5 Ways to Make Money in 2022 Using TikTok in Kenya

Social media has become a leading source of direct and indirect revenue for a small group of savvy users over the last few years.

People earn money from being social influencers on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and the recent emergence of TikTok has seen influencers earn up to seven figures. 

According to Forbes, Addison Rae Easterling tops the list of top 7 TikTok earning stars when she pocketed a whopping $5 (Ksh555 million) million in 2019.

TikTok pays many people in Kenya as well. Currently, Azziad Nasenya tops the list of highest TikTok earners with over 1 million followers. She is estimated to be making at least Ksh500,000 per sponsored post.

TikTok is growing at a faster rate among social media sites and you may not want to let such an opportunity to make money slip off your hands.

Perhaps you have a question –how do you make money from TikTok and at what cost? Well, the answer to this question is here. 

Keep reading to gain insights on how to make money and the ways to monetise your TikTok account.

What is TikTok 

When you come across any young person and pose this question, the answer will be simple; the fastest growing social media App. 

TikTok became available worldwide in 2018 after the merger with Musical.ly as a short video streaming and sharing app. But now, the app boasts about 1 million users across the world with forecasts putting it as the third-largest social media platform behind Facebook and Instagram. 

It’s double-digit growth over the last two years makes it the fastest growing social media app in its class and has undeniably proven its potential as a go-to marketing platform.

The app has simplified content creation, sharing, and viewing. This means you do not need to be a video professional to start making money with TikTok. 

You can record anything from your daily routine and post it instantly. Depending on the nature of your audience and the video subject, you start getting followers, opening your gates towards potentially making money.

Companies are now shifting focus to market brands via TikTok challenges and contests, where users are asked to generate brand-related content. Brands also pay TikTok users to create brand-specific promotional content.

Steps Towards Creating Money on TikTok

To make money on TikTok, you first need an account. There are no technicalities required when creating a TikTok account; just download the App from the Google Play Store, Apple Store, or any other App store depending on your device.

After you have set up your account, you will need to follow these steps to start earning;

1. Create Your Brand

The first step towards making your business successful is branding. Make your potential followers or audience know what your channel is all about. Come up with a specific idea or content you wish to distribute, and this should be aligned to the specific target audience. Make your videos specific; either entertaining, educative, or informative and maintain consistency to create a positive image. This way, you will be able to capture the attention of people or companies looking for influencer marketers. 

2. Popular Content.

As mentioned in the brand visibility, popular content is the road map to creating money on TikTok. Make your videos more entertaining, unique, fresh, interesting, and stay up to date to keep daily visits to your channel. 

Study the market and learn which content is popular and thrills the audience. This will keep you on your toes to produce the most selling content on the platform.

3. Increase Your Traffic

Produce content regularly and gain more viewership by sharing it on other social networks. On average, work on growing the number to over 10,000 followers before you can think of attracting any marketing to your channel. 

Strategizing growing your traffic to hundreds of thousands through quality and popular content, produced regularly to maintain consistency.

Perhaps you have gone through these steps and your TikTok account is looking great to start making money. As promised at the start of this article, here are the ways you can use to monetize your TikTok account:

Ways to Monetize Your TikTok Channel

1. Become an Influencer Marketer

The fact that you have tens of thousands of followers on your channel, you possess the power to influence. Most companies and brands in 2022 are shifting towards influencer marketing to reach out to their target market.

Influencer marketing has been there, but the rise in TikTok usage among the Kenyan population is redefining strategy and the way influencers will make money by producing short videos for brands. 

2. Get Sponsors

Once you have a recognized TikTok brand, your content is popular and the traffic is great, you can think of getting a sponsor for your service. This is simple, you apply for sponsorship from a company or brand seeking publicity to your audience. 

What happens here is you produce short videos in relation to the brand, share them with your audience, and get paid by the sponsor. 

3. Tap TikTok Creator Fund

This is a pool of money TikTok distributes among users in the Creator Fund. You can apply for Creator Fund if your account has at least 10,000 followers and has at least 100,000 video views in the past month. This is possible if you build your brand, produce popular videos that get high, consistent traffic. 

According to the company, the amount of money you can make from the fund depends on elements such as video views, video engagement, and adherence to the terms of service.

4. Become a TikTok Consultant

As the fastest growing social media site, many companies and brands look forward to embracing its use to reach out to target markets. Having expertise and knowledge of using the App, you are the most after-sought person to help achieve this marketing dream

You can make money by becoming a TikTok consultant for these businesses. Companies and brands are looking for individuals to create TikTok strategies, build their brands and boost traffic and engagement. 

5. Sell Products/Services

If you have a business you can produce short videos and market its products or services on TikTok. Your followers will get acquainted with your business and start placing orders. 

Another way you can make money by selling products on TikTok is through affiliate marketing. Companies and brands can pay you to mention or link a certain product in your video. When your followers buy the products using the link or code, you get a commission. 

For upcoming musicians, comedians, and tutorial makers, TikTok is the easy and fast way to make money. You can sell your videos by sharing trailers or short episodes which will push your users to make orders for the full episodes. 

Wrapping Up

TikTok is the fastest growing social media platform and easy to use. This is a great opportunity to tap into when it comes to online strategies for making money. 

Although the ways of making money from TikTok appear similar to other social media, the platform is unique based on factors such as following, traffic, convenience, and efficiency to use. 

With continued advancement and development, TikTok is becoming the next social giant in digital marketing.

While the strategies above do seem doable, be aware that it will take a lot of hard work and creativity in the initial stages of your TikTok career. The mechanics of attracting audiences is as complicated as other social media sites but so are the rewards.

If you are already using TikTok as an enthusiast for self-entertainment, then you may find it even easier to put a little more effort into building a brand that can potentially be monetizable. 

Despite the fact that we are talking about social media marketing - a relatively new form of income generation, general business principles apply when you think about making money. 

People pay for value. Whether that value is entertainment or education, your followers must see it as much for them to keep coming back and give you the audience size big enough to attract partnerships with brands. 

As such, the journey to making money on TikTok should not be taken lightly or as a little side hustle that you can dedicate sporadic times of your day to work on. 

You may do well to learn from the stories of the successful and moderately successful TikTok influencers to truly understand the extent of dedication needed to cut through all the noise and be recognized as a brand worth being associated with. 

It also means you may need to learn a little more about branding, marketing even from the traditional sense and the very elusive art of going viral. 

Good Luck!