TikTok is a popular short video based social media application available on most mobile devices

TikTok has heavily evolved from its older form “Musical.ly” to become the current #2 most popular app within the iTunes Store right under Zoom. With the current impact of Coronavirus keeping most people stuck at home, video based platforms provide an escape from the monotony of isolated life, which has sky-rocketed many video based platforms into the spotlight. Many adult entertainers have been hesitant to utilize TikTok to promote because they believe the application is made for kids, and while the predecessor of TikTok was definitely heavily aimed at kids it has since blossomed into an expansive platform which features videos from multiple community types and walks of life, adult included. In addition, TikTok has very comprehensive parental controls which helps parents to keep their children from coming across explicit or offensive content. The apps built in controls are one of the most comprehensive built in controls on any current social media platform and includes many ways for parents to monitor their kids activities, including putting them into a restricted mode or a connected mode to help parents to monitor their childs watching habits. It may be a bit hard for some performers to get past the fact that there are minors on the platform but the hard reality is that there are minors on nearly every social platform that adult industry workers advertise on, so if you’re on Twitter there is no reason to not be on TikTok! Better yet, TikTok requires Safe-for-Work content, while Twitter does not!

How can I market my adult services on TikTok?

TikTok is a Safe-for-Work application which means no nudity of any kind is allowed, which includes real or implied nudity. If you get too many community guideline infringements, the app will put you in time out for amounts of time before completely banning you. The best way to make sure you can curate a good audience and traffic source on TikTok is to follow their community guidelines as closely as you can.

TikToks Community Guidelines about Adult Content:
“We do not allow sexually explicit or gratifying content on TikTok, including animated content of this nature. Sexualized content carries many risks, such as triggering legal penalties in some jurisdictions and causing harm to our users through sharing non-consensual imagery (for example, revenge porn). Also, overtly sexual content can be offensive within certain cultures. We do allow exceptions around nudity and sexually explicit content for educational, documentary, scientific, or artistic purposes. For example, content discussing or showing mastectomy scars is allowed.

Sexual exploitation
Sexual exploitation is any actual or attempted abuse of a position of vulnerability, power, or trust for sexual purposes, including but not limited to profiting monetarily, socially, or politically from the sexual exploitation of another.
Do not post:
Content that depicts, commits, or incites non-consensual sexual acts
Content that commits, promotes, or glorifies sexual solicitation or sexual objectification

Pornography and nudity involving adults
Pornography explicitly depicts sexual organs and/or activities for the purpose of sexual gratification.
Do not post:
Content that depicts sexual activities such as penetration, non-penetrative sex, or oral sex
Content that shows human genitalia, female nipples, or buttocks
Content that depicts sexual arousal
Content that depicts a sexual fetish”

After reading their guidelines, you’re probably thinking well what CAN I post? That’s easy! The performers reading this who are already active on a cam site will probably have an easy transition to the “TikTok Style” because much like camming, it’s about mixing sex appeal with having a bomb personality! If you aren’t used to live interaction and mainly stick to clips that are sex-forward, it may be a bit harder of a transition but not impossible! Remember that not all of your posts have to be promotional, and that you can build an audience based on common interests as well and if they follow you and stumble onto your promotions that it still has conversion potential! Additionally it is important to “funnel” your promotions through a Safe-for-Work landing site to help minimize the exposure to minors as well as comply with the TikTok community guidelines. Avoid using keywords that will results in immediate community guideline infringements like: OnlyFans, PornHub, Porn, Nudes, Fetish, any explicit language (ex: Cock, Dick, Tits, Boobs, etc.)

TikTok Algorithm and How to Use it to Your Advantage

TikTok is an algorithm based platform, it will display your content to people with interests in the kind of content you’re producing. While I’m not sure what kind of witchcraft or magic they do to ensure that, I know that it happens and they are very good at it. For example: if you post a twerking video, it will recommend a song about booty, and it will show it to people who like booty. Use this to your advantage and try out “like fishing.” Post a promotional video first, whether it be just talking, saying there is a new release on a platform of yours, or telling a story and directing people to the “funnel link” in your bio, and then post a second video doing some good old fashioned “like fishing.” Shake your butt, dance around, learn the trendy TikTok dances, make a “sexy face,” be a tease (but not too far! You don’t want to get banned) grab some attention with little to no promo involved and post that. It will likely circulate better due to the TikTok algorithm, watch your followers grow and profile visits grow, and along the way many people will also click on your promo video you posted right before. While this is a bit more difficult than simply doing the “like fishing” and promo combined, it helps to limit community guideline infringement (it’s much easier to submit an appeal stating you were “just dancing” when there are no outgoing links or suggestions to visit outside sides) and if you do submit an appeal and it doesn’t go through you can continue to post thirst traps and have your promo video consistently stay up. It will maximize foot traffic to your promo video! The more views it gets = the more likely it is to get recommended to more people = a bigger audience and more money making opportunity longterm.

Use trending songs/audios when you can, when songs and audios trend on TikTok they are more likely to land on the For You Page. This will once again feed into their algorithm and help more people see you. There are sex worker specific sounds on TikTok as well (like put a finger down, sex worker edition!) that you can use for your videos and people will often search these sounds to find sex workers they are interested in following. Whenever you come across a sex worker friendly audio, add it to your favorites!

Create duets with other cam models and porn performers to help increase your audience, viewers love familiar faces and creating “duet” videos with popular performers in sex work will help you to get more views as well as open up the floor to cross promotion. You can also duet your more popular thirst traps in case they get removed to help extend the longevity of their life, even doing a duet with a black screen background saying “this is the best video I’ve ever posted” will bring more attention to it.

Hashtags are fun but not necessary, and most of the “sexy” hashtags are shadowbanned and will get your account hit with a community guidelines strike faster. Long story short, if you’re hopping on a trend or doing a non-sexy thing then feel free to use the hashtags. TikTok loves cosplay, dogs, cats, games, movies, etc. Feel free to use those hashtags, but don’t tag #OnlyFans unless you are feeling self destructive.

What you NEED in your TikTok for it to blow up

The TikTok algorithm usually blesses all with a hundred or so views, but you are more likely to go viral and hit the For You Page if you make sure to have these key factors in your video.

• Good Lighting: Whether you’re outside, in your well lit bathroom, or in front of a ring light, TikTok loves well lit videos and is more likely to show your video to more viewers if the content is well lit.
• Movement: There is a reason everyone on TikTok dances, it’s because if you’re moving in your video it is generally assumed you’re doing something entertaining or exciting and you are more likely to hit the FYP!
• Timing: if you are using audio or music in your video, if your movements line up with tempo and beat it makes your video look better and get more attention.
• Show Some Skin: TikTok loves to see almost naked people, or at least the horny TikTok people do, which is who we want to see our videos anyway right? To get put on the For You Page for the horndogs of TikTok, show some skin! Model a swimsuit, show off a cosplay, “bikini hauls,” dance around in a cute little outfit, anything to accentuate your ~scantily clad~ body.
• Quality: the less pixelated the better, this is universal across most social media. People like watching people, not pixels. Unless of course, they have a MineCraft kink.
• Use Audio EVEN IF You Don’t Use the Audio: You can put a trending song or audio on your video and turn it all the way down, so that even if the point of your video is you talking you can have either ambient background music or no background music at all but it will put you in that audios video library. When viewers like an audio they will go through it to find people doing stuff that they like to it!
• Bait: when videos get interacted with they are more likely to land on the FYP. Bait comments and likes by asking people if they like your outfit, hair, song choice, etc!

Track your Success on TikTok

TikTok also allows creator accounts to track their analytics, similarly to the Instagram “business account” set up you are able to see where most of your views came from, how many likes it has, and how many shares. Using these tools you can track what style of videos are most successful for you and result in more conversions to decide what kind of content you should advertise with! You can check the analytics for your individual posts or your account as a whole. Your overall account analytics will give you insight into your video views, followers gained and lost, profile views, which of your videos are “trending” the best, the times your followers are active, the gender of your viewers, and the top territories that view your content. It will also recommend sounds that your followers have been listening to recently to help you determine what sounds you should use in your upcoming videos!

Stretch Your Content Using TikTok

The name of the game in the adult industry is trying to stretch your content as far as it will go, in this case you can use older safe for work content posted to your Instagram, Snapchat, or Twitter to generate new content on TikTok using their upload option. If you already have public social media that is video based (like Snapchat) you can save your posts there after you make them to re-post on TikTok and extend the reach for that specific piece of content.

I don’t have the option to put a link in my bio?

TikTok will automatically give you the option to put a link in your bio around the 2,000 follower mark. Focus on posting good content and getting followers so you can put a clickable link in your bio! In the meantime, you can put a “funnel link” in the written part of your bio and also watermark your videos on TikTok with your funnel link. Make sure your link has no indication of being adult industry related! Good funnel links will lead to sites with no explicit content and will either make the user verify their age or clearly indicate what the site will lead to if they continue to use it. Creating barriers and obstacles to get to the explicit content will discourage minors from finding it. Alternatively you can use a link hosting platform like LinkTree and link to explicit content that is behind a paywall so there is no risk of minors seeing your pornographic content.

Keep building and join the TikTok Creator Marketplace

The TikTok creator marketplace is the official way to monetize your TikTok account by working with brands to collaborate and receive payment for marketing on their behalf. It is generally a good idea as an adult industry working to avoid monetizing your accounts if you are planning to continue promoting your adult products, but if you are heavily funneling and also posting more personalized content that isn’t adult related you can use the boost from your “sexy” posts to reach the requirements to join the marketplace faster. To join the marketplace you need: over 100k followers on TikTok, have posted 3 videos in the past 28 days, received over 100k video likes in the past 28 days, and be at least 18 years old. You will have to apply to join the marketplace so if you do reach that level of fame on TikTok remember that it is not adult friendly and you may be better off not applying for the program or removing the traces of your adult promotions prior to applying to the program.

Should you have a back up account?

As with all non-adult friendly social media, having a back up account is highly encouraged if you have the time to upkeep it. Additionally, you can create an adult account and a personal account and cross promote them by using duets. Whatever you decide to do, if you enjoy using TikTok and if it converts to you then having a back up account can’t hurt. It’s better to be ahead of the curve and plan for a ban rather than be banned and lose all of your followers.

Does TikTok actually convert to sales?

From personal experience, yes it does. I have made over $400 on OnlyFans in less than a week of promoting on TikTok from TikTok alone (my welcome message asks where they found me, useful tip for tracking how useful social media and promotion is for you!) I have also gotten 500 more viewers on my public Snapchat account by funneling my TikTok viewers to my Snapchat account where I promote all of my services. The key to it is to make sure you’re posting content that will get a lot of views if you want crazy good results, I’ve found the key to success for me has been focusing on booty style posts because people love my butt. Find your best asset and post it! Try out trends and see what works.

TikTok viewers seem to lean heavily towards fan club style sites. The most common form of promotion on TikTok for the adult industry right now is models promoting their OnlyFans to potential customers as well as models using it to promote their services to help potential models get started by utilizing referral links to profit from it. OnlyFans is a recognizable name in mainstream media now and has become a trusted way for people to subscribe and support people, and the site has seen a massive uptick in success due to Coronavirus and many people looking to monetize their photo and video content. It is also a fantastic place to promote game streams if you also utilize sites like Twitch. This isn’t to say that you can’t advertise your clips or live cam, because you certainly can! Make sure to funnel to those sites by advertising your other social media (like Twitter) so they can know when to catch you online (and so you can hopefully use a referral link for the site that you’re camming on!)

If you aren’t in love with OnlyFans there are plenty of other adult fanclub sites that you could advertise to your followers!

Is it REALLY worth it to join TikTok? Or will I just get banned like Instagram / Snapchat?

If you break the rules, you will definitely get banned. No doubt. The biggest key to remaining on SFW social media while promoting adult services is to know where “the line” is and not to cross it. Their system seems rather forgiving as well, after about 10 community guideline infringements (of which 3 were actually repealed and reinstated) I was banned from posting for a week but I am still able to comment, like, view, and message. My community guideline infringements that were repealed (I’m sharing so you can learn how to “trick” their appeal system) is submitted an appeal on a video of me and a female friend kissing because I stated that “removing the content was homophobic.” On another video I replied to someone asking where my content is with a screenshot of my PornHub profile in the background (with no nudity or anything) and in my appeal I said “it was an edited screenshot meant to be a joke.” In another I was at a photoshoot in lingerie and I stated “it was behind the scenes at a photoshoot and not meant to be sexually engaging in any way.” If you are smart about what your post and make sure to tie in elements that you can use to defend your content as not violating the guidelines (like wearing a bikini because you’re tanning! Wearing a sports bra because you’re jogging! Shaking your butt because it’s a trending dance!) then you should have no problem with TikTok.