How to Earn Multiple Income Streams from Today’s Fastest
Growing Social Media Platform - TikTok
TikTok began as a moderately successful
video sharing tool, but now it’s become one of the most downloaded apps in the
world.
Marketers have begun to see the potential
of the platform, and yet you still don’t hear that much about how to monetize
this new social media app.
That’s why we’re going to talk about what
TikTok is and several strategies you might use to build your audience and even
monetize this app.
Don't worry, you don’t have to lip synch
videos and put yourself out there on the app. In fact, you can stay completely
behind the camera if you wish.
You can think of TikTok as Vine’s strange
cousin that originated from China. It's an app on which you can make 15-second
funny/silly/weird videos and then add different effects and filters.
TikTok has over 500 million active monthly
users and it’s rapidly growing. Instagram’s monthly active users’ number 1
billion, which means TikTok is already halfway to equaling Instagram.
You might want to read that last sentence
again because it spells massive OPPORTUNITY for early adopters… 😊
As you can see, this is a HUGE new emerging
market of opportunity if you know how to use it to your own advantage.
Probably the most significant impediment to
TikTok marketing success has been that most marketers (and business managers)
older than 30 have never heard of the platform, leaving vast opportunities wide
open for those who take action now.
This is our TikTok marketing guide,
offering you multiple possibilities for your business to make the most of
TikTok and its young and growing audience.
One note about age of users: While the
audience is decidedly young now, I’ve already witnessed several instances of
teens and twenty-somethings getting their parents and grandparents involved.
Unlike Facebook when young people left as older
people came in, this platform might reverse that trend, with young people
leading their elders onto the platform to see their latest escapades and
creative endeavors. Time will tell.
How
Does TikTok Work?
TikTok has always been about uploading
short videos. In the beginning when it was known as Musical.ly, users uploaded
videos of themselves lip-synching to music videos. Yes, that surprisingly
caught on.
But the more talented and technically
proficient members uploaded videos of their own original content. Naturally,
these are the people who became the early influencers on the platform.
Most TikTok videos are up to 15-seconds
long, which is perfect for short attention spans and continual surfing. But you
can create and share 60-second Stories-type videos, too.
Examples of what you might find on TikTok
are new comedians performing stand-up routines, musicians playing,
skateboarders doing tricks, people pulling pranks, fashion and makeup tips,
crafters and their creations and just about anything you can think of that
holds interest for 15 seconds.
And you will also see (HINT HINT) videos
featuring people using their favorite products.
Just like YouTube, a vast number of TikTok
users are much more interested in watching videos rather than making videos.
And like YouTube, TikTokers don’t need to
follow anybody. You can simply open your app, go to your Discover page and
start playing videos. You can also search for videos on your preferred topics
by using relevant hashtags.
When you discover a channel you like, you
can check out the profile page and subscribe, much like YouTube.
Who
Uses TikTok?
We talked about this earlier and different
sources vary somewhat on this. Typically, it’s going to be Generation Z, with a
female bias (60-68%) and overwhelmingly favored by younger people.
However, I’ve found estimates that say
30-35% of users are over the age of 30, and this number is increasing.
As we said, time will tell.
TikTok has a large number of users in the
USA, India, and China, as well as other countries. And just so you know, the
Chinese version is called Douyin, while the rest of the world knows it as
TikTok.
How
Can You or Your Brand Use TikTok?
There are three main ways that brands can
do traditional marketing on TikTok. (Note: We’ll cover additional methods of
monetizing TikTok later in this article.)
1. You can create your own channel and upload relevant videos through
your channel.These videos could highlight your product, if done in an
entertaining, somewhat non-salesy manner.
2. You can work with influencers, to spread your content to a broader
audience.You might want to do a combination of running your own channel and
working with influencers to spread content to a broader audience.
3. You can pay to advertise on TikTok. These are EARLY days for TikTok
advertising, and things are changing and evolving as they roll out beta models
and test them out.
As of now, here are the types of ads that
are available, but keep in mind all of this is subject to change:
Biddable
Ads
In April 2019, TikTok launched a beta of
its “managed service platform” for biddable ads space.
There is only one ad unit: The standard in-feed
video ad.
There are three action models: CPClick,
CPM, CPView (6 seconds).
For targeting, TikTok offers age, gender,
and state-level geotargeting, and the company is promising interest,
behavioral, more granular demo targeting over time.
Brand
Takeover
This ad appears instantly when a user opens
the app, bringing your message front and center. You can then drive users to an
internal or external destination. However, the use of this format is limited to
one advertiser per day.
Branded
Lenses
Similar to lenses offered by Snapchat and
Instagram, TikTok’s branded lenses bring face filters, 3D objects, and
augmented reality (AR) to users. This brings an incredibly deep level of user
engagement.
Hashtag
Challenge
This ad campaign heavily encourages
user-generated content (UGC) by asking users to participate in a challenge,
which are immensely popular on TikTok.
This capitalizes on the users’ natural
tendency to create and share content on the platform and has a high potential
for virality. The rep partners with the brand for six days during the length of
the campaign.
For example, US talk show host Jimmy Fallon
issued a #tumbleweedchallenge. Users were challenged to upload videos showing
themselves rolling around like a tumbleweed, complete with western music. This
simple and silly challenge garnered over 8,000 submissions and more than 10.4
million engagements.
Until your brand builds up a popular TikTok
channel of its own, you might want to work with influencers to kickstart your
#hashtag challenge.
Best of all, once a #hashtag challenge is
launched on TikTok, it’s super easy for people to participate and share.
User-Generated
Content
You can create your own content to place on
your own channel, or work with influencers to encourage their followers to
create user-generated content that supports your brand.
Keep in mind that TikTok users tend to be
young. They love participating, rather than simply being passive. That’s why if
you can find a way to encourage your TikTok users to create videos of themselves
with your products, you’re likely to get a high buy-in.
A great example is the Chinese restaurant
Haidilao and a do it yourself option on their menu. Customers who selected the
DIY menu item created their own unique off-menu dish and then filmed the
experience.
Once a few patrons uploaded their culinary
attempts, others flocked to the restaurant so that they could also create their
meal and video.
Ultimately, more than 15,000 people
requested the DIY option; 2,000 ultimately uploaded videos of their creations,
and 50 million people viewed the videos.
Your goal in making content on the app is
to try and get big with it, just like any other social media platform. It's a
fairly new app so there's not a lot of seasoned creators that you have to compete
with yet.
But TikTok millionaires have already been
minted on TikTok, mainly in China, since the app got its start there.
Now this is key: As you gain a following on
TikTok, transfer that following to Instagram, YouTube and your email list.
Just to be safe, do NOT put all of your
eggs in one basket. Remember Vine? There were marketers who concentrated
exclusively on Vine, and when it disappeared, so did their followers.
Transfer your audience to different
platforms, and that way if one platform disappears, you’re still fine. Of
course, it’s highly unlikely that YouTube is going to disappear, or even
Instagram for that matter. But TikTok is still too new to say for certain that
it will still be around in 5 or 10 years.
Plus, it can be easier to monetize your
following on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook Groups and your own email list, too.
There are some folks who started on Vine
because it was easier to build an audience there. Then they transferred their
audiences to YouTube and are now millionaires. Something to think about 😊.
Influencer
Marketing
The influence marketing techniques you see
on YouTube work on TikTok, too. Choose influencers who have audiences that are
suited for your product.
And if possible, consider letting your
influencer create the content their way, because they know what their followers
like.
One of the best things about TikTok is you
or your influencer do NOT need to be the next Steven Spielberg. TikTok’s young
clientele aren’t interested in high video production values, but rather
originality and fun.
It’s best to trust your influencers to
produce their videos their way – even if it looks amateurish to you.
Let's say you start a drop shipping store.
Maybe you sell t-shirts or apparel or anything people 35 and younger might
like. This could be a golden marketing opportunity to get the right influencers
to promote your stuff.
Since TikTok is new, odds are these
influencers aren’t getting too many brand deals, so they probably won’t charge
too much for a shout out. The return on investment you could get with these
influencers could be huge.
Compilation
Videos
Here’s a money-making method that simply
involves hunting and editing videos.
People right now are creating TikTok
compilation videos that are making tremendous money on YouTube. In fact, it's
kind of mind-blowing how much people are making using this little method.
Here’s how it works: When you upload videos
to YouTube, your goal is to get a certain amount of views and subscribers that
allow you to connect your channel to Google AdSense, which then starts playing
advertisements at the beginning of your videos. You earn a percentage of the
advertisement that's being played.
People are taking a bunch of TikTok Videos
and compiling them into one video, and then uploading that new video to
YouTube.
People used to do this with Vine, and they
were doing extremely well. Of course, the problem with that is Vine no longer
exists so those channels ran out of content to post. TikTok is the new version
of that.
If you go to YouTube and search TikTok
compilation, and then filter it by view count, you’ll see videos with over 200
million views in six months.
If you do the math and figure out how much
money they're making, it gets insane. On YouTube you get paid per 1,000 views,
and how much you get paid depends on the type of content you have.
But even being super conservative with our
figuring, these top TikTok compilation videos most likely are earning well over
a hundred thousand dollars in 6 months. In fact, it might be three times that
much for the top viewed videos.
How much you earn will vary and I make no
promises, but you can certainly see the potential in this. Keep in mind that
throwing up just one video might not get you the YouTube traffic you seek. But
being consistent and continuing to put up videos will bring the traffic.
Why do people love these videos? I think
it’s because people want a quick laugh and they have short attention spans.
Each clip inside the video is going to be maybe 5 to 10 seconds, and then it’s
on to the next clip.
And when the video is over, most times the
viewer then wants to watch another compilation, and another and so on.
How to Make the Compilations?
This isn’t going to be a whole primer on
making video compilations, because frankly it’s pretty darn easy.
You choose a topic or theme for your video,
and then search TikTok for appropriate videos.
Use SaveFrom.net or a service like it to
download the videos.
And then use WeVideo.com or any software
you choose to make the videos.
Both SaveFrom and WeVideo are drop dead
easy to use, and if you do have questions, they have help sections. You can
also look on YouTube for help as well, but I don’t think you’re going to need
it.
Make it a practice to create and post at
least one video a week. Make the videos 5 to 10 minutes long and no longer.
It’s better to have many shorter videos
than a few long ones, because you’ll get more views and make more money.
If I were to convey one thing about TikTok,
it’s this: Because it’s new AND it’s growing like wildfire, get in now and just
DO something with it. Experiment and find out what works for you and your
business.
There are going to be many more ways to
monetize TikTok that haven’t even been thought of yet. You don’t always get the
chance to be in on something new and hot, but when you do get the chance, it
just makes good sense to DO something about it.
Enjoy, have fun, and watch for the
possibilities and opportunities.
They’re
everywhere!
To Your Online Success
Steven Morton
Founder-Marketing Mastermind Tips
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