(2024) Foolproof ways to get sponsored on TikTok

The top earning influencers on TikTok earn between $50k and $150k for a single successful sponsorship, and with the app expected to reach 1.8 billion users soon, you may be wondering how to get TikTok sponsors so you could get a piece of that pie!

With new videos going viral every day on TikTok, more and more brands are turning to the platform as a potential source of revenue for them, through sponsored content and partnerships with influencers.

So what exactly is sponsorship on TikTok? And what steps do you need to take in order to land your first sponsorship? At Znaplink, we’ll step you through all of that and provide tips that can help you out along the way.

What is sponsorship?

Sponsorship is when a brand or business partners with an influencer to promote their content. The brand will pay the influencer to create TikTok videos involving their product or service, instead of creating a traditional advertising campaign.

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Why do brands want to invest in sponsored content?

TikTok sponsors know that consumers trust the opinion of their peers more than they trust traditional advertising. 84% of consumers will buy a product or service after they read about it on a blog, and brands use sponsored content on social media as a form of micro-blog.

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Similarly, if a brand is new or is trying to grow their presence on TikTok, using influencer marketing can increase their ‘social proof’ by aligning their brand with influencers who already have an audience that trusts them.

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What kind of sponsored content do influencers create on TikTok?

Here are some TikTok content sponsorship ideas influencers can pitch to brands.

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Hashtag challenges

Brands can utilise the ability to create hashtags by creating a branded hashtag ‘challenge’. These usually encourage users to do the ‘challenge’ and share the video with the hashtag. For example, American Eagle and their #InMyAEJeans.

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With hashtag challenges, it will often start with sponsored posts with influencers, but if the challenge is engaging enough then other TikTok users will create their own videos for it, which in turn produces free organic exposure for the brand.

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Sponsored review videos

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This is particularly common in the beauty industry, where companies will partner with beauty influencers, to create a video “reviewing” their new product. Because beauty review videos are so common, this type of video comes across quite natural and organic.

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Brands can either sponsor the video completely by paying the influencer, or for a review that seems even more organic they can just supply the influencer with their product for free, and ask the influencer to give their honest opinion.

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Jumping on trends

You can create high-engagement TikTok sponsored content by jumping on trends that have a lot of engagement and visibility. Take, for example, this sponsored influencer TikTok post by cakedbybabyk (33K) and Maybelline:

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It takes advantage of this trend that consists of blending powder and liquid foundations, piqued the audience’s interest, and introduces Maybelline into the mix.

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How many followers do you need to get sponsored on TikTok?

You may look at influencers like Charli D’Amelio with over 140 million followers and think that you would need hundreds of thousands of followers for brands to want to sponsor you, but that’s not always the case!

Most brands are focused on ‘beating the algorithm’ which means that they are trying to find a way to wind up on the For You page of their customers. One of the huge factors that the platform considers when deciding what content to push is how long viewers watched the video.

So if you have an audience that is already very engaged with your content, brands could see huge value in working with you even if you are a micro influencer with an audience between 10,000 and 20,000. The key here is to have an audience that’s read to engage with your content and therefore increase your reach.

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How do you get sponsored on TikTok?

So you know why brands want to invest in sponsored content, and you know what kind of sponsorships they might want to create, but you’re probably wondering how to get brand deals on TikTok in the first place?

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1. Build your TikTok following

To be part of the TikTok sponsorship program, you will want to have at least 10,000 followers on your TikTok account. This is because the platform is less likely to push smaller accounts, and accounts with bigger followings are more likely to have engaged audiences already. But how do you build your following?

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2. Choose a relevant niche

People like to follow accounts when they know what specific type of content they will be getting from them. By choosing a niche to always post in, you are more likely to develop a highly engaged audience who like to watch your specific type of content.

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Not only that, but if a brand is going to work with you then they want to see a history of content that you have produced around that particular topic. If you create videos about anything and everything, you won’t be able to create a good portfolio of content in your specific niche.

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3. Post 2 - 3 times a day

To create enough content to beat the algorithm you will need to post at least once or twice every day. Any less than this and the algorithm won’t push your content, because they only want to be pushing the content of creators that they know are regularly using the platform.

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4. Engage with your followers and accounts in your niche

You may be sitting there Googling “how many likes on TikTok to get paid”, but it’s about more than just likes! A more engaged audience is more likely to follow you, and likes alone don’t always translate into follows.

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If you’re trying to grow your account, make sure that you are replying to every comment that you get. Every potential follower and audience member counts, so make them feel special! At the same time, make sure that you engage with TikTok users posting similar content to yours, so that TikTok can identify you as an active member of that niche.

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5. Bring your audience across from other platforms

If you already have an engaged audience on another platform like Instagram, then you can use Znaplink to create one cohesive brand link that you can use across all of your bios. By using the auto-updating content widget, your audiences can always see your freshest content across your other platforms, encouraging them to follow you there as well.

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6. Make your profile engaging and appealing

When brands look at your profile to consider hiring you for sponsored content, they will want to see a profile that fits in with their brand image, that they believe will ‘sell’ their product. If your profile looks incomplete or unprofessional, this will be a huge turn off for them!

A good looking branded website linked in your bio can make a huge difference for brands looking to partner with you, so make sure you are using a link-in-bio platform that allows you to create a polished image for your page.

You don’t need to create your own custom website, but by having a professional looking bio, you can create a niche experience for your audience whenever they look at your page.

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7. Know your analytics inside out

Brands need cold, hard numbers to convince them to work with you. While you could scroll back through all of your TikTok videos and pull out data about how many users watched and liked your videos, sometimes it’s way easier to use an analytics tool.

This way you can track all of your videos in one glance, and be able to show potential brands a quick overview of your audience, your engagement and all of your other important analytics. If you are pitching a lot of potential clients, having this information easily accessible is critical. Znaplink allows you to connect to Google Analytics and help you understand the behavior of those visiting your page, but you also need to keep track of metrics that are important to score sponsorship deals, such as your Top posts, Engagement rate, Follower rate, Reach, Views, etc.

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8. Use your link in bio to sell for your favourite brands

If there is a brand that you love already, that you would really like to work with, you can create organic content about their products and then link away to the products using your link in bio to encourage your users to purchase.

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If your organic content is successful, then you can pull out the analytics from how many of your audience purchased the product through your link, and create a case to the business about how successful you are with selling their product.

If a company can see that you already have an audience that is engaging with and purchasing their product, they will be much more receptive to the idea of working with you.

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9. Use cold-pitching to land your first sponsored gig

Don’t wait for brands to reach out to you! If there is a brand that you think you would be a good fit with, you can approach them with a pitch for your services. Make sure you have a portfolio with examples of your content, statistics about your engagement and services that you offer with price points.

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It can be intimidating to cold-pitch for clients but the more times that you do it, the more confident you will become, and with the tips above you can feel comfortable knowing that your profile will look professional and impressive.

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Try, and try again

With all of the tips and tricks in this article, you will be ready to go out there and get your first sponsored post on TikTok. By being smart with your approach and using tools like Znaplink to create a professional link-in-bio and capture all of your analytics in one place, you’ll be signing your first brand deal in no time!

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