But for the moment, no other
platform can match TikTok’s addic-
tive grip on its ever-more-massive
audience or its ability to mobilize
consumers—sometimes in surprising
ways. And that means companies of
all sizes are looking for the answer
to the same question: How do I get
TikTok right?number of ways. They create their
own ads, interspersed in a user’s
feed, or, for a premium, they can
appear when a user first opens the
app. They sponsor hashtag chal-
lenges and use various visual and
gamification techniques provided
by TikTok. Many brands have their
own accounts, which they use to an-
nounce products, recruit employees,
augment offline ads, or just to have
a bit of fun. And many work directly
with content creators, who often
have an innate sense for how to mix
entertainment and shill. TikTok is
actively fostering this community
through its TikTok Creator Fund,
which pays a stipend to users with
at least 10,000 followers and more
than 100,000 views in the last
month, and with its Creator Mar-
ketplace, which brokers relation-
ships between brands and creators
while also providing post-campaign
analytics tools.
Top creators can earn tens of
thousands of dollars for a single
sponsored post. For brands, it’s even
more lucrative. “For every million
dollars that brands spend on influ-
encer marketing on TikTok, they’re
seeing $7.2 million in sales over the
first 90 days,” says Seth Kean, CEO
of ROI Influencer, a New York City
company that measures engagement
and sell-through across social media
platforms. “That’s 24% better than
a combination of TikTok’s peers,
which includes Facebook, Twitter,
and YouTube.” The next best per-
former, Instagram, drives $6.6 mil-
lion in sales for every million spent.
TikTok’s rivals aren’t conceding any-
thing, however. Dozens of “can’t-miss”
social media companies have disap-
peared over the years—from Myspace,
Friendster, and Google Plus, to Tum-
blr and Vine. Along with battling the
capriciousness of its own user base,
TikTok finds itself lined up against
copycat offerings and enormous war
chests. Instagram Reels has struggled
to gain traction. But Instagram
parent Facebook will surely not go
quietly. Then there’s YouTube Shorts.
In late spring, Alphabet-owned You-
Tube announced a $100 million fund
to pay creators to make content on its
would-be TikTok-killer. That’s a drop
in the bucket for the deep-pocketed
tech giant.THE TIKTOK ECONOMY