With hundreds of millions of active users, TikTok’s popularity seems unstoppable. Everyone’s now getting creative, editing photos and videos trying to become the next viral sensation.
Lucky for some at least, the opportunities to make money from TikTok also seem endless.
If you have set your sights on becoming an influencer yourself or helping others make it, here are some proven ways on how to make money from TikTok.
Find Your Niche
The first step to making money on TikTok is finding a money-making niche that suits your personality and interests. Believing in what you do will help you be more genuine and relatable and help you create more engaging content.
From there on, you will need to invest time and resources to consistently create high-quality content that will attract as many views and followers as possible.
To do this, you will have to:
- Create high-quality videos with good lighting and keep videos under 15 seconds
- Create engaging thumbnails
- Link your other social media accounts to your TikTok account
- Post content frequently – 4 to 8 times per day should do
- Go live every day
- Post video series
- Use the right hashtags
- Follow trends and, ideally, start your own
- Make the most of TikTok’s numerous features, especially new ones
- Use popular songs
- Cross-promote your TikTok account on other platforms
With trends on TikTok changing faster than a speeding Ferrari on a German autobahn and audiences changing their preferences even faster, reaching the top and staying there once you do may prove problematic.
So, you will need to be dedicated to your dream of succeeding on TikTok to keep going.
If you do and you manage to find a niche that suits not only your interests but also the interests of a large number of TikTok users, your chances of achieving a high engagement rate will help you attract not only followers but also partnerships.
Any niche can be successful and the key to success is frequency and consistency. If you are struggling with scheduling all your TikToks, consider using a social media management tool. Or maybe you are out of ideas – just browse TikTok for inspiration. Try various angles and formats before you will feel that you are on the right path.
Attract Partnerships
Partnerships and sponsorships are two of the most common ways to make money from TikTok once you make it on the platform.
To score a sponsorship or a partnership, you should ideally research brands that offer solutions to a specific problem you have.
Let’s say you have an acne problem, or you have a dog with allergies. Find a product that solves your specific problem. No matter what it is.
Next, reach out to the company that manufactures that product and let them know you’ve been using their product, you like it, and you are interested in promoting it on TikTok for them.
Alternatively, if you are already a big personality on TikTok and brands are throwing offers for collaboration at you, you should choose one, or the ones that truly resonate with you.
Setting up a partnership with a brand you actually believe in and promoting a product whose benefits you’ve seen first-hand will help you be as open and truthful as possible with your audience and is bound to make any campaign you set up more successful.
A partnership with a brand can take the shape of paid ads, live events, or other influencer marketing campaign or link building tools including:
- mentioning the product in one of your videos or posts
- creating a special video in which you are unboxing and talking about the product
- create an entire set of posts highlighting the benefits of said product for a certain amount
The sponsorship opportunities you have will depend on:
- the number of followers you have (ideally above 10,000 – 15,000)
- your niche
- what products are specific to your niche
- what products may relate to your niche that your followers may also show interest in
TikTok’s own Creator Marketplace is also a good place to look for partnership or sponsorship opportunities. It’s where content creators can connect with brands and agree on mutually beneficial collaborations.
All you have to do is show your interest in setting up influencer marketing campaigns with brands in specific niches or industries related to the kind of content you post. Brands are then able to find you by browsing creators that are in line with their business goals and willing to collaborate.
And, voila! Partnership done.
Ok, the reality is that it’s not exactly that simple. You will have to also meet the following criteria to be admitted to TikTok’s Creator Marketplace:
- be at least 18 years old
- have over 100,000 followers
- have 3 videos posted in the last 28 days
- get over 100,000 video likes in the past 28 days
To get there, you will have to build a serious following. Here how:
- pick a specific niche
- create high-quality content for audiences interested in that niche
- interact with TikTokers that are in the same niche
- post regularly and frequently
- use trending hashtags
- make it easy for brands to contact you by adding your contact details to your profile and mentioning you are open to partnerships and sponsorships
Other tips to attract both TikTok followers and brands that are looking for partnerships include:
- have a multi-platform approach (also set up an Instagram account, for example)
- set up and check your profile’s analytics regularly
- include popular stuff like product reviews, tips, hacks, how-tos in your content
When you’ve managed to tick all of the required boxes, use a cheap email marketing service to contact brands in your niche and ask them if they are interested in a collaboration, highlighting the benefits of working with you.
Access the TikTok Creator Fund
Popular influencers can make money from TikTok by accessing the TikTok Creator Fund.
@tiktok_ukThe Creator Fund is open! We’re so excited to celebrate creativity with a European fund of €254 million. See link in bio for more info ????♬ Originalton – TikTok UK
TikTok set up this fund to support and incentivize creators and offer them an opportunity to have a more constant revenue stream.
However, being popular on the platform does not guarantee a steady income. TikTok decides who gets the funds.
They calculate if and how much you get based on:
- how often do you post
- how many followers do you have
- how many views do you generally get for your posts
- the engagement quality and level of your audience
Other conditions you must meet in order to access the TikTok Creator Fund are:
- be at least 18
- be located in the US, UK, France, Germany, Spain, or Italy
- have at least 10,000 followers
- have at least 100,000 video views over the last 30 days
- adhere to the TikTok Community Guidelines and terms of service
Sell Your Own Merch
Before you start promoting and selling other people’s products, you can sell your own.
Selling your own merchandise is a great way to make money from TikTok. Provided you’re from the US, Canada, or the UK, which is where this option is currently available.
To do it, you must set up a TikTok for Business account and have a Shopify store. This will allow you to add a shopping tab to your profile and add product backlinks to your merch that will take users straight to your Shopify store for purchase. They will be nofollow, so they will serve as more of a social signal than an authority link).
If you are not in the US, Canada, or the UK, you can still use your TikTok account to promote your products by posting videos about them or by offering fan merchandise to your audience, including:
- mugs
- hats
- t-shirts
- tote bags
- notebooks
Collect Donations
Donations are another popular way to make money from TikTok.
TikTok offers an interesting feature known as “coins”. Coins are the TikTok currency users can buy with real money. Their value varies depending on the exchange rate and they look like emojis.
Users can use coins to tip content creators during live streams or offer them gifts.
Therefore, if your audience appreciates your content and you manage to keep them engaged during your live streams, you can encourage them to offer you coins and collect cash once you exchange them.
The one condition you must meet is being eligible to live stream on TikTok, namely be validated by TikTok itself for this purpose.
Other options for collecting donations if you are not eligible to live stream include starting a Patreon and offering fans special products based on a subscription or one-time payment.
For instance, you can offer exclusive content to fans who pay a subscription. One example is using webinar software and offering donors an exclusive webinar related to your niche.
Make sure to keep the monthly fee low enough to attract as many subscribers as you can and thank your donors or reward them to keep the revenue stream flowing.
Other tips you should consider include:
- Link your Patreon account to your TikTok account to make it easy for fans to find it and donate different amounts
- Promote your Patreon
- Build trust with your audience and be transparent about how much donations add up to and what you are doing with the funds
- Reward your fans for their support with free merchandise, special content, or other benefits
- Show appreciation to your supporters by replying to their comments, tagging them, or adding shout-outs to them in the videos you post
- Consistently create and post new content to keep audiences engaged
You can also try crowdfunding to make money on TikTok.
Use TikTok Ads
If you are a company and want to tap into the incredible potential of this platform with millions of active users, you can easily make money from TikTok using TikTok ads.
Yes, you will need to spend some money to make money this way. However, considering TikTok’s rising popularity, any amount you invest will most likely generate considerable revenue.
With TikTok ads, you can reach millions of potential buyers each day and:
- Create ads
- Target specific audiences
- Get insight reports
- Manage campaigns with built-in ad management tools
Ideally, you should create content that is suitable to the short attention span TikTok users are famous for and strictly adhere to TikTok’s guidelines that include meeting their technological specifications, including:
- The video’s resolution, format, and size
- The way you display your brand’s name
- How you use emojis
- The video’s duration and background music
- The ad’s description
Create and Sell TikTok Accounts
Growing accounts and selling them is yet another way to make money from TikTok.
It won’t be easy, but it will be fruitful if you get it right.
This is because some businesses prefer to buy a ready-made account rather than invest a lot of time and money into building a following themselves. This way, they can get from 0 to 100 in a very short time.
The key to nailing this money-making idea is to choose a niche that a brand or company may be interested in. From there, you will have to create niche-specific content and create an account with a large enough following.
Create an account that focuses on something specific and create content that focuses on the object, not the person.
Once the account has enough views and followers, start contacting potential buyers and pitch the sale explaining the benefits and outcomes they can expect if they buy the account from you.
Make sure to also include tips and tricks for the buyer to keep the existing audience engaged and attract more followers.
Become a TikTok Consultant
Let’s assume you’ve managed to build an account that has thousands of followers, hundreds of thousands of views, or even millions. You know how to attract and manage partnerships and follow the ever-changing trends.
And, most importantly, you know very clearly what you did to get there.
If you consider yourself a TikTok wiz and you think you have what it takes to make others succeed, you can become a TikTok consultant.
Many don’t have the knowledge, resources, or time to produce content that will attract thousands of views. However, they do want to tap into TikTok’s potential and become famous.
Therefore, if you do, you can easily sell that skill and, thus, make money from TikTok.
You can sell consulting services to brands or individual users looking to build a presence and a following on TikTok.
From here, you can go on to sell other related services such as talent management or social media marketing services if you are also skilled in those, too.