The Wildest Ways TikTokers Have Gotten Rich — Could They Work for You?
Written by
Brooke Barley
Edited by
Zuri Anderson
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Scrolling TikTok brings joy, cringe and maybe a little jealousy. Some TikTok creators have become millionaires from their content. Anything from animal videos to cooking tutorials can bring in serious cash.
Although, some TikTokers aren’t going so traditional. Here’s a look at some wild ways TikTok creators have made money and how you can use their methods to make some money, too.
‘Sleepfluencing’
Jakey Boehm is an Australian TikToker who makes money by getting people to wake him up while he’s trying to sleep. To be specific, at night at 11:00 p.m., Boehm will go live on TikTok and whenever viewers send gifts (which translate into money for Boehm), a distracting sound or light will happen and viewers will see Boehm wake up.
Nicolas De Resbecq, marketing expert and CRO specialist at Oppizi, keeps an eye on creators to track marketing trends and noticed right away how lucrative Boehm’s livestream was.
“One month of disrupted rest translated to about $34,000 in payouts because each digital gift converts to diamonds and then to cash through TikTok’s own exchange,” Boehm explained. “The show stays cheap to run, the hook never needs editing and the audience feels in control, which drives repeat gifting.”
How it can work for you: The instant satisfaction of Boehm waking up each time viewers contribute cash creates a feedback loop. Think of things you can do where the cash viewers contribute can instantly result in you doing something they want to see.
Marketing Your Special Sauce
De Resbecq said he was also intrigued by Veronica Shaw, known on TikTok as chef.pii.
“[Shaw] blended dragon fruit and coconut cream into a neon sauce [known as Pink Sauce], showed it off in tasting clips and turned comment curiosity into direct sales at $20 a bottle,” he added.
Eventually, Dave’s Gourmet bought the rights to Pink Sauce and paid Shaw roughly $120,000 in royalties.
“Short videos fueled impulse sampling, and retail placement gave the product a second life once the hype cooled,” De Resbecq said.
How it can work for you: Do you have a special recipe or craft that is unique to you that others would pay for? Take videos of yourself interacting with that product to generate interest, then sell it through TikTok. Just make sure you follow federal and state guidelines on selling food products, as well.
Application Essay Help
When Sophie Smith was a freshman at University of Virginia, she posted on her TikTok offering to help students with their college application essay. That night, she received more than 3,000 messages asking for application assistance, and most of those messages were offering to pay her.
“I kept posting on TikTok throughout my undergraduate years — mainly through free videos explaining core college advising techniques and tips for nailing the admissions essay. By the time we graduated from college, we had helped 3,000 families get accepted into their dream school, and 86% were landing a spot at their [No. 1] choice,” Smith told GOBankingRates.
After Smith graduated, an investor called, offering her and her team $1 million to turn her TikTok service into a business.
“Beyond the fact that our business had a huge social impact piece, the investors were blown away by the fact that we could generate hundreds of leads a day through organic TikTok videos,” she said.
Smith and her team secured the investment, and she is now the full-time CEO and co-founder of the national edtech startup, College Contact.
How to make this work for you: If you have a specialized skill that you can offer to people, market it through TikTok. Smith used a Google Form initially so interested viewers could submit to her directly. This could end up leading to a business like it did for Smith, or just be a high-paying side gig.
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