TikTok offers Musicians new ways to make money and grow an audience

TikTok is under fire from Congress, music publishers, and the world’s largest music group, but it’s battling back on multiple fronts. In addition to asking users to call their Representatives, its trying to keep creators happy by offering them new ways to monetize content and grow on the platform.

by Bobby Owsinski of Music 3.0

TikTok – love it or hate it, but either way it’s a social force to be reckoned with. While music artists that use the platform hope for viral success, they’re not actually going to make much money from TikTok itself – most comes from users following up on the artist music and merch on other platforms. We’ll keep the discussion about Universal Music pulling its music from the platform to a minimum for now, since that only applies if you’re signed to that label, but most artists want to at least try the platform.

Monetizing Your Content

TikTok is very aware that its growth has slowed recently, and that advertisers are beginning to pull back. It knows that the only way it can grow is to make keep creators happy, and that means help them make money on the platform, or else they’ll leave for YouTube and Shorts.

As a result, TikTok is now enabling all creators to offer subscription packages to followers to boost both their revenue and the platform’s. This feature will initially be available by invite-only, but eligible creators will also be able to sign up to gain access in the near future.

The company is also bringing its Creativity Program out of beta and renaming it the Creator Rewards Program. This is another way for creators to make money from the platform, thus keeping them from moving to somewhere else online potentially more lucrative. It does have some stringent user requirements though, like having at least 10,000 followers and at least 100,000 views in the last 30 days.

But There’s Legislation

That said, many U.S. creators are afraid to go all-in on TikTok since there are various pieces of legislation pending around the country that will either ban or curb its use, the latest being a bipartisan bill in the Senate that would ban the app altogether. Some of this is built around the fact that many believe that the app (and all social media for that matter) is psychologically harmful to teens and pre-teens, but also for national security reasons. This is because TikTok’s parent company ByteDance is based in China and owned in part by the Chinese government.

So it all depends on how you look at it. These can be potentially exciting times for creators who might finally make some real money from TikTok, or a caution flag to wait to see if we’ll actually have access to the platform in the future.

Bobby Owsinski is a producer/engineer, author, blogger, podcaster, and coach. He has authored 24 books on recording, music, the music business and social media.