Yes, you can absolutely get wealthy from TikTok. Just look at the Amelio sisters, who raked in around US$27.5 million in 2021 alone.
But don’t hear me wrong: building wealth on TikTok isn’t easy. It’s not a “get-rich-quick” scheme, nor is earning money guaranteed. TikTok videos are an art form, and, as such, they require a certain level of ingenuity that will put you in front of the right audience, attract sponsors, and help you tap into your natural creativity.
How do people become wealthy from TikTok? There’s no exact science. But if you’re planning on getting rich, there are three primary ways to do it.
Advertise your business
The most obvious way to make money on TikTok is to use the platform to market your products, services, or business. In this sense, your TikTok videos can feature your products, showing what they look like or how they work in action.
This could be anything from your tax services to a wood-carving hobby. The idea is that by staying top of mind to your followers, they will choose you later when they need your product or service.
Of course, you’re not making money from TikTok. This approach is indirect. You’ll use TikTok to send followers to your e-commerce store or your other social channels. But, because it’s indirect, you’ll get 100% of the earnings.
Promote affiliates
In my opinion, this is the most popular (and effective) way to make money directly though TikTok.
As an affiliate, you promote certain products or services in your TikTok videos. It’s like a mini commercial: when people buy what you’re promoting, you’ll get paid a percentage of the final purchase cost. If it’s a membership, you might also get a flat rate per sign up.
Depending on how many affiliates you promote, you could earn a tonne of cheddar simply by calling out brands. In general, the more passionate you are about the product you’re promoting, that is, the more you believe in the product, the more convincing you’ll sound and the more likely you’ll sell whatever you’re promoting.
Get paid directly
If you don’t have a business or product to promote, you can still make money through TikTok’s Coins. To earn coins, you host a live video, and your followers will give you Coins as a “virtual gift,” essentially paying you for the content you’ve created.
When you’ve earned enough Coins, you can exchange them for Diamonds, which, in turn, can be converted into real cash.
To be fair, earning Coins and converting them into Diamonds isn’t the fastest way to earn money on TikTok. But it’s certainly one source of revenue — one that can be effective when coupled with affiliates or sponsors.
What about the Creator Fund?
The Creator Fund dishes out cash to its most popular creators.
The fund was created in 2020 with an initial pledge of US$200 million. Since then, the Creator Fund has gotten so popular, TikTok pledged to increase the payout to a whopping $1 billion by 2023.
That’s good news. But here’s the bad: to tap into the Creator Fund, you must have at least 10,000 followers and 100,000 video views in the last 30 days. Not only that, but if you live in Canada, the fund is off limits to you. Right now, the Creator Fund is for TikTok users from a handful of countries (U.S., U.K., France, Germany, Spain, and Italy).
Bummer, I know. TikTok is still fairly new, however, so this could change. For now, the only way to get wealthy is to influence enough people and attract sponsors.
