On TikTok, Americans often follow people who have a strong social media presence. These people are often referred to as “influencers” or “content creators,” though they rarely use either term to describe themselves on the platform itself. Creator accounts make up about half of all accounts that U.S. TikTok users follow.
Here is what our research tells us about the content creators U.S. adults follow on TikTok. In this analysis, creator accounts are those with at least 5,000 followers whose owners attain their following primarily through social media rather than offline fame.
U.S. adults on TikTok follow creators with varying levels of popularity
Some creators on TikTok have amassed millions of followers on the platform. But these so-called “mega influencers” are not a dominant share of all creator accounts Americans follow.
Just 10% of creator accounts that U.S. adults follow on TikTok have more than 1 million followers. A similar share (11%) have 5,000 to 9,999 followers – the smallest account size we measured.
The single largest share of creator accounts is those with 50,000 to 499,999 followers. This group makes up 42% of the creator accounts Americans follow.
The most popular creators tend to publish longer posts and post more often
TikTok creators with different follower counts tend to have very different posting habits. Creators with more followers tend to:
- Post more content. The typical (median) creator with 1 million or more followers has produced 777 posts over the life of their account. That compares with just 154 posts for the typical creator with fewer than 10,000 followers.
- Post more regularly. The most popular creators post multiple times per week on average, while the least popular accounts only post around once per week.
- Produce longer posts – 39 seconds on average for the most popular accounts, compared with 21 seconds for the least popular.
- Talk more in their videos. Four-in-ten posts from the most popular creators contain speech, compared with 20% from the least popular creators. (Posts without speech are silent or contain music with no spoken narration.)
Popular creators share more promotional content, talk less about news and politics
Posts about entertainment and humorous content are common among creators with all sizes of followings. But the most-followed creators are especially likely to post about these topics.
Similarly, posts that promote goods and services are much more common among the most-followed accounts.
Conversely, creators tend to post less about news on current events and politics as their follower count grows.
Popular creators are more likely to include links in their account bio
The vast majority of creators U.S. adults follow on TikTok (94%) have filled out their bio description on the site, and more than half of these accounts (58%) include a link of some kind there. Some 82% of the most popular accounts include a link on their profile, compared with 33% of the least popular accounts.
By far the most common domain in these links is Linktree, a service that consolidates users’ various online resources into a single link. Linktree accounts for 34% of all links creators put on their bio. Other relatively common domains include YouTube (7% of all links in creator bios), Beacons.ai (5%), Amazon (3%) and Instagram (2%).
Most creators and influencers don’t describe themselves this way on TikTok
Terms like ‘creator’ and ‘influencer’ are commonly used to describe the accounts included in this analysis. But most creators don’t identify themselves using these terms, at least not on TikTok itself. Fewer than 1% of these accounts use either term in their account bio.
Among those who do use these terms in their bio, “creator” appears twice as often as “influencer.” This preference holds for accounts of all following sizes.
