How Does TikTok Make Money?

">how does TikTok make money is kind of confusing. However, let’s have a look at this mysterious social media platform that millions of the present generation of homemakers and influencers cannot get enough of.

What is TikTok?

TikTok can be said to be one of the world’s largest social media platforms in the present day. This new-generation platform allows millions of its users to create, watch, and share videos of 15 seconds or less through their smartphones. This app is well-known for its highly engaging content. From offering its viewers addictive short videos to help creators add background effects, custom stickers, filters, and more, TikTok users can also create duet split-screen videos with other TikTok users from across the globe.

This social media platform that was only recently launched in 2016 is recognized as one of the world’s most valuable startups. In the first quarter of 2020, TikTok had over Google Play and App Store installs of over 315 million. The Chinese-owned application is currently available in over 75 languages and 150 markets.

How does TikTok make money?

Now, let us discuss a few ways through which TikTok actually makes money. These are as follows:

• TikTok Ads: One great avenue of TikTok revenue is the June 2020 launched social media platform, TikTok For Business. Just like the social media platform YouTube, TikTok also offers paid advertisements to help some brands promote their services and products with ease. Many brands use TikTok For Business for the enhancement of their marketing solutions. They offer brand features such as brand takeovers, in-feed videos, branded effects, and hashtag challenges amongst others. Now, let us have a closer look at them all.
  • In-Feed Video Ads: These video ads are basically short-form video ads. These advertisements appear between users’ feeds. Users can simply scroll through them on the For You page. The in-feed video advertisements are quite familiar to the ads that appear in-between Instagram stories.
  • Top-View Ads: The top-view ads are basically those ads that usually pop right up just as soon as a user opens an app. These ads basically appear when a user might have hold of it. These advertisements can last for up to 60 seconds.
  • Brand Takeover Ads: Sometimes when you open the TikTok application and notice an ad immediately, this is a brand takeover ad. Most brands prefer using these kinds of ads to deliver a message as soon as they can.
  • Branded Effects: TikTokers have also been seen using custom stickers by brands. These include filters from augmented reality and the addition of better lenses to the video. Every brand effect that usually begins hard can take the benefit of branded effects that might last for over 10 days, helping users better engage or interact with them.
  • Branded Hashtag Challenges: Some brands also create their own branded hashtag challenges. They pay a genuine amount of money to TikTok to help their hashtag show up on their user’s discovery pages. TikTok users can then simply go ahead and participate in challenges, and then post specific hashtags. Thus, helping the brands create awareness.

• In-App Purchases: Just like all the other social media platforms, TikTok also generates a huge slice of its income through in-app purchases. The platform also offers 100 to 1000 virtual coins. The price of these virtual coins ranges from 99 cents to 99 dollars. This in-app currency cannot be bought by kids below 18 years of age. These coins can also be used to purchase for other fellow friends.