How to make money on TikTok as an Influencer in 2023

How to make money on TikTok

Anyone making their living from TikTok has dedicated a great deal of time, creativity and effort to build their audience, keep them engaged and generate ongoing quality content. It’s important that you are mindful of these realities when you set out with the goal of wanting to generate income from any social media platform. 

If you stay focused, plan your content and ensure what you create is high-quality and relevant to your target audience, you will be setting yourself up with the best possible chance of making it happen. 

With this in mind, here are some specific approaches TikTokers take to generate income.

• Paid partnerships and sponsorship deals

Sponsored content and paid partnerships is one of the most common ways TikTokers earn coin on the platform. This approach involves creating and posting content that promotes a specific brand or product. In exchange for creating this content, the TikToker receives payment, or sometimes products or services from the company. If you do work with brands and you are being sponsored to create content, it’s very important to disclose this to your followers to ensure you remain transparent.

• Affiliate marketing

Another popular method of earning from TikTok is the promotion of products via an affiliate program, where you include a tracking link that monitors follower click throughs in your TikTok bio, or in your video description. When one of your followers clicks the link and makes a purchase, a commission is sent to you.

• Branded merchandise

Think t-shirts, caps and any other item you can print a catch-phrase, brand name or logo onto. Some TikTokers create their own merchandise and sell it to followers via their account. It’s a way to grow your personal brand and increase connection with your followers.

• Virtual events

By running virtual events, including workshops or webinars, you can increase engagement with your followers by offering them a different experience. Some influencers will charge a fee for attendance, or offer something to purchase at the end of the experience, perhaps with a discount for the offering to those who attended, with the price increasing the next day (to encourage purchases are made then and there).

• Donations

Influencers have been known to ask for donations from their followers, with payments made through platforms such as PayPal. If you are offering ongoing high quality content to your followers, this approach could work.

• TikTok consultant

Like consultants for any other social media platform, a TikTok consultant helps individuals, brands and companies devise and deliver marketing strategies via the platform. A consultant might work with their client to create content calendars, identify influencers to partner with or analyse and measure how effective their campaigns are. 

General coaching around use of the platform is another possible service a consultant might offer clients who are new to TikTok, or social media altogether, along with approaches to growing their online presence. Ultimately, the consultant role is to help clients use TikTok to reach their marketing and branding goals.

Get paid by TikTok

There are a few ways that influencers can get a payout from the platform directly:

1.  TikTok Creator Fund: To be eligible for the Creator Fund, users must have a strong track record with their TikTok account (quality content posted regularly and nothing breaching guidelines) and meet certain criteria, such as having a large and engaged audience. If you’re eligible, TikTok will contact you directly with further details.
2. TikTok Partners Program: Eligible creators can monetize their content through ads. To be eligible, users must have a TikTok account where they’ve posted regular quality content that hasn’t breached any guidelines, meet certain performance criteria, and be based in an eligible country.
3. TikTok Live Gifts: TikTok users who are participating in a live stream can also earn money through TikTok Live Gifts. When viewers send gifts during a live stream, the creator can earn a percentage of the value of the gift.