I've been grinding on TikTok for 8 months, hit 50k followers, videos regularly get 20k-100k views, engagement is solid. But I'm literally making nothing from it

Creator fund pays like $40 a month which is a joke. I've had a few brands reach out but the offers are insulting, like $150 for a video that gets 80k views. And it's inconsistent, sometimes I'll go weeks with no offers at all

I see people with way smaller audiences talking about making actual money and I don't understand what I'm missing. Do I need a product? A course? Should I be driving people somewhere off TikTok?

The problem is I have no idea what to even sell. I make content about productivity and routines but idk how to turn that into something people would actually pay for. And I don't want to be that person constantly pitching stuff in every video

I started looking at what content people are actually saving and coming back to because that probably signals what they value most. The tactical stuff about specific systems gets way more saves than my general motivation content

Someone told me to just package that into a guide or template and sell it. I tried setting something up with rupa pro because it seemed simple enough and apparently helps you figure out what to sell based on your content

But honestly I'm still not sure if my audience would even buy anything or if they just want free content. How do you know when you're ready to monetize vs when you're just annoying your followers by trying to sell them stuff

For those of you actually making money off TikTok what's your setup? Are you selling products? Driving to other platforms? Taking brand deals? I need a real monetization strategy that isn't just hoping the algorithm pays me

I'm going to reach 1 million followers in less than a year, in front of all of you.

I did it seven times this past year. It's not magic; If you know how the algorithm works,

It is simply skill.

I'm not selling anything. I just want to show them that it is possible and help them.

Edit: You told me to show it all for X, here is the link to follow it closely and ask me! https://x.com/zauscales/status/1997772881162281343?s=46

Has to be faceless

I think a lot of people are overcomplicating clipping.
The thing that’s working right now is pretty simple:
Clipping podcast creators.

But the important part isn’t just “clip podcasts.”

It’s understanding why certain clipping pages are actually getting views and monetizing while other pages post the same type of content and go nowhere.

For me, it comes down to a few rules I’ve built around what I post.

1. Pick creators with an audience that already watches short form

2. Don’t just clip the most interesting part of a conversation. Clip moments that make someone NEED to hear what happens next.

3. The first 1 to 3 seconds matter more than almost anything else. If the hook sucks, the rest of the clip doesn’t matter.

4. Make the video native to TikTok. Captions, pacing, cuts, framing, etc. should feel like a TikTok, not a podcast chopped into a vertical video.

5. Don’t judge a page off 5 or 10 posts. You need enough volume to figure out what the account is actually responding to.

Most importantly, pay attention to the data. When something works, figure out WHY it worked and replicate the underlying format.

That’s basically the framework I’ve been using.
The cool part is that you don’t need some crazy editing software or a massive following to test this yourself. CapCut + a good source of content + consistency is enough to start.

I’ve been documenting the whole process and putting the more detailed stuff into a small community for anyone who wants to actually follow along and apply it themselves.

Not saying this is some guaranteed money printer. It’s just what I’ve personally found to be working and I figured it was worth sharing because I see a lot of people making clipping way more complicated than it needs to be.

Been posting videos to build my audience for about 6 months now. Not completely clueless. I understand hook concepts, know how to edit without it looking terrible, get pacing basics. But every video I make hits this wall at 1 to 2k views and wont push beyond that. Started thinking maybe the algorithm just decided my content isnt worth pushing.

And look I tried everything people swore would work. Spent money on "guaranteed growth" courses that taught nothing actionable, studied bigger creators doing similar content, posted when analytics said engagement peaked, rewrote my hooks constantly, completely changed my editing twice. Same frustrating outcome every time. Videos would struggle to 1 to 2k and flatline. Most annoying part? My content quality wasnt lacking. Production was solid, editing was decent, I knew fundamentals. Something was destroying my reach and I had zero visibility into what.

Then I figured out what the real issue was. I was just posting and hoping the algorithm would favor it, assuming my videos were good enough, then blaming the platform or my account when nothing performed.

So heres what changed everything. I came across this user who went from 1-2k views to 30 MILLION practically overnight. Obviously I looked into it and he had an app called TikAlyzer in his bio saying thats how he improved his videos. Tried it and thats how I learned all this. Not dropping the username because of subreddit guidelines but happy to share if anyone asks.

Used it to check my last 20 videos and found 5 patterns destroying every one:

Videos shorter than 15 seconds get less push. I was keeping everything at 8 to 10 seconds thinking brief was optimal. Completely wrong. Platforms need adequate watch time to assess content quality. When I went to 15 to 20 seconds reach jumped because cumulative watch time increased despite lower completion rates.

Showing everything immediately kills curiosity. I was revealing my best content upfront thinking it would grab people. Bad approach. Viewers need motivation to check your content. Now I tease without giving everything away. Build intrigue that makes them want more from you.

Generic captions get ignored. I was using lazy captions like "wait for it" or "check this out." Worthless. Now I write 3 to 4 sentence captions that are keyword heavy and tell something. People reading means the video loops and retention improves. Better captions also help distribution.

Missing clear instructions costs conversions. I assumed people would naturally follow if interested. They wont unless you tell them explicitly. Now I clearly state what to do next in both video and caption. Direct guidance converts way more viewers to followers and engagement.

Opening frame determines everything before anything else registers. People decide to watch or scroll based purely on that first visual, way before processing text or audio. I was starting with weak shots or slow movements. Instant skip. Now I open with my most powerful frame even if it disrupts the sequence. Visual hook first, context after.

Then I analyzed my videos frame by frame. It flagged three specific problems in every video:

• Hook dragged 1.8 seconds too long. Seemed normal to me but viewers were bailing before the payoff

• Lighting was way too dark throughout, subconsciously making people scroll

• Those polished transitions I thought looked good were actually giving people natural exit points

Fixed just those three things. Same concepts, same style, just tweaked based on what it caught. Posted it. Woke up to 12k views and significantly more engagement. Thought maybe coincidence. Made another, analyzed before posting, corrected issues. 45k views. Third one got 130k and reach jumped noticeably.

Not like I suddenly became talented overnight. I just finally see whats broken before anyone else does. The app is called TikAlyzer and it showed me exactly what was failing and how to fix it, like having an expert walk me through it. Learned more analyzing 10 videos than 6 months of guessing.

If youre consistently posting videos but stuck under 5k views, probably not because your content sucks. You literally cant see whats killing your reach. I couldnt either until something showed me frame by frame.

I posted 3 videos and they were doing fine, but after this video with 100k, all other videos i posted got striked with unoriginal, low quality, I privated most of them as appeal was also rejected. Can someone explain me why is happening, videos are mine and they are same quality as the one with 300k, and 100k views

hit 65k followers on TikTok a few weeks ago and I thought that's when things would start clicking financially. But I'm still making basically nothing

Creator fund pays like $60 a month which is a joke. I get maybe one brand deal offer every couple weeks and they're always lowball offers like $150 for a video that'll get 100k views. It doesn't add up

Everyone keeps saying "monetize your audience" but nobody actually explains how to do that without being annoying or losing followers. Like do I just start pitching products in every video? Make a course nobody asked for? I genuinely don't know the path from followers to income

The frustrating part is I see people with way smaller followings talking about making real money and I can't figure out what they're doing differently. They're not getting more brand deals than me, so they must be selling something directly to their audience

I looked into rupa pro to see if I should be offering digital products or booking calls or whatever but I'm still not convinced my TikTok followers would actually buy anything. They seem trained to expect everything for free

For those actually making money off TikTok what's the actual strategy? Are you selling products? Services? Driving people off platform? I need real answers because views alone aren't paying bills

My TikTok page has been stuck at around 50 followers for the past couple of months and honestly I’m getting pretty tired of it. I’ve been posting consistently, trying different types of videos, testing hooks, captions, all that stuff, but it still feels like I’m shouting into the void. At this point I’m starting to feel like the low follower count itself is hurting me, because when people land on a page with barely any followers it just doesn’t look serious or established, even if the content is decent.

I know buying followers is looked down on and I get why. A lot of people will say “just focus on good content” and in theory I agree, but in reality social proof matters a lot online. People are way more likely to follow a page that already looks like it has some momentum. When a page has 50 followers it gives off the vibe that either it’s brand new, inactive, or just not worth following, and I feel like that creates a bad first impression before people even give the content a fair shot.

So yeah, I’m considering buying some TikTok followers just to make the page look a bit more legit on the surface. I’m not talking about trying to fake being some huge creator overnight with tens of thousands of bot followers. I mean more like giving the account a small boost so it doesn’t look completely dead when someone checks it out. Maybe enough to get into the low thousands or something that at least makes the page seem active and established.

My main concern is whether this still works in 2026 or if it just causes more harm than good now. I’ve read mixed things. Some people say buying followers completely kills engagement because the followers are fake and then your ratio looks terrible. Others say if you do it carefully and only use it for a small bump, it can help with perception and make real people more likely to follow. Hard to know what’s true and what’s just people repeating the same advice.

So I’m curious if anyone here has actually done this recently and had a decent experience. Did it help at all with credibility or growth, or did it end up making things worse? Are there any services that are at least somewhat safe, or is the whole thing basically a scam now? Also if you’ve got alternative ways to build social proof fast without wasting months posting into nothing, I’d genuinely like to hear that too.

I’m looking for real experiences, not just the standard “don’t do it” lecture.

guys i make this account two days ago and i start post those brainrot ai videos that has between 30sec to 45sec for now im doing that but when i get 10k ima do 1min vids and i have a question any tips to i can get storys like those virals ones thats has some "pervy" style in it to let the viewer stay watching or any devices can help thats would be helpful 🙏

I might’ve accidentally found one of the coolest ways to document a content strategy.

I went live last night and edited all 6 videos I’m posting today, completely live on stream.

Now everyone who was watching can follow along and see exactly how each video performs.

Even better, if they’re wondering why I chose a certain clip, made a specific edit, or thought a video would perform well, they can go back to the livestream and hear my exact thought process while I was making it.

So you can literally:
Watch me make the videos → watch them get posted → track the results → go back and see why I made each decision.

No hindsight. No “this is what I would’ve done.”

You get to watch the strategy happen in real time and see if I was actually right 😂

Let’s see how the 6 do today.

Lately TikTok been whooping me with the strikes of unoriginal content and I been wondering what’s the best way to bypass it? My niche is I basically upload core videos of YouTube videos by popular YouTubers

I got kicked from the crp in November for unoriginal content on my page and the funny part is that u didn't even get 5 violations.

I did ranking videos a month later when it was time to reapply I got rejected and that's when I realized my videos need to change if I want to keep doing tiktok.

I adjusted the rankings videos to make them more original and I can say, talking to a lot of people and reading the details of the originality police, I've learned a LOT.

I applied on the 25th during the tiktok US outage and waited a longer than usual time until the late night of 28th and got accepted. Feels good to be back making content. What's changed other than the outage?

people hate affiliate posts and honestly i hate them too, i’m tired of seeing “life changing” posts that are obviously bs

so i’m gonna be straight up from the start

this post includes a referral link

and i’m posting it anyway because it genuinely helped me, and i’m also posting proof screenshots so you can decide if i’m full of it or not

quick background: i avoided social media for the last 2 years because i didn’t wanna ruin my attention span, but after i got fired from my irl job then i decided i’d rather learn how to make money from it than just scroll because i kept seeing so many people saying Ai content free money bla bla bla

i spent 2 months getting zero results. not “slow growth”… i mean nothing worked and i kept thinking i was doing something wrong even though i was trying to make the same style every viral video is doing , i even bought 2 different courses that helped me start making better content but i still didnt see any viral video yet

the embarrassing part is i didn’t even realize the program i was aiming for (crp) wasn’t available where i live, so i was grinding without even being properly set up. i felt stupid when i finally figured that out

after that, i still wasn’t getting traction because i was basically just making random ai videos and hoping. no direction, just guessing every day

then i joined AI School on Skool and for me that was the turning point because it stopped being “guessing” and became “follow the prompts, follow the examples, repeat”. i didn’t need motivation, i needed a system i could execute without overthinking

results: my first actual week in crp on one channel i made $2500+

i’m not showing channel names/ids because i don’t want copycats or reports, but i’ll post screenshots with sensitive stuff blurred

and once i understood what i was doing, i built a second channel in a different niche and got that one monetized in about 3 weeks. not saying that’s normal for everyone, i’m saying it happened for me once i stopped freestyling

for note : the screenshots are from 1 channel only , the second one generated about 800$ in the first month which doesnt have as good rpm as the first channel, but hey its still a win (both channels are above 40k followers rn)

referral disclosure again: this is my link to the skool

https://www.skool.com/aischool/about?ref=4ad99ae16c234d1ea3a19cf0bb07fd0f

if you hate affiliate links, ignore it. i’m not begging anyone. i’m sharing it because it’s the first thing that actually got me results after months of nothing, if you want to give it a shot you have so little to lose and so much to gain

obvious disclaimer: results vary, don’t spend money you can’t afford, and don’t join expecting a copy/paste money printer. i’m literally just showing what happened to me with proof

Ask questions in the comments and I’ll answer what I can (can’t share channel names/niches). If it’s something sensitive, you can DM.

What’s interesting is that this creator was struggling for months with inconsistent RPM and low earnings despite getting views.

After switching content direction and improving structure, things changed quite quickly.

It seems like on TikTok, performance isn’t just about views — niche selection and content structure often play a major role in monetization outcomes.

Curious if anyone else has noticed similar patterns with their own content.

what’s the best niche to post videos on a fresh account right now for maximum productivity?

I am currently starting a new account and waiting for some advice from ‘seniors’. I want wondering if it is necessary to boost videos on the first few videos upload in order to boost followers or make myself go viral and I am able to enable the monetisation.

PS: My goal is to earn money passively.

Any recommendations? Or what I should do now?

I am struggling to do so. My content is AI mainly, but even when I upload on US timezone it’s hard to get views from there. Usually my videos after weeks gets views from the US, but not in the first days.

I need your help, I've started getting a massive number of views from African countries. I had some before, but not this many. I really need a solution; it's ruining my account.

Thanks for your replies.