How to make money on TikTok, even if you are not a top blogger

What is TikTok

TikTok is a fast growing social network where users post short videos. As a rule, we are talking about vertically oriented clips, comedy sketches, dances lasting 15 seconds. Posts in which, in fact, nothing important happens, are gaining millions of views. Unlike Instagram, here you don't need to be glamorous, have six abs and carry the age-old wisdom to the masses, accompanying it with images of naked buttocks to become popular.

The app's audience is growing rapidly. In Q2 2019, it surpassed Instagram and YouTube in terms of the number of downloads. In Russia, 8 million people visit TikTok every month on the Telegram channel "O digital".

TikTok's main audience is teenagers. According to TechCrunch, the app's popularity among young people will only increase. But now people of other ages also come there. For example, a Russian pensioner is among the popular bloggers.

But, like any social network, TikTok is not only a means of entertainment, but also a potential platform for making money.

How Tiktoker can earn

On brand advertisements

Remember how it was with Instagram: as soon as the account gains several thousand subscribers, the inscription “About cooperation in Direct” appears in the information about yourself. Indeed, advertising communications in this social network occur at different levels. Top bloggers sell posts for several million, unpopular ones - literally work for food or gifts in exchange for a review. As a result, Instagram has become a huge advertising platform in which the quality of the promoted product remains on the conscience of the account owner and manufacturers.

On TikTok, a blogger won't be able to get ads directly. More precisely, he can do so, but moderators often reduce the reach of such videos or simply delete them. To prevent this from happening, commercial videos need to be coordinated with TikTok. This is not easy, so bloggers prefer to communicate with representatives of the social network through authorized advertising agencies. TikTok itself welcomes this.

ByteDance, the company that owns the platform, has given brands some freedom for a long time. It was possible to independently choose bloggers, negotiate integrations, launch branded hashtags and challenges.

But, as soon as the audience grew into a huge paying segment, the company put forward rather stringent requirements for advertisers and agencies. There are formats like pop-up banners at the entrance to the application, ads when viewing content and hashtag challenge - trends in which bloggers shoot their videos.

The Ruthless PR Telegram channel managed to find rules for Russian bloggers when working with native advertising. Among other things, it contains the following requirements:

Native ads need to be warned seven days in advance.
Unauthorized promotions must not be published. Those that are not profitable are allowed.
Cooperation with the agency is desirable.

As for the promotion tools, everything is pretty standard here.

Sergey Grim Commercial Director of Lava Media.

A blogger who works on the TikTok platform and has a large reach can count on monetizing his content through tools that are quite standard for influence marketing:

Product placement (hidden advertising integrated into the video) in the content of the authors.
Viral videos with authors sponsored by the brand.
Support for challenges launched by brands.
Support for hashtags launched by brands.

It is these areas that we are buying now for our clients. The work is carried out mainly with already popular authors: with them there is a high probability of constructing a forecast for coverage, calculating CPV (the amount of payment for a visitor).

However, it is not yet possible to talk about earnings comparable to Instagram. The blogger's income from advertising on TikTok is usually limited to a few thousand rubles, and the interest of companies in them remains moderate.

Sergey Grim

The barrier that prevents more brands from reaching TikTok authors is the lack of demographic statistics, which negates targeted campaigns through the site's bloggers. TikTok sponsored ads are now out-of-the-box advertising campaigns.

Ivan Krapivin

I started a blog and for four months tested various types of content: from beauty from travel to game videos produced at my own shame and risk especially for TikTok. Now my account has 55 thousand subscribers and 2.6 million likes. There are a dozen videos with over a million views and one flagship with 13 million views. How many times have advertisers contacted me during this time? Approximately zero.

TikTok is not Instagram, where posting performance is measured by views, likes and comments. By themselves, these metrics mean nothing on TikTok. Audience portrait and behavior patterns are unlike other networks. The user will not rush to the stores after watching a video for a million. Brand awareness doesn't grow in proportion to likes. So far, on TikTok, one like equals one like.

But here's the good news: TikTok integrations are much cheaper than other networks. Dozens of times cheaper than Instagram. At the same time, the bloggers themselves are no less recognizable, no less creative and certainly much more daring than the influencers (popular authors who are able to form the opinion of the audience) from Instagram. They are not spoiled by money, they don’t turn up their noses from advertisers, they are ready to reshoot and re-upload their creatives.

On ads of other bloggers

Collaborating with brands is not easy, but you can advertise to your peers. TikTok's capabilities allow you to record duets - collaborations with other bloggers, reactions to other people's videos, post links to other TikTokers.

Despite the fact that likes and views on this social network are not yet so easy to monetize, people still strive for popularity and are ready to pay for it. Moreover, Tiktokers, as mentioned earlier, are not spoiled with high fees.

Redirecting traffic to other sites

With a video on TikTok, the audience can be redirected to Instagram or to a YouTube channel, where views will already be monetized in a simple and straightforward way. This method is suitable for popular bloggers on other platforms as a way to attract new (usually younger) subscribers. But it is also suitable for novice influencers.

Ivan Krapivin

TikTok is known for its wide video reach, even if you're not a top blogger. This is the main attraction of the platform. You can start the life of an influencer with a clean slate and, at least on this platform, overtake professional SMS and info-gypsies.

Why you should start a TikTok account now

The social network continues to grow rapidly. Reach and subscribers are easy to get right now, but that could be changing.

This has already happened with Instagram: in ancient times, you could gain thousands of subscribers by occasionally posting photos of food, cats and legs against the background of the sea. Now seasoned bloggers have entire teams for content production. There are expensive courses to promote yourself on Instagram.

The threshold for entering TikTok is still low. The user is shown videos of strangers not from the number of subscriptions. It is enough for a blogger to use internal social media tools to create relevant content. And being able to hit the right hashtag at the right time is more important than a well-thought-out content strategy. This may not always be the case.

So, if you are thinking of making money on TikTok, promote your account now.