Kachi OgbonnaI help businesses and entrepreneurs build sustainable brands
How to Make Money on TikTok – 10 Unique Ideas
June 21, 2022
Written by Kachi Ogbonna
How to make money on TikTok easily.
Learning how to make money on TikTok can help you turn your hobby into a full fledged business. And what can be more satisfying than having to make cool cash from something you ordinarily do for fun. Tiktok has become one of the most popular social media platforms in the world today.
Well this is just to show you the huge opportunities that lies in TikTok. And for you to also know why more and more people are asking the question of how to make money on TikTok. Won’t you rather join them? If you wish to, then you might want to read on as I share with you in details how to make money on TikTok. But before we jump into how to make money from TikTok an important question – what actually is TikTok?
Table of Contents
What is TikTok?
Let’s start from the basis. What is TikTok?
TikTok is a popular social media app that allows users to create, watch, and share short videos shot on mobile devices or webcams. The acceptable length of TikTok videos is between 15-60 seconds. In fact the platform will not allow you to create a video longer than 60 seconds. And by virtue of the length and general format it does seem it is designed mainly for entertainment and comedy. But where and how did TikTok come about?
History of Tiktok
TikTok was created by Chinese tech giant ByteDance and was first released in September 2016 under the name “Douyin”. Douyin was marketed as a video-sharing social networking service similar to Facebook and Instagram (both of which are banned in China). In November 2017, ByteDance acquired another social media app called Musical.ly. Musical.ly allows users often referred to as “Musers” to create and share short 15-second lip-sync videos on their platform. ByteDance eventually closed down the Musical.ly app and incorporated most of its features into Douyin. Then in August 2018, ByteDance released the global version of Douyin called TikTok. One of the main attractions of TikTok is its elaborate algorithm that quickly figures users’ tastes and preferences based on how they engage with the app.
Most of TikTok’s prominent features come from Musical.ly though. But what you might not know is that Musical.ly came very close to failure. Musical.ly, which was originally called “Cicada”, started out as an app for sharing short-form education videos targeting a teenage audience. According to the original founders founders Alex Zhu and Luyu Yang, the app was doomed for failure. Lesson planners faced a tough time creating videos that were educational, entertaining, and short enough to fit the 3-5 minutes time frame. The app therefore failed to attract users and creators.
They Decided to rework the App
However, with only 8% of their funds remaining, Zhu and Yang decided to completely rework their app. So in July 2014, they rebranded as Musical.ly – a social network that combines music and videos to attract an early-teen demographic. Videos were shortened to 15 seconds long and the app gave users a huge database of songs, filters and movie clips to lip-sync to. The app’s initial release was largely positive with good user retention numbers, but after 10 months of slow growth, the company came close to shutting down again due to cashflow problems.
Then a Watermark Logo Changed Everything
Sometimes as an entrepreneur you don’t know exactly the little thing that will spark the breakthrough you seek. Zhu and Yang has built a great product. They have tweaked it a couple of times. In fact, they have even acquired another app, yet their growth kept fluctuating and now they are threatened with closure due to cashflow problems.
What are they going to do now? Then they carefully observed something inconsistent.
Lip-sync videos were gaining popularity, with other lip-syncing apps like Triller and Dubsmash entering the market around the time. They discovered that videos being made on Musical.ly were being downloaded and shared on other social media platforms. But guess what? No links or reference on their videos. So they were unable to drive traffic to their platform.
Then they did something, that though little but changed everything. They decided to include watermark logo to all their videos.
Within 2 months of including that in their videos, Musical.ly jumped to the top of the Apple App Store charts, where it would stay for many months – and the rest they say is history.
Important TikTok Stats
If you are thinking of how to make money on TikTok let me share a few stats that will convince you that it is worth your time and efforts:
TikTok has about 1 billion users as at January 2022
TikTok was the most downloaded app of 2021, with 656 million downloads – over 100 million downloads more than the runner-up, Instagram, which was downloaded 545 million
2021 made it 3 consecutive years TikTok held the record of the most downloaded app – It was downloaded 693 million times in 2019 and 850 million times in 2020
69% of TikTok users are between the ages of 13 and 24.
60% are female.
Its users spend an average of 46 minutes per day on it
How Many Followers Do You Need to Make Money From TikTok?
First thing first. TimTok has an age limit. This means there is a certain age one need to get to before the person can officially begin to earn money on TikTok. Of course, this is expected, even YouTube has similar age restriction. Though there is a way around it and I will explain later. So now, talking about how many followers you need before talking of making money on TikTok the rule follows the same rule as every other social media platform – the more followers you have, the more your chances of making money.
But officially, to earn money directly from TikTok here are the basic requirements:
1. You must be 18 years or older
2. You must meet a baseline of 10,000 followers
3. There must be at least three posts from you in the last 30 days
3. Finally, you must have accrued at least 100,000 video views in the last 30 days.
Once any individual reach that threshold, they can apply for TikTok’s Creator Fund through the app. And all other things been equal it will be approved and the individual will start seeing his or her earning on the Creator Next dashboard.
How to Make Money from Tiktok
1. How to Make Money On TikTok – Join TikTok’s Creator Fund
The first on our list of how to make money on TikTok is by joining TikTok Creator Fund.
The TikTok Creator Fund is TikTok’s program that pays users for creating engaging content. An easy way to understand what Creator fund is for anyone that is already making money online is to just see it as AdSense Account for bloggers or Youtube content creators. So exactly the same way Google pays you based on the engagement your posts or videos get from your blog or Youtube respectively that how it works with TikTok Creator Fund.
So, in this case, you don’t need to have any product to sell or to talk to anyone. All you need is to make your videos and post and let people engage with it. Someone said that you don’t necessarily have to be adding any value, but as long as you can get people to watch your videos TikTok will pay you. The amount TikTok will pay you is directly proportional to the more engagement your videos gets. TikTok wants users to stick around (to make advertising money), and they’ll pay creators who help in that mission.
But you must take note of the criteria listed the section above before you can earn monet from the creator fund.
FYI: You need at least 10,000 followers and 100,000 video views in the last 30 days to join the Creator Fund.
2.How to Make Money On TikTok – Sell Products Through TikTok Shopping
Second on our list of how to make money on TikTok is through TikTok Shopping.
TikTok introduced TikTok Shopping in 2021 to empower businesses to sell products directly on the platform. With this, you no longer need to direct your followers to another platform before they can see your products. You can now sell directly on TikTok. TikTok Shopping adds a shopping tab to your profile. And that lets your followers see products from your Shopify catalogs. You can also tag your products in organic content you publish to send viewers over to your store.
It is left for you to maximize this feature. Use your videos (at least some of them to product your products). Let your followers know that those products are there. And let your videos highlight the problems those products serve.
FYI: You can use this feature irrespctive of the number of followers you have, unlike the creator fund option.
3.How to Make Money On TikTok – Participate in Affiliate Programs
The third on our list of how to make money on TikTok is relatively common. It is through affiliate marketing.
You don’t need your own products and services to make money on TikTok. Yes, because I see some of you that are already complaining that you don’t have products. So in this case, you can simply use affiliate marketing to link out to other peoples or company’s’ goods. From every sale the company make through you affiliate link, you get a percentage.
Here is how it works:
Place an affiliate link in your profile—then direct traffic from your organic views to click the link.
Redirect traffic to your Facebook, Twitter, or Pinterest account where you can more generously place affiliate links.
Paste coupons codes and URLs in your video descriptions.
4. How to Make Money On TikTok – Promote Songs
Get paid to add songs to your videos. Nearly every video on TikTok has an accompanying background song for creators to lip-sync and dance to—and artists recognize this value. If you have a large enough following and engagement, musicians will pay to have you promote their music in your songs. Oh, you have not thought of that? Now you know. If you have enough followers on TikTok stop putting random background music. Let people pay you for that promo.
Yes, they will gladly pay you. Those musicians know that if your video goes viral, their song automatically does too—and that means more downloads and more concert tickets.
And if you’re a musician (or aspiring musician), you can use TikTok to promote your own music. TikTok is a place to sing and dance, so it only makes sense to publish your own beats on the platform. Build your brand there and you don’t need to spend much on adverts.
5. How to Make Money On TikTok – Publish Sponsored Posts
This particular one on the list of how to make money on TikTok applies to every user just like affiliate marketing. You don’t need to be a big influencer of have millions of followers to benefit from it. Brands will pay you to feature their products and services and it is called sponsored content. Smaller brands will still pay good money to work with microinfluencers who have a robust and engaged community—even if your followers aren’t that big yet.
You can approach brands proactively or wait for them to reach out to you. And if you have over 100,000 followers and 100,000 video likes in the last 28 days, you are in for even something greater. You can apply to join the TikTok Creator Marketplace, a platform that connects high-paying brands with influential creators.
Please don’t play down on this. brands are becoming more interested in promoting their products on TikTok than even other more popular and older social media platforms. A study on influencer marketing found that in December 2019, 16% of U.S. marketers planned to use TikTok for influencer campaigns. But in March 2021, that number went up to 68%. In other words, influencer marketing is blowing up on the platform.
6. How to Make Money On TikTok – Become a Brand Ambassador
The next on our list of how to make money on TikTok is to become a brand ambassador.
Actually, brand ambassadors function in a very similar way to sponsored content. But they help in more of a long-term capacity rather than a one-off post like sponsored post does. Usually a brand ambassadorial deal is for a minimum of 6 months, and sometimes years. As a brand ambassador, you’ll likely receive compensation and free product in exchange for a fixed number of videos every week or month. The better your content performs, the sweeter your brand ambassador deal becomes.
Look for brands you love. Sorry, not just the ones you love, but the ones that aligns with your values. The way you engage with your audience is uniquely yours. Personally, most of my readers have reached out to me to say that they like my unique style of writing. But that is not all, my followers visit my blog because of my writing prowess and my deep business knowledge, but guess what? They also care about my ethics. You must know that same thing applies to you. So don’t become ambassador for brands whose products contradicts your values. Remember it is not just about the money.
7. How to Make Money On TikTok – Find New Clients
TikTok can be an excellent platform to build your freelancing or consulting business. Publish engaging content to build your audience, and then promote your services. A follower might need your help, or word of mouth might lead you to another client.
If you build websites for a living, feature some of your projects on TikTok. If you’re an email marketing consultant, publish some of the cool campaigns you’ve created. Peradventure you are a fashion designer, make it a point of duty to display some of your finest designs on your TikTok videos.
If you are creative, and I repeat, if you are creative, you can make any business (from vulcanizing to upholstery to accounting to software) exciting on TikTok. You just need to let your personality loose and have some fun—that’s what TikTok is all about. Without fun and excitement, I bet you will not sell on TikTok – maybe you can look elsewhere.
8. How to Make Money On TikTok – Build and Sell TikTok Accounts
I have met some software developers that don’t like working on a particular project for long. What they do is that they develop a particular solution and once they notice that people are beginning to like and use it, they will immediately sell it, pocket the money and go and start working on something entirely new and maybe different too. On the topic of how to make money on TikTok, one can equally use that model to make some cool cash.
How?
Do you have a knack for building audiences quickly? Then you can do it for a living.
There are plenty of creators and businesses who’d love a headstart on TikTok. If you can rapidly build TikTok followings, you’ll have a list of potential buyers.
Think about potential industries that might want to purchase a lucrative TikTok account. One thing I will say about this particular idea if you are considering it is that the niche is important. Maybe you can consider fashion, food, IT, automobiles, just allow your mind freedom of thought.
Finally, if you want to go with this model, from day one, try not to make the account too personal. You can even avoid showing you face where possible. So focus your content on the subject material and not on your person. This can sometimes make it challenging to grow an account. But some persons have done it. An example is a23-year-old Ramy Halloun who made $120,000 executing the same technique on Instagram.
9. How to Make Money On TikTok – Raise Money Through Crowdfunding
Americans love to participate in crowdfunding campaigns—whether that’s financially backing your project on Kickstarter or supporting a cause on GoFundMe. North America contributed $17.2 billion in crowdfunding in 2021 alone.
And the success rate isn’t bad, either. The average success rate of crowdfunding campaigns is a whopping 22.4%.Putting that in perspective, you will know what an impressive figure it is when you consider that just 10% of startups succeed.
I do recommend that as much as possible that any crowdfunding campaign you are launching be related to your TikTok account’s content. If you are a business coach, consider raising a campaign for young people with innovative ideas but no startup capital.
10. How to Make Money On TikTok – Collect Tips
the last on our list of how to make money on TikTok is through collecting tips or gifts.
If you don’t have projects or products in mind, consider asking for tips. Yes, it works too. In fact it is an excellent way for your audience to support your account and keep the content flowing.
Bigger brands do it, so why shy away from it if it can actually work for you. Wikipedia asks you to donate every time you visit the website, don’t they?
Bonus Point:Become a consultant – if you’re already making money from TikTok, new creators could hire you to offer tips and advice on how to get started. You know I will include this, don’t you?
How Much Does Tiktok Pay?
There are many ways to make money on TikTok as you have seen above. How you go about monetizing your account will determine your earnings.
Things like Sponsored contents, brand ambassador deals and promoting of songs depends purely on you and what you choose to charge. I would however advise that you crosscheck what others in your level charge too.
But for the TikTok Creator Fund where TikTok pays you directly here is an estimate. You can earn between 2 and 4 cents for every 1,000 views. This means you might expect $20 to $40 after reaching a million views.
And if you are checking by the number of followers. TikTokers with over 100,000 followers tend to make $200 to $1,000 per month through TikTok’s Creator Fund. While those with over a million followers earn $1,000 to $5,000 (or more) per month. And a select few individuals make upwards of $100,000 to $250,000 per single post when working with big-name brands (yes, you read that correctly—a single post).
Highest 10 TikTok Earners of 2021
Imagine that when you first read that 1,000 views gives just 4 cent you must have brushed it off as something not worth it. Well, you had better think again. And that is why you don’t necessarily have to rely on just the creator fund. The fact remains that some teenagers are making on TikTok more than some Fortune 500 CEOs. And what exactly do they do on TikTok? Just to dance, sing and post skit videos.
So here is a list of the to 10 highest paid Tiktokers according to Forbes.
FYI: this list does not include top celebrities that made their fortunes elsewhere before joining TikTok. It focuses fully on people that all their wealth and fame can be traced to TikTok.
How to Make Money on TikTok – 2021 Highest Earners
FYI: The earning above represents that of 2021. But the number of followers is updated to today’s figure.
From what we have dicussed so fat, you can see that it is eay to make money on TikTok when you have sizeable number of followers. So, it is only wise that before you start asking the question of how to make money on TikTok that you first acquire a good number of followers. But the question is how can you accomplish that easily? I will share a few tips with you:
1. Understand your target market and create content they want to watch.
2. You’ll also need to post regularly and engage with your audience as much as possible.
3. Use trending hashtags and recommended or trending songs – it will increase your chances of being seen on more people’s ‘For You Page’
4. Jump on the latest trends – putting an interesting spin on a popular trend can increase your exposure.
5. Build relationships with other creators – cross-sharing content with other influencers can get your posts in front of a wider audience
6. Get involved in TikTok challenges – starting your own TikTok challenge or creating a memorable version of an existing one can increase your reach
7. Create quality, shareable content – good lighting and clear sound increase the appeal of your videos so people are more likely to share them
8. Be original and exclusive – Share something unique, original and exclusive, something that are not likely to be seen elsewhere. If you do this you will attract very loyal and consistent followers.
What is the best time to post on TikTok?
TikTok allows you to see when your audience is active, so try to base your posts around these times.
As with other social media platforms, some of the most effective times for posting content include mornings, evenings, and Sundays. Think about what times your audience are most likely to be on their phone and build your strategy around them.
It will make sense as you are dropping the content let they be online and see it immediately.
Final Word – How to Make Money on TikTok
I have shown you 10 ways of how to make money on TikTok. You can see that you don’t necessarily need to have any special skill to make money on TikTok. Anyone can do. Just find your niche, and be consistent. But no matter how educational your content may be, be creative enough to make it fun.
How to Make Money on TikTok – the fun platform
Do you want to make it as a TikTok influencer? You can start today because a journey of a thousand mile starts with a step. Charli D’Amelio started with just one follower. And that was less than 3 years ago. Today she boasts over 135 million followers and counting. If you start today, in 2025 you will look back and be glad you did.
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