If you’re a creator, you deserve to get paid for your work. Making passive income and starting your road to financial freedom are important steps to cement your legging as a commercial artist. Lucky for you, platforms like TikTok are becoming increasingly ubiquitous across culture and provide plenty of opportunities for content creators to monetize their videos and advertise their small businesses.
TikTok is exploding. Having only launched in 2017, it had another record-smashing year in 2022 with a further 571 million downloads by the end of September. If you’re looking for market share, that is simply too many eyeballs to ignore. Lucky for you, there are many ways to monetize TikTok. In this article, we’ll explore how to make money on TikTok and give you creative ideas for how to monetize TikTok.
Become a TikTok influencer
One of the most popular ways to make money on TikTok is to become a TikTok influencer. If you already have a large following on Instagram or Facebook or Instagram, advertise your TikTok handle to them and associate brands you want to work with. However, if you’re just beginning in the influencer world, spend time on the basics and learn how to be a social media influencer. Choose your niche, work on your brand, get a sense of TikTok analytics and engage with other influencers.
Most importantly, though, create new content all the time. TikTok is not like YouTube, where old content can get revisited and viewed millions of times. Things need to go viral immediately, requiring you to be on top of your output as an influencer. With a clear strategy, understanding the TikTok dimensions and a high level of output, you can increase your follower base and grab brands that want to work with you.
Publish sponsored posts
This point brings us to the next way you can make money on TikTok. Seeking out brands and working with them through sponsored posts are terrific ways to grow your network and make money on TikTok. It comes first with having an established persona as an influencer, which is an absolute first step in becoming a content creator on TikTok. Are you more of an outdoors person? Are you more into fashion? Do you document your life as a parent? Each of these different personas can be used to attract brands that are looking for eyeballs. So create your own media kit and go after sponsorships to make money on TikTok.
You can start working with smaller brands that have less advertising capital. It’s good to start with a respectable base rate since you don’t want to undersell your talents. You can also use this base rate as a floor to demand higher compensation in the future.
Once you work your way into higher levels of followers, you can reach out to bigger brands. If you’d like bigger brands to come to you, check out the TikTok Creator Fund. You need at least 10,000 followers, 10,000 video views in the last 30 days and to be at least 18 years old. You get $0.04 per 1,000 views, so if you don’t have an insane level of views, expect this to bring a moderate passive income. Regardless, when you start making money on TikTok, it really is a question of output and consistency that both your followers and brands are looking for. User engagement will be the key way to make money on TikTok through sponsorships.
Get unlimited royalty free music for your videos
Get unlimited royalty free music for your videos
Sell your own products
If you’re an entrepreneur and are asking yourself, “Can I make money on TikTok too?” The answer is, of course! Lucky for you, this platform is an excellent way to share your very own products and services with your followers. TikTok recently partnered with Shopify, and a new shopping tab allows users to promote their products through the platform. Create a business account, and redirect users to your Shopify page for purchases. This is a fantastic way to generate business directly and make money on TikTok.
The other bonus of the platform is that you can use the video format to advertise your products or services directly to your followers. Maybe you have a fitness business, and you want to post videos of others trying your workout programs. Maybe you sell home improvement gear and use your videos to show your company’s before-and-after effect. Or perhaps you’re offering informational courses and want to direct your followers to purchase video lectures or various learning materials. Incorporate some of the best TikTok music (be careful of the TikTok music licensing parameters), be creative, and you’ll be well on your way to monetizing TikTok.
Collect donations
Like making money with Instagram, you can also start making money on TikTok by collecting donations. TikTok has a feature called Coins that your followers can purchase and then gift you during live streams. The coins start at $1.39 for 100 coins and can be given directly to you or be used to buy gifts on your behalf. This allows your followers to show you their appreciation for your content.
Affiliate marketing
Affiliate Marketing promotes different products that you are passionate about and think can benefit your audience. Use a unique referral link. This gives you commission while also helping vendors make sales. In addition, it will help you make solid connections with merchants and can potentially lead to greater sponsorship relationships down the road.
Wrapping up how to make money on TikTok
TikTok is an exciting new platform that has been a net positive for content creators and followers alike. By capitalizing on the wave of viewers running to use the app, you can come closer to greater financial freedom as a freelance creative. You can become a TikTok influencer, and with a clear marketing strategy, you can grow your base of followers with a steady stream of videos. It will allow you to pursue sponsorships, affiliate marketing commissions or donations directly from your followers during live streams. If you are an entrepreneur, use the service to sell your own products or services either directly or through promotions. Either way, TikTok is a terrific platform for creatives to monetize their talents, generate income and reach their full commercial potential.
