TikTokers increase profits by 5.5 times in 2021: How to make money on the new social network

TikTok is the most frequently downloaded non-game application, which has won the hearts of people around the world. To date, the audience of the platform has more than 1 billion users from 150 countries. In this case, the profits of TikTok-bloggers are growing steadily — a year by the calculations of Admitad, they jumped 5.5 times. So how to make money in the most hyping social network this year?

TikTok is the seventh most visited social network in the world — the number of active users per month is 800 million. During the last year the social network has grown fivefold.

As the company claims, it has ​​more than 100 million monthly active users from the US and 50 million daily ones. The number has grown nearly 800% since January 2018, when the app started its international expansion.

There are platforms whose development and success is questionable (remember how quickly Clubhouse took off and how quickly it went out). But this is definitely not about TikTok.

According to the Admitad, the key indicators show the dynamics of growth and popularization of the Chinese social network:

An actively growing network can bring bloggers and brands a solid income. So let’s take a look at how to make money with TikTok.

Why TikTok?

It’s a fast-growing platform built solely on the rapid consumption of video content. The main task is to captivate and entertain the audience, to give an opportunity to pass the time in pleasure and to abstract from routine matters. A distinctive feature of the network is a young audience — about 60% of all users are between 18–35 years old.

An interesting fact for marketers: 60% of the US audience are female and 60% are aged between 16 to 24.

You don’t have to have millions of subscribers to make money on this platform. It’s much more important how many views and reactions your videos get. The platform has a rather low entry threshold, because your videos get into other users’ feeds and can easily “get into the top”, because initially everyone is equal according to the algorithms.

Moreover, small accounts have a high engagement rate — 76% for pages with 1–10k subscribers. A millionaire account has an average engagement rate of 5%. Notice that about 30% of all activity on the platform occurs on weekends — these are the days when the audience responds best to content.

How much can I earn in TikTok?

If you have chosen the blogger path, the earnings depend on the size of your account and your ambitions. For starters, you can charge as little as $10 per ad post. But on average the figures are as follows:

• 100 000+ subscribers — from $100 to $200 per post;
• 200 000–1 million subscribers — $250–500;
• 1 million+ subscribers — from $1000 and above.

For example, an american dancer and TikToker Addison Rae leads the ranking of top 7 highest earning TikTok stars in Forbes. Her choreographed TikToks bring her $5 million annually. Her main income comes from branded merchandise and promoting such brands as Reebok and Daniel Wellington. But if blogging is not your cup of tea, let’s take a look at other ways of earning.

How to monetize your blog on TikTok.

Admitad experts highlighted the most profitable methods.

1. Product Advertising

The main way to generate income on this social network. Bloggers talk about a product by leaving their exclusive promo code in the video or securing a link in their profile. You can promote a product by means of a review video, direct advertisement or showing the product in the frame without mentioning the brand.

Take a look at a little bit of insightful research. According to Nielsen:

• 61% of users think this social network’s ads are unique compared to other platforms;
• 43% of users think TikTok ads are compatible with native content;
• 52% of users say they discover new products on TikTok.

2. Support of challenges started by brands

To promote a product, brands often create and launch their own challenges aimed at gaining the audience’s attention and popularity. Each challenge has its own rules, but the main element that unites them all is the brand hashtag, which is important to include in the video.

3. Broadcasts

If your account has more than a thousand subscribers, you can monetize it with live broadcasts. This is done in the following way: you broadcast, and your audience encourages you with donations.

Donates are stickers that users can buy for internal currency — coins. From each sticker, the blogger can get 80% of its value (the remaining 20% goes to the social network).

4. Driving the audience to other social networks

Viewers spend 95% of their time on the platform in the recommendation feed, which consists mainly of videos and accounts they are not yet familiar with. This is what makes TikTok different from other social networks. So once you’ve managed to hook a user in TikTok, don’t hesitate to transfer him to Instagram. There he will be able to follow your updates, and you will be able to communicate with him and sell.

5. Writing scripts

Once you understand how web algorithms work and how to use trends, monetize that skill by creating content for other individuals or companies. In this case, you can both write the script and participate in the video.

6. Promoting musicians

Because TikTok is a video platform, music is one of the main features. Any user can take a song from the app’s library or mix his or her own original sound. Tracks that go viral bring artists popularity, help them get promoted, and earn money. That’s why musicians order videos with new songs from TickTokers.

7. Advertisements for other TikTok bloggers

It’s very convenient to promote other accounts in TikTok — just shoot a video duet with a novice blogger. The cost of interaction depends on the reach of your audience.

8. Setting up targeted ads

Brands need creative people to produce great content, and they need creative people to make that content. If you don’t have people inside the company who can do that, you have to hire people from the outside, and that can cost a lot of money.

This is why it makes sense for some brands to use targeted advertising in TikTok. It will be cheaper, and the results are not worse. But on the market, there are not many specialists who know how to set up advertising high-quality on this platform. After all, the specifics of advertising in TikTok are very different in creatives and features of the landing page.

Whether you have experience in configuring targeting or not, we recommend training on TikTok. Creatives from this social network are smoothly transferred to Instagram, and the skills you learn will help you to set up ads on any platform in the future.

9. Advertising through affiliate networks

This method is similar to product advertising (point 1), but has the advantage that you do not need to search for customers, all of them are already collected on one site, you register and get access to 2+ thousands of advertisers.

Another advantage is that your income is not limited to a fixed amount, but depends on the number of customers you bring. Interaction with affiliate networks is based on the CPA (cost per action) — payment for action. Users perform a targeted action, which can be a purchase, order or registration, and you get a percentage of each buyer.

The process of monetization through CPA-networks is simple. After registering on the platform, you choose the country and categories of goods and services you want to advertise. You specify TikTok as your working platform. Then you choose the affiliate programs of the specific brands you want to cooperate with and connect to them. Later you just use your affiliate link and unique promo code in your publications and keep track of your profits in your personal account.

Tips from TikTok bloggers working with Admitad:

• Analyze trends. Follow popular TikTok bloggers, see what hooks your audience the most and incorporate it into your videos. This will help you get into recommendations.
• Publish content at least 5 times a week and stick to a pre-made content plan.
• Engage with your audience: answer their questions and comments, host live events.
• When advertising a product, ask the advertiser for a brief that you will adhere to. But leave room for your own creativity. This way, the ad will look more native, which contributes to audience loyalty.
• The ad should be interesting and easy to understand. Users come to TikTok to relax and unwind. The videos that intrigue, motivate them to action and make them watch to the end are the most popular.
• Grab your attention in the first three seconds. Engaging headlines, a bright first frame, and a question for the viewer will help you do this.
• Motivate viewers to leave comments below the video, so it ranks better.

TikTok already helps content creators earn sometimes incredible amounts of money, but it’s still developing. There is no established top of the leading bloggers, any video can break into recommendations and get millions in coverage. So pop in now to be on top of the latest innovations. Try different ways to monetize, combine them and work to maximize your profits.