Creator Pay Debate: Amazon Offers Influencers $25 for Videos

Amazon is looking to boost its TikTok-style shopping feed by offering creators payments to make videos for brands and products.

The major e-commerce company reached out to a pool of influencers, sending out an email offering them payments of up to $12,500 in total for 500 videos featuring two or more Amazon products in the same category.

A quick calculation explains why this has come across as controversial to some creators, with that working out to $25 per video, a rate well below what many creators would charge to create and share such content.

Amazon took on social commerce when it launched its TikTok-style feed, called Inspire, last year. Using short-form video content to drive sales for viral products, the ‘Inspire’ feed, found on its mobile app, provides similar features to TikTok for customers to “explore, discover, and shop for new products that match their personal interests — presented by influencers, brands, and other Amazon customers.”

The feature provides full-screen video and photo content, all of which feature in a scrolling product listing within the app. This includes product reviews, content from influencers in the Amazon Influencer Programme, and posts from brands that are part of the “Brand Registry” for the “Amazon Posts” social feed.

In summary, Amazon heavily relies on influencers and their content to make the feed more engaging, and to challenge TikTok’s social commerce offering and success.

WANTED: Creators in the boardroom