Social Media Marketing

Top 5 TikTok Influencers And What To Learn From Them

Team Pepper
Posted on 4/05/229 min read
Top 5 TikTok Influencers And What To Learn From Them

You have probably heard that TikTok influencers make a lot of money, which is a fact. They are a breed apart because they create fantastic videos that go viral soon after uploading them. With every viral video, top TikTok influencers add more numbers to their following, and the snowballing effect never stops. And based on the number of followers you have, the payment can vary from as low as $200 to a whopping $20,000 for each branded video.

What is TikTok?

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TikTok is a social media platform that is purely video-based. All you need to do is create your account, and you are allowed to make and share short-length videos ranging from 15 seconds to 60 seconds.

Did you know that TikTok was originally called ‘Douyin’? It is a Chinese term that translates as ‘vibrating sound’. TikTok was created in 2018 in China, grew to 184 million active monthly users by 2020, and has 740 million new users in 2021, according to Statista. However, there are thousands of creators associated with TikTok who monetize their videos.

TikTok has a built-in algorithm that analyzes the videos and measures the number of views, likes, and shares. If the numbers are high, the video goes viral, and the creator gets paid handsomely. TikTok keeps feeding such viral videos to new audiences, which only adds fuel to make the videos even more viral. This is how TikTok influencers grow and prosper, using TikTok as their platform for growth.

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Top 5 TikTok Influencers

1. Charli D’Amelio

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Charli D’Amelio leads the pack with 122 million followers worldwide. She had 100 million followers at the age of 16, and that record remains intact on TikTok today. Within months of launching her channel, Charli zoomed to the top of the chart by mesmerizing her followers with her choreographed dances. Such popularity catapulted her to gain a spot on Hype House. She also made a cameo appearance in a Super Bowl commercial. It prompted a leading talent agency to sign her up with a contract.

You can learn a few significant lessons from Charli, the queen of TikTok. Regardless of the platform you choose, you can quickly be affected by user saturation unless you start thinking differently. At 15, D’Amelio created her TikTok account, but she did not follow what was trending then – lip-synching and prank videos. Instead, D’Amelio created short dance videos, like the high-energy renegade to the song ‘Lottery’, which became an instant hit.

The trick to her success probably lies in her seemingly effortless dancing highlighting synching facial expressions and hand movements. There is so much engaging content on the internet that piggybacking on it doesn’t make sense. To stand out in the crowd, D’Amelio did something different, which is the key to her success.

2. Loren Gray

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The American TikTok star Loren Gray is a singer and one of the most famous TikTok influencers today. With 53.6 million followers, she has carved a unique space for herself through her lip-sync videos and dance videos that have gone viral. Her success with TikTok led to a feature appearance in Taylor Swift’s music video ‘The Man’. She also signed lucrative deals with Burger King, Hyundai, Sketchers, and Revlon.

Gray started on Musical.ly like most other TikTok stars, and success didn’t come to her easily. Even though she was not using TikTok as her primary platform, she increased her following significantly thanks to the videos she created and posted on Instagram using TikTok. The same videos were featured on musical.ly and went viral, but not without repercussions. She was bullied in school and had to be home-tutored. She lost hope and almost gave up, but for a young fan who encouraged her to keep going. Her never-give-up attitude is the lesson future TikTokers can learn from her.

3. Rodrigo Contreras

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Rodrigo Contreras, the Mexican dancer, is one of the leading TikTok influencers with a following of 53.6 million fans. His full name is Rodrigo Alonso Contreras Gonzalez, and his close friends and family call him ‘Chapito’. A soccer player since the age of 13, Contreras is good at lip-sync dancing, which made him one of the top TikTok influencers.

His popularity grew, and he was declared the Favourite TikToker at the 2020 Kids Choice Awards in Mexico. Contreras endorses several leading brands, and several leading TikTok influencers collaborate with him on projects.

You can learn how to get a billion likes on TikTok by following Contreras closely because he achieved this at a very young age. Despite the raging COVID, Contreras went on performing in public without a mask or taking other precautions. However, he has proved that you can be a soccer player and be popular on TikTok for a different reason. He has also signed up with Raw Talent, a talent agency. His girlfriend, Domelipa, has also signed up with Raw Talent.

4. Naim Darrechi

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Naim Darrechi has a great sense of humor and is a comedian besides being a lip-sync dancer. His lip-sync dance videos on TikTok are so famous that he is considered one of the most popular TikTok influencers, as he enjoys a fan following of 26.8 million. He is also a member of Prive Crew, a creative collective that has short-form content creators as its members. Prive Crew has a huge fan following, and several TikTok influencers have signed up with it.

The best lesson you can learn from Darrechi is that you should never miss a trending opportunity because social media is more about what’s trending currently. Moreover, you’ll learn that context is as important as the content, there are no geographical or cultural barriers, and the TikTok community has a distinct cultural identity. As evident from his popular videos, Darrechi has proven that visual stories are integral to success.

5. Sameeksha Sud

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Sameeksha Sud is an Indian doing comedy sketches on TikTok. She used to be an actress on TV serials before becoming one of the most popular TikTok influencers. She also does lip-sync videos based on popular movies and music. Sud has an impressive following of 24.5 million, and her following is growing continuously.

Success hasn’t gone to Sud’s head, and a sizeable portion of her earnings is set aside for her philanthropic work. Sud also believes in collaborating with her peers like Vishal Pandey and Bhavin Bhanushali to create YouTube videos and post them on their channel Teentigada, which enjoys an incredible 4 billion views. You can learn how to become an entrepreneur when you closely follow Sud’s activities.

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How to Become One of the Best TikTok Influencers?

TikTok has emerged as one of the top social entertainment mediums that helps you monetize your video content. TikTok influencers can generate huge revenues from it. Most of this revenue is generated by related ads and sponsorships. Hence, anyone following a few specific steps can aspire to become one of the best TikTok influencers.

1. Create a niche

The first step to becoming one of the top influencers on TikTok is identifying your area of interest and creating a niche. Once you have decided on the niche, it is time to research intensely and gain complete mastery in the niche. Based on this, you can create exciting, engaging content. Once followers recognize that you have expertise in your domain, they will like and share your content, which will help increase your following. You need to ask yourself:

● Can you create content on the same topic continuously?

● Is it an area that interests you so much that you will do it even without being paid?

● Are you helpful by nature and want to help people resolve their problems?

● Do you have the capacity to master skills that become solutions to challenges?

If the answer is ‘yes’ to all the above questions, you may want to explore domains like:

● Travel

● Beauty

● Parenthood

● Fashion

● Music

● Dance

● Memes

● Humour

● Finance

● Gaming

● Relationships

2. Create a distinctive TikTok profile

On TikTok, you can achieve success as a brand or a creator. However, if you want to become one of the top TikTok influencers, you must open a creator account first. If you are a brand, you must create a business account with TikTok.

Once you have created a relevant account, you can go ahead and set up your profile, which must include:

● Your Bio

● A profile photo

● A profile video

Creating an attractive profile increases the chances of adding more followers. Most people get impressed by a good personality with striking looks.

3. Know your target audience

To engage your target audience, you need to create unique, exciting content. When the content is compulsive, the following is guaranteed. Also, distinctly presenting content makes all the difference. You must first understand your audience well before building your content strategy. Look at the other trending posts and compare them to check if your follower base would want the same. That’s the trick to creating engaging content.

4. Look at your competitors

You can learn a lot from your competitors. Studying them gives you insights into what is trending in the market currently. Check out the existing influencers working with competing brands, and analyze their posts to determine:

● The type of content they post most

● The posts that get the maximum likes and shares

● What’s missing in their posts, and how to add the missing link

The above observations can help you create engaging and unique content that is more likely to go viral.

5. Create a robust content strategy

Timing is crucial for TikTok influencer marketing as your posts are viewed only if they are posted at the appropriate time. If you are good, your audience will wait for the time when your posts appear.

● Post your content randomly in the beginning.

● Check the posts that are viewed more and note the timings.

● Also, ensure that your content is original and full of innovative ideas to make it more engaging. Add a personal touch to your posts with anecdotes relating to you and your friends or family. Add variety to your content to ensure that it never gets boring.

● Adding trending hashtags to your posts ensures better visibility. TikTok’s discover page will give you more information about the trending Hashtags.

● Adding some fun elements to your content helps reach new audiences, and you may also add trending songs to attract more people.

Benefits of TikTok Influencer Marketing

Today, it has become crucial for brands to have a presence on TikTok with influencers endorsing their brands. TikTok influencers can sway their followers the way they want them to, and brands stand to gain immense benefits accruing out of such a blind following. You need to create videos using popular audio clips, including the trending Hashtags, and post them on TikTok.

When you have the best TikTok influencers as part of your marketing strategy, you can present your brand and product in front of a huge captive audience, and the potential to gain new customers also exists. When you have the right influencers on TikTok, you can be assured that your brand and product are exposed to the appropriate audience from your niche. TikTok is here to stay and is a part of social media; hence taking advantage is a smart move for marketers.

Top TikTok influencers have the liberty to link their bios to their YouTube channels or even to your brand’s Instagram accounts. TikTok influencers can easily direct their followers from TikTok to other social media platforms like YouTube, Facebook, or Instagram. Brands must take advantage of such opportunities to popularise their products using famous TikTok influencers.

Several top TikTok influencers love throwing challenges to their following. With challenges being a rage on the TikTok platform, users can easily create a challenge related to a particular product. Challenges of this kind are bound to go viral in no time at all, and brands can take advantage of such opportunities to establish their brand voice in the market and generate thousands of conversions in one go.

The influencers listed above are only a part of a longer list. Several other influencers have a huge fan following, so go for someone who fits your budget and brand ideology.

FAQs

1. Who is the most influential influencer on TikTok?

Among the many top TikTok influencers is Loren Gray, the most influential, with 38 million followers. Not a very close second is Ariel Martin, with 29 million followers. Kristen Hancher, Riyaz Ali, and Gil Croes are neck-to-neck with 23 million followers on TikTok.

2. Who is the most famous influencer on TikTok?

According to Statista, Dancer Charli D’ Amelio is the most famous of current TikTok content creators, with 136.6 million followers worldwide as of February 2022. She was called the queen of TikTok by The New York Times.

3. Is the automated narrator’s voice on TikTok real?

The automated narrator’s voice on TikTok belongs to Beverly Standing, a Canadian national. She has lent her voice to thousands of videos for the text-to-voice feature on TikTok. Although the narratives sound like a computer-generated voice, it belongs to Standing.

4. How can I become an influencer on TikTok?

The TikTok app manages a partnership program known as TikTok Creator Fund, and you get paid if you are an eligible TikToker for any of their videos. However, your chances of becoming one of the TikTok influencers are better if you collaborate with one of the leading brands in the market. Of course, you must first create an account on TikTok and try to get as many followers as you can. The next step is creating a niche, which can be any area you are interested in and passionate about.

5. How much can I earn as a TikTok influencer?

There is no limit to your earnings as an influencer on TikTok. According to reports from Forbes, you can earn anywhere between $100,000 and $250,000 through branded videos. There are star influencers who easily make $500,000 from a single post. The important thing is that your video must go viral, and the more the views and shares, the better you are known as a TikToker.