Not that long ago, I posted my first TikTok. 24 Hours later my simple rookie TikTok of hand feeding my Koi Fish garnered over 300 viewers, and I had gained 3 new followers.
The potential to grow an audience and reach people on TikTok is far superior versus Facebook, Insta, and X (Twitter), especially for those without the resources to consistently produce high-quality content.
Because of the ability to reach people on scale through short-form videos, TikTok is one of the most popular social media networks worldwide. According to the latest statistics from DemandSage, TikTok has over 1.1 billion active users globally.
As such, it is an evolving digital channel attracting businesses to deploy their marketing efforts at reaching their target markets. Because of this, their is increased opportunity for creators with significant reach to earn a good income through the TikTok Creator program, brand deals or even simply their own ideas, products and services.
How much do influencers earn on TikTok?
Based on the market the Brand operates in, the value of the sponsorship should be determined. According to an article on the amounts influencers charge per post by Product Manager Olivia Savage, there five tiers with the amounts influencer’s typically charge. These amounts have been converted from U.S.D. to South African Rands.
- Nano: R9000 – R37,000
- Micro: R37,000 – R150,000
- Mid-tier: R150,000 – R370,000
- Macro: R370,000 – R835,000
- Celebrity: R835,000+
I know what’ you’re thinking, these are pretty big numbers, well this is exactly why so many people are trying to build up their TikTok Followings. A dozen or so sponsored posts per year can put you in South Africa’s top 10% of earners.
Here’s 5 Things you can do to earn money on TikTok
- Build a loyal audience
- Sell your own products
- Affiliate Marketing
- Direct Traffic to other monetized platforms
- Manage TikTok accounts for businesses
Build a loyal audience
Choose something you’re interested in, and enjoy curating content around the chosen topic. Then consistently upload and aim to improve and grow your reach on the platform.
The goal is to gain high engagement on your TikToks, which is mainly based on number of views and likes. As this grows, so should your follower base, especially if you are creating good content.
As your audience grows, and your posts consistently reach your followers and new users through people sharing your content or through TikTok’s search and discovery feeds, Brands who see your audience as people who would be potential customers for their products will reach out for partnership opportunities.
Pro Tip: Add your business email or personal website to your TikTok Bio so that Brands can easily get in touch with you for sponsorship opportunities. If you’re starting a brand new TikTok account, you will need 1000 followers before you can add a link to your TikTok Bio.
Sell your own products
Like adding a website or business email to your TikTok bio, you can add a link to your own products if have any. Many creators create information products like eBooks, or courses which the then sell to their followers. For example, if you were to post videos on software, you could put together a course helping user with software development.
TikTok store is also an innovative feature which allows you to list products directly on TikTok. This feature however is not yet available in South Africa – but is slowly rolling out to more countries around the world. So its crucial to keep an eye on developments here as it’s seen enormous success for TikTok to-date.
Alternatively one can also launch a low-cost store using a modern shop-builder like Shopify for example, and direct users from TikTok here.
Affiliate Marketing
If you don’t have your own products, you can still promote other people’s products and services if they have affiliate programs. Affiliate marketing simply means you use a unique link to refer a customer, and if the customer makes a purchase, you share in the revenue or earn a fixed fee.
An popular affiliate program is Amazon’s Associates program. Many influencers promote products they use on TikTok and if they share their affiliate link they can earn a piece of the purchase price. With Amazon launching in South Africa soon, this is a great opportunity to earn additional income.
Direct traffic to other monetized platforms
If you are active on more than one social media platform and you have accounts that are monetized, like a Twitch Streamer account, or a YouTube channel.
We can use TikTok as a marketing tool to raise awareness of your other accounts and direct users from TikTok to these accounts in an effort to increase our viewership which can increase ad revenue or memberships revenue.
Manage TikTok accounts for businesses
As TikTok is still a fairly new platform versus established social media giants like Facebook for example – which leads the industry in allowing businesses to advertise on their platform and reach their desired audiences.
TikTok has launched their Ads Manager which allows businesses to advertise on the platform. If you are willing to learn the ins-and outs of advertising on TikTok, you can approach businesses that use TikTok and offer to help them improve their marketing efforts by managing their TikTok Ads.
Or separately if you’ve proven you can grow a TikTok account and can consistently get good engagement with posts. Then you can offer social media marketing services to other businesses.
By consistently delivering measurable results on TikTok, brands will come to you.