How to Start Making Money on TikTok, Today
TikTok is where it’s all happening. Last year, the video platform recorded 1 billion users. The majority of them are female and under 29 years old, hailing from China, South-East Asia, and the US. Young influencers like Charli D’Amelio, Addison Rae, Burak Ozdemir, and Zach King are raking in millions of dollars with their videos. Why not you? What does it take to start making money on TikTok, today? Depending on your niche and your person, it could take you a few weeks or a lifetime. A quick overview.
Making Money Directly From Tiktok
Long story short, if you want to earn money directly from TikTok, you must be 18 years or older, have a follower base of at least 10,000, and reached 100,000 video views over the last 30 days. If you check those three boxes, you can apply for TikTok’s Creator Fund.
How much you earn through the Creator Fund depends on many factors (views, engagement, viewer location, …). In general, creators indicated receiving a few dollar cents per thousand views.
Making Money With TikTok’s Built-In Monetization Tools
Other ways to monetize your videos directly from TikTok is through virtual gifts during live streams (minimum 1,000 followers), gifts on other videos (minimum 100,000 followers), or tips (minimum 100,000 followers). In all three cases, you need to be at least 18 years old.
Also read: How to Make Money on Instagram
Making Money Through Music Marketing Challenges
If you don’t have the thousands of followers needed to enroll into the Creator Fund or cash in on other monetization tools, then you don’t have to throw in the towel just yet. There are other ways to rake in the moolah, while you wait for your follower count to grow.
With just a few hundred followers, you can already participate in music marketing contests. These challenges are launched by record labels and artists to promote their new releases. They’ll ask users to create a video using their song and pay them according to the number of views and audience engagement. For music promotors, this is a golden deal because they pay a range of users based on performance, rather than a high flat fee paid to a single influencer.
This new type of influencer marketing opens the door to smaller users, often referred to as micro-influencers who then also get a chance to monetize their video efforts and grow. They demand a lower quote than big stars, but, if done right, their video could still generate millions of views. It’s a gamble that an increasing number of brands are willing to take.
As always, before you can roll in the green like a d’Amelio or a Rae, you need to attract enough followers. And to attract those much-coveted eyeballs you need to put out good content. Find out what works for other TikTokers, think of a niche and some good ideas for your first few videos, gather your friends around, find catchy music for tiktok, and, most of all, have fun. If you’re having a good time, that’s half the battle won. Good luck!
