Divorce usually means long negotiations. You have to distribute the furniture, sell the house, manage childcare… and even share a Tiktok profile. This is the problem that Kate and Mike Stickler, an American couple, faced during their divorce.
In fact, their greatest asset at the time of their separation was mikeandkata channel on Tiktok and YouTube in which they shared their daily lives with more than four million followers. However, neither of them considered giving the profile to the other.
Evaluate profile value
The anecdote can make you smile. However, the couple is far from being an exception. As reported by Wall Street JournalMore and more couples and divorce lawyers are fighting over who will own their joint social media profile. And the exchanges are often tense.
This is not surprising since the content published on the platforms constitutes an important source of income for many users. A Tiktok account is actually a mini-business for some videographers. For example, the United States has 27 million paid content creators and 44% of them say social media is their full-time job, according to The Keller Advisory Group. And, according to Statista, US advertisers paid $26 billion to content creators in 2023.
Therefore, divorce lawyers try to evaluate the value of social media accounts. The couple is then free to share the income or buy each other’s shares. But what poses a problem is determining which member of the couple grew the account, and who can continue to grow it.
Anticipate with a marriage contract
Puja and Reza Khan, an influencer duo, pay almost all of their social media income into a joint bank account. The couple estimates that they make around half a million dollars a year from their Tiktok account, followed by 5 million subscribers.
On the Sticklers, it was ultimately Kate who got the couple’s Tiktok account. After renaming her KatStickler, the young woman went from 4 million subscribers to more than 10 million on Tiktok. Thanks to her sketches and anecdotes from her daily life, the young woman bought a new apartment.
Her husband took over her YouTube channel. But since then the profile was permanently closed. Mike Stickler eventually changed careers to focus on sales.
To avoid incidents, some content creators are taking the initiative. This is the case of Vivian Tu, an influencer specialized in financial education. Before getting married last June, the young woman wrote a marriage contract that included her social media accounts. “My social networks are my CV,” he explains to Wall Street Journal. “So why would I let someone else put my work on their resume?”
Source: BFM TV