How To Make Money On TikTok In 2023 (Beginners)
TikTok is one of the recent but highly sensational and popular platforms. It alone is being used by 1 billion monthly active users worldwide, with comparatively higher user engagement than reported on any other social platform.
Moreover, TikTok has recently received $1 billion in its Creator Fund to reward creators for creating the best content.
All these stats mean there is a massive potential in monetizing TikTok traffic and making a huge sum of money as a side hustle. So, whether you are an expert content creator or entirely new to TikTok, here is how to make money on TikTok.
Can You Make Money From TikTok?
Yes, you can make money from TikTok. No matter how many followers you have or are new, you can make money on TikTok.
Same as other social media sites, TikTok creators are also reaching the point where they are making as much as over a million dollars. But you have to be a little more creative than a simple TikTok user.
However, the strategies to grow followers and make money on TikTok are not that different from other platforms. This means you can easily,
- Start creating your content
- Start posting content
- Connect with the audience
- Build a significant following
- Monetize traffic (with affiliate marketing, creator fund, brand deals, or TikTok creator marketplace)
- Start making money on TikTok
But make sure you stay on top of content quality. Like other social media platforms, TikTok users are also looking for value, and if done right, it can become one of your most significant revenue streams.
How to Make Money on TikTok
Here comes the definitive answer.
1- TikTok’s Creator Fund
TikTok Creator Fund is TikTok’s way of compensating its content creators. It is a rewarding model where your funds grow as your content and the account grows — and depends on factors such as views from real accounts, viewer’s region, and more.
You have to apply for it to make money on TikTok from the creator fund. However, there are some requirements you’ve to meet before you apply for the TikTok Creator Marketplace.
- Age Requirement: 18 or old
- Followers: Minimum 10K authentic Followers
- Video Views of Last 30 Days: At least 10K
- Your Region: Germany, Italy, France, UK, U.S, and Spain.
- Content should follow TikTok’s Community Guidelines.
- Account Type: Pro Account
Though many creators make money from the TikTok Creator Fund program, it’s a big deal. For example, a personal finance influencer, Peterson Seo, makes $9 to $38 a day on average. According to a report from Insiders, he has earned a total of about $1,664 from the Creator Fund from January 2021 to May 2021.
This means there is potential, but it couldn’t be the only source for most new creators.
2- Monetize with Affiliate Links
Promoting someone else’s products and getting a commission for them is affiliate marketing. You can always recommend any good product to your audience that you have used and got great results.
Once your audience purchases from your affiliate link, you will make a commission.
Affiliate marketing is a lucrative model depending on the niche of your content. For example, you can initiate any educational campaign, share educational stuff with your followers, and suggest products linked between those series.
However, you have to make sure that you promote only tried and tested products exactly how you describe them. Because by any chance, if your audience finds it less valuable, they will drop down the idea of purchasing from your links.
3- Posting Sponsored Content
Sponsored posts are content that you create or post to promote someone’s brand or products to your audience. With the increasing popularity of TikTok, brands are becoming more and more interested in creating sponsored posts with TikTok stars.
TikTok has facilitated it officially by creating a Creator Marketplace. It gives TikTok creator tools needed to manage branded content between TikTok stars and brands.
Brands can use the Creator Marketplace to search for TikTok influencers, set things up, make an influencer marketing deal and start working. But it doesn’t support payments, which means you need to use any third-party platform to process payments.
Get your account listed on the marketplace to get discovered by the brands. First, you need to create a Creators Account (in the account settings) and check the content and follower demographic requirements. Once met, TikTok will invite you to be part of its marketplace.
The biggest downside is that you can never select or contact brands independently. The marketplace isn’t designed that way. But if you think you can be an excellent fit for a specific brand, try reaching them out outside of TikTok. Make sure to make it clear how you can help them grow.
The earning potential via sponsored videos is infinite. Companies and brands pay $500 to $20,000 per post. You can earn on TikTok, which is a given, but you can also work on becoming an Instagram influencer. Your die-hard fans will follow you everywhere around the internet.
This means you can double its potential as you like.
4- Manage Influencers Campaigns
There are many people with strong analytical capabilities who can grow like crazy. But they are shy to face the camera or be in front of the world. Similarly, brands find it difficult to understand or figure out how TikTok can help you grow.
If you are a shy person, this is where you can be unstoppable. Be a middleman between brands and influencers — TikTok Influencer Marketing Manager.
Your job will understand the business’s needs and demand, make it understandable for the influencer, set up the price, deadlines, process, payouts, and keep an eye on how things are going — almost everything about influencer campaigns.
By being a middle man, you can charge a decent price from the brands and pay what’s needed to the TikTok star.
5- Sell your products
If you have become a TikTok famous star in your specific niche, it’s time to convert this fame into some money. Starting your own brand or selling a product is all about finding the exact audience interested in your product, nurturing them, and making their purchase without being a seller.
For example, if you are creating content on personal development, motivation, daily habits, productivity, and so on, how about writing a book or an eBook? Or, if you are in the eCommerce niche, how about creating a course?
You have to create a valuable product and start promoting it among your followers.
6- Launch your Artist Career
Are you someone who can create unique things, like music, paintings, robots, or any other artistic thing that people admire? Bring it on TikTok.
By engaging with the right audience, you can track huge attention and make your artwork discovered by many people around the globe.
A real-life example is Loren Gray.
Image Credit: @Lorengray
Loren Gray is a young singer who got her talent discovered by the globe on TikTok. She started years ago on the initial version of TikTok, Music.ly, and now has 54.4 million followers. Her revenue in 2020 from TikTok was $2.4 Million.
7- Become a Brand Ambassador
Brands are always on the lookout for someone who can create a top-notch brand image before their target audience.
You can promote brand deals by creating relevant content describing the ins and outs of their products.
By doing so, you ultimately help brands nurture audiences and get the most out of a social platform.
Once you get significant attention on TikTok, you’ll find marketing emails from several brands offering you brand partnerships. You can accept the most relevant ones, create authentic content, and promote products among your dedicated fans.
8- Start a TikTok Influencer Agency
If you are shy to be in front of the world but good at what it takes to grow a TikTok account, you can start a TikTok agency.
Many brands and struggling artists look for a service provider at any stage of their growth journey that can work as an accelerator to boost the performance of goals and accomplishments.
You can be one for them. Look at their account, do a detailed analysis, suggest what could be better and what should be eliminated to reach a million followers, and suggest ways to earn money.
There is no need to find people to start an agency. You can start on your own first and then begin tasks delegation.
Here is how to do it.
- Create a website. Make sure you display what you’ve got.
- Create a sales pitch and reach out to accounts you think might be interested in getting a growth accelerator.
- Serve 2 to 3 clients and acquire a few more.
- Now, look for people with expertise in a particular skill and start task delegation.
- Once you have created a team, hire an impeccable sales strategist to help you acquire more clients.
This is how you can start as a single-man force and develop a huge task force.
Who Makes The Most Money On Tiktok?
With so many ways to make money online, so many stars are making a fortune from the TikTok app. Here are some of the top-ranking ones as per stats of December 2021.
Charli D’Amelio making $17.5 M
Image Credit: @charlidamelio
She is alone catering to 137.5 M followers on TikTok. Though she creates multiple types of TikTok videos, including motivational, lip-sync, and energetics, dancing videos are the most prominent ones.
Dixie D’Amelio making $10 M
Image Credit: @dixiedamelio
Dixie is the elder sister of Charlie but one step behind in terms of revenue from TikTok. She posts several fun videos, including lip-syncing, dancing, and others.
The duo has also started a clothing line, and Dixie is also coming into the music industry. She released her first song in 2020. As of 2022, she has 57.1 M followers on TikTok.
Addison Rae making $8.5 M
Image Credit: @addisonre
Addison is one of those artists discovered and recognized on TikTok. She is a twenty-two years old dancer, singer, and actress with 86.7 M followers on TikTok. She is now recognized as a well-known celebrity even outside of TikTok and featured in many top-ranking TV shows.
Bella Poarch making $5 M
Image Credit: @bellapoarch
Bella’s account got hyped when her lip-sync video went viral in May 2021. She joined the platform in April 2020 and now has 88.2 M fans around the globe.
Josh Richards making $5 M
Image Credit: @joshrichards
He is famous for his dancing, lip-syncing, and cute entertainment videos. Josh joined the platform when he was just 14, and now he has 3.9 M fans on the platform.
Tips For Getting Paid On Tiktok
Making money on TikTok is all about connecting with the audience and making the right content for them. If the foundation is correct, you will soon start making money from several monetization methods.
Take inspiration from Fellows.
Content creation is a strenuous task that needs time, attention, and creativity. Though you can easily get started from anywhere, there will be a time when you find it hard to figure out what type of content you should promote.
At that time, the best course of action is looking out at a fellow creator’s profile. Look what type of content they are creating and how you join them. But make sure you are incorporating your unique essence in it.
Create Niche Specific Content
Generic stuff — everyone likes it for a day or two, but for a long-term journey, it is best to stick to a single topic. You can brainstorm on any topic you’d like to talk about and start creating content.
With time, keep sharing expert tips suggestions, add your contribution, and share resources about that. This way, you will cater to a specific audience with a great interest in what you do.
Stay Ahead of Your Content Calendar.
TikTok is a fun and engaging social platform where you can post anytime you want on any day of the week. But it is only going to give you small chunks of success.
Success on any social media platform depends on a blend of quality content, consistency, authenticity, and timely manner. Though publishing content according to a calendar is tough, you can always look for ways to practice it.
The best way is to create a monthly calendar at the beginning of each month and stick to it. You can list the topic and content you will talk about and start creating content.
Pro Tip: However, do not make it rigid enough that you can’t add a unique idea or trend in between. Have the flexibility to adapt and pivot as necessary.
Strategies To Grow Your Tiktok Profile
The foundation of making money from TikTok is your profile. To make money, your profile needs to be optimized for growth and monetized to convert your visitors.
Here is what you can do to grow your new or existing TikTok profile.
Research Your Audience
The foremost step to grow your TikTok account is a clear understanding of your audience demographics, interests, and preferences. Then, depending on the type of audience you want to target, you need to change your content.
Otherwise, you can always target a broad audience base, but keeping things specific will help you get a higher engagement rate traction and help you build a strong connection with your audience.
In both cases, always put a value on the table. People are there, spending their valuable time on your profile, then you must make them your fan – which is only possible when you create specific content for them.
Stay on Top of Trends
TikTok caters to a huge audience. Most of them are growing teenagers who change their interests as the trends change. Under these scenarios, if you keep up with a previous trend, they are most likely to flip up your content.
So, always lookout for new engaging trends that your audience might like. Furthermore, jumping on recent trends will also help you connect with a new audience. But be wise about what trends you should follow.
Your audience really won’t like you participating in any weird trends.
Educate Your Followers
Everyone loves entertainment. But if you share some educational stuff that can help improve the quality of life we live, it will be like a cherry on top.
You can leverage it to share info about your service or products. Or you can pursue a topic you like and think of converting it into a business idea as you grow.
For example, if you are personally interested in Yoga and Exercises, create TikTok content around it. Then, after some time, you can create your course and let your fans know about it. Then, if they are interested, they will get enrolled
Post at the Right Time with Right Hashtags
Great content is needed to get noticed on TikTok. But what’s most important is when you post it.
Depending on your audience’s demographics, you need to identify when most people are online. Moreover, make sure you use appropriate hashtags. Hashtags are the traffic drivers that help you drive traffic.
Right hashtags will help the right audience discover your content, especially when you use trending, branded, business-specific or appropriate general hashtags – The TikTok algorithm will favor your content.
Engage with Other Creators
You can connect with a significant audience on TikTok on your own. But to communicate with a vast audience, you need to cooperate with other creators.
Each creator caters to a specific audience with specific demographics and interests. Likewise, they have a particular audience interested in a particular topic. This means if you want to connect with their audience, you need content that they would love to watch.
The simplest way is to reach out to the creator and propose an engaging and trendy idea that both of your audience will love. It will become a cross-promotional strategy that will benefit both creators.
FAQ
1- Can I make money on TikTok?
Yes, you can make money on TikTok. Here is how
– Grow your Account
– Receive virtual gifts in live streams
– Promote affiliate products
– Be a brand ambassador and post branded content
– Post sponsored content
– Selling merchandise.
– Sell TikTok Accounts
2- How many views are required to get paid on TikTok?
To make money directly from TikTok, you’d need a minimum of 10,000 followers with at least 100,000 views in the past 30 days.
3- How much money do TikTokers make?
TikTok-ers can make anywhere between $200 to $20,000 per month, depending on the followers. However, the established influencers with millions of followers make as much as $1.7 M per year.
4- Do you get paid for uploading videos on TikTok?
Simply speaking, no. You won’t be paid for merely uploading videos on TikTok. However, there are monetization methods you can use to make a huge sum of money from money each month.
5- Do You get paid for TikTok Ads?
TikTok ads are a win-win opportunity for both creators and brands. Brands can seemingly increase their reach with Ads, and creators can easily make up to $0.02 to $0.1 per view. In addition, you can set up in-feed video ads on your TikTok channel and start making money.
6- What type of content best performs on TikTok?
According to recent trends, videos with lip-syncing are the best form of content that gets the most views and attention. Other forms of content are dancing, cute actions, make-over videos, dressing styles, and personal care videos. Showing your day is also a recent trend getting most TikTok users’ attention.
Conclusion
TikTok is one of the fastest-growing social media platforms used by a vast audience. Everyone is looking for value and is ready to follow those who serve with value. Starting a TikTok fan club is easy, and there are several ways of making money through it.
If you are just getting started, it is best to focus on creating quality content and connecting with a relevant and quality audience. Then, once you start getting noticed, collaborate with other TikTok stars.
As soon as you get a notable fan following, consider joining the Creators Marketplace or finding a relevant affiliate offer you can promote.
If you want to make more money, then you can always search for brands that might be interested in getting a shoutout or collaborating with you on TikTok. The possibilities are limitless. All you need is a decision, dedication, and willingness to put values on the table.
Further Reading: If you’re looking to make money on Facebook or start a YouTube Channel, check out my step-by-step guide.