberts said. “Programs like this are how you close that gap.”
Networking events and workshops help creators land more paid opportunities
The Snapchat creator AJ, who goes by her first name online, said that working with company leaders who look like her helped her grow her earnings from ad-revenue sharing on the platform to about $84,000 so far this year.
Her Snap liaison, Brooke Berry, invited her into spaces where she, as a midsize creator with 347,000 Snapchat subscribers, could connect with influencers with millions of followers to learn how they built their brands and to meet with companies she wanted to work with.
“When a platform like Snap has diverse leaders, they’re going to go out of their way to make sure people like me are able to get into rooms we might not have been invited into otherwise,” AJ said.
Cerberville, the TikTok creator who’s a part of CasaTikTok, said the program’s workshops have been invaluable in helping her build her financial literacy, including figuring out that she needed to create an LLC.
She added that programs like these are helpful because a lot of the advice on building an online brand is created by white creators and tailored to that audience. Creators of color who follow that advice could end up whitewashing themselves, she said.
“Discrimination is baked into TikTok’s algorithm because it centers on whiteness, so programs like CasaTikTok help normalize content by creators of color,” Cerberville said. “The more we’re out there and can showcase our different cultures, the more inclusive the platform will be.”
Colin Rocker, a creator who gives career advice to Gen Z and millennial professionals, said the in-person events offered by BlackTikTok have helped him connect with other creatives in his community.
He’s talked to creators about how much they charged and how they evolved their content, which helped him price his rates for paid partnerships.
As Fory put it, “Your network is your net worth. The more people you come into contact with who look like you and are doing well, the more motivated you’ll become.”
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