Please read this section with these questions:
1. How many ways do individuals or small entrepreneurial teams monetize on TikTok?
2. What is the difference between the first type of knowledge payment and the third type of knowledge payment?
3. If you are an individual entrepreneur, which way of monetization would you choose?
Traditional cross-border e-commerce requires start-up capital and a professional team to do it, just like running a business in China. But with the rise of domestic Douyin, more and more ordinary people have become Internet celebrities, allowing more people to know themselves and make money from it. Many people have seen a new way out for individual entrepreneurship. So when the international Douyin TikTok rose, many individual entrepreneurs or small start-up teams also hoped to join TikTok, and TikTok does have many ways to monetize for this group of people. I divide them into three categories: monetization of talent internet celebrities, monetization of short videos + live streaming and service providers, agent operation, and knowledge payment monetization.
1. Monetization path of talent internet celebrities
The accounts of talent internet celebrities have a strong personal IP color, and the focus is to highlight you as a person. The video format and theme are diverse, which can be talent, comedy, pet, fitness, knowledge, drama, emotion, personal display, etc. As long as you have your own style and skills and can be liked by fans, it’s fine.
It is easier to start this type of account than a pure merchant with goods account, because users are more likely to follow a real person rather than a merchant brand account, and are more willing to interact and chat with real people, and there is still a lot of creative space in the content. However, the monetization of such accounts will also be limited, because when fans first followed you, they did not think about spending money to buy things from you. The monetization link is longer and more indirect than that of merchant accounts.
There are usually five ways for influencers to monetize.
1. Creator Fund
As I mentioned in Chapter 1, the Creator Fund is a bonus pool set up by TikTok to encourage high-quality creators. After reaching the threshold of the number of fans and the number of views, you can apply for it. However, the policy of the Creator Fund will change according to the needs and development of the platform. If you only rely on this method, the amount of monetization will be very limited. Because we cannot influence the platform policy, if the amount is getting smaller and smaller, or it is simply cancelled, then your situation will be very passive.
So my suggestion is that you can use it as a supplementary monetization method. Focus on other monetization methods. If you happen to meet the standards of the Creator Fund, you can collect it by the way, but don’t use it as the only way to monetize.
2. Live Rewards
The logic of TikTok live rewards is the same as that of domestic live broadcast platforms. If fans like the live broadcast, they will give gifts to the anchor. This path is not easy for most people because it requires high personal performance and language skills, and requires the anchor to bring continuous emotional value to fans.
I once talked with a domestic Douyin big V about the way to make money through live broadcast rewards on Douyin. He said to me: “In fact, I don’t recommend that influencers take this path. Without making some ‘sacrifices’, you can’t expect to get fans to pay through the screen. Even if you really make money in this way, the anchor’s mentality will change. I have seen many Internet celebrities who changed their consumption concepts and lifestyles after receiving hundreds of thousands of yuan in rewards overnight. But when they can’t maintain this kind of income, the whole person collapses and can no longer make money down to earth.”
This is the perspective given by someone who has been working on Douyin in China for many years. Although it cannot represent everyone, it can give us inspiration and thinking. You can still choose to be a fitness anchor, travel anchor, food anchor, or knowledge anchor on TikTok to get rewards from fans, but before choosing, you must first consider the pros and cons of this path.
3. Accept advertisements
This is one of the main ways for TikTok influencers to realize their own income. Its essence is to become a marketing channel for merchants. In order to promote their products or independent websites, many merchants will set up a special department to promote influencers. I have also set up an influencer promotion department in my company, and the number of people can be compared with that of the live broadcast department.
After you build up your account and become an influential influencer, many merchants will take the initiative to talk to you about cooperation. There are many ways. The most common one is to send you a product and ask you to record an unboxing video and use experience, plus some words to recommend the product. The merchant will pay you the corresponding advertising fee, and some will also have a sales commission. Generally speaking, small influencers are charged according to how much money each video is, and big influencers are charged according to the number of seconds of the video. Top influencers will have an agency team to specially screen and handle these cooperations. Small influencers will discuss the details with merchants in person.
This method of monetization is sustainable, which is equivalent to recommending good things to your fans, which is what we often call “planting grass”. You can promote products throughout a whole video, or you can insert product promotion into a certain link in the work. These are details that can be discussed with the merchant.
If you choose to monetize in this way, you need to pay attention to the following issues.
First, you must strictly screen the products. After receiving the product, use your own standards to evaluate it: How is the product quality? How is the price-performance ratio? How is the service? Are the ingredients safe? How is the effect? And so on. We must do a good job of screening for our fans. If the things they buy back based on their trust in you are terrible, or even have safety issues, it will be a heavy blow to you and this account.
Second, if you are starting with this monetization path, you cannot blindly choose the content track, but first analyze the country or region where your account is located, as well as which categories of products have high sales, which categories of product merchants like to find Internet celebrities to promote, which track merchants are willing to give you higher commissions, which products are easier to bring sales, etc., and then determine a fan portrait interval, and then consider what content you can create to attract these people to become your fans. Using this end-to-beginning way of thinking to start an account, doing the same thing, the commercial value will be much higher than other accounts.
4. Game experts
You may have played games such as “Save the Dog” and “Brain Burning for All” on Douyin in China, and you can often see experts posting videos of playing a certain level of these games on their accounts. This method is game recommendation experts. The same is true on TikTok. You can play games that businesses are willing to pay for promotion, record the process, select the exciting and interesting parts, edit and dub, and upload them to your account. Once fans are interested, they click to download and recharge, and you can get the corresponding commission and commission according to the rules.
This method has a short monetization path and low operation difficulty, which is very suitable for individuals or two-person teams. Many game recommendation experts can realize monetization quickly. However, this monetization path also has a ceiling, that is, the monetization amount is very limited, and this type of account is not easy to take into account the previous three monetization methods at the same time, so you can make some pocket money from it, but it is difficult to get rich.
5. Knowledge payment and services of experts
There are many knowledge payment services on Douyin in China and they are very mature, but TikTok is not much in this area at present, which is an opportunity and a challenge for us. I have incubated several students who do paid knowledge on TikTok. Their current monetization is very impressive, ranging from more than $1,000 to $8,000 per month. You may wonder how Chinese people can monetize paid knowledge for foreigners. Let me give you a few examples to experience it. For example, one of my students is a Chinese teacher for foreigners. She teaches foreigners to learn Chinese on TikTok. She shoots simple vocabulary pronunciation videos every day, with subtitles and pronunciation. Each video explains a Chinese vocabulary, and the duration is about 20 seconds. She puts the purchase link of the course on TikTok, and at the end of each video, she guides users to click on the homepage link to purchase her Chinese course. The logic is very simple, just like foreigners teaching English on Douyin in China. At this time, our Chinese identity and face can help us gain the trust and recognition of fans more easily. In addition, she is one of the earliest bloggers to enter this track. Many fans are willing to pay for this course. She has also built her own small team, making money while trying to improve the quality of her short videos and courses.
Not only teaching foreigners to speak Chinese, but also some skill-based courses, such as fitness, magic, painting, handicrafts, etc. As long as you can complete the recording of videos and English courses, you can try this path.
The above are the five monetization paths and corresponding pros and cons that can be chosen as a celebrity account. If you are a celebrity on Douyin in China and are proficient in the monetization of domestic celebrity accounts, it is relatively easy to copy them on TikTok.
Tips
You can freely combine the above five monetization methods according to your account needs, or use them at the same time.
2. Short video + live streaming to bring goods to monetize
It will be more tiring for individuals or small teams to take this path than for large companies. It also requires higher learning and iteration capabilities for executives. I mentioned in Chapters 4 and 5 that both short videos and live streaming require theoretical knowledge and repeated practice. This will put more pressure on teams with fewer people and less budget. However, small teams are more flexible and mobile, with shorter trial and error links, and can often achieve results that large companies cannot achieve in a short period of time. I have coached a small team with only two young men. They have very strong learning abilities and can’t wait to practice what they have learned. It only took them 9 days to complete product selection, website building, account setting, short video operation, and other tasks, and conducted their first TikTok live broadcast.
If you choose this path, you must be prepared for high-intensity learning and fighting day and night. Because this path is not as simple as you think. Take product selection and supply chain as an example (this is also a phenomenon we often encounter): If you go to the manufacturer to negotiate the price and policy (such as stocking), it will definitely be more expensive, slower, and worse than the big company. Even if your traffic explodes and orders come, if you can’t ship, it will lead to a large number of refunds, complaints and bad reviews, plus being reported by users for fraud, resulting in the account being blocked, and the whole paralysis will be troublesome.
So, this road can be taken, but you must be fully prepared before going. If the overall strength is not strong enough, try to choose a simple and light route.
3. Service providers, agent operations, and knowledge payment realization paths
If the path of realizing your own account is called “mining”, then being a service provider, agent operation, and knowledge payment is “selling shovels”, helping these “miners” polish their tools, guide the direction, and lend them a helping hand.
1. Service providers
Common services provided by service providers include outsourcing of video shooting and editing, live broadcast room construction, overseas company registration and other services. It takes a lot of time to explore these processes by yourself, and you may fall into a pit if you are not careful. Finding a professional service provider can solve these problems quickly and well.
If you want to do this business, you also need to run the entire TikTok ecosystem and keep the latest information status, so that you can provide customers with the most effective service quickly and accurately.
2. Agent operation
Agent operation is to outsource the short video or live broadcast part of TikTok as a whole, and pay according to time or effect. The advantage of agent operation is that the risk of the entire project is not on your side, but on the demand side. However, the requirements for your ability are also higher than those of ordinary TikTok entrepreneurs. Because providing services must involve word of mouth and cases, if you don’t know enough about the entire TikTok ecosystem and don’t have multiple practical experience, you will fail if you help others to operate on behalf of others. Even if you don’t lose your principal and earn service fees, your reputation in the industry will decline, causing losses and obstacles in future business development. If you have many successful cases in agency operation, not only will customers continue to flow, but you will also have a high premium space and the right to choose high-quality customers.
3. Knowledge payment
The knowledge payment mentioned here refers to teaching users who don’t know how to do TikTok (mostly Chinese) how to do TikTok. There are already many training courses and TikTok IPs on the market, and their existence has ignited the interest of more people in learning TikTok. If you also want to be one of them, you must consolidate your foundation. While doing course training, you must have a real TikTok project in your hands that operates according to your logic. Talk about what you do, do what you say, and integrate knowledge and action.
This route of selling “shovels” is a good choice. We sell “shovels” at the price. Whether users can dig up good things depends on themselves. But there is also a big pit here: [Pit 17] Time resource allocation. You need to spend a lot of time to learn and practice TikTok, so that you can have the ability to “sell shovels”, otherwise it will be a “sickle”. But if you really practice and get results, will you still have time to sell “shovels”? It may be difficult, and a lot of business matters will make you unable to extricate yourself.
For this problem, my suggestion is: focus on business in the first few years and get results; then use one business as a benchmark to develop related businesses, summarize the common underlying logic, and cultivate multiple project operators and main operators at the same time (this must be a painstaking process); then hand over the company’s daily operations to the operators, and do this content as a consultant. But it’s easy to say, but it’s still very difficult to really do it. We must not forget our original intentions on this road.
There are many ways for individual entrepreneurs or small team entrepreneurs to do well in TikTok. In addition to the ones I mentioned above, new methods will surely emerge in the future. If you have a better method, please add it to the discussion.