{"id":199986,"date":"2025-02-18T10:53:53","date_gmt":"2025-02-18T15:53:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/?post_type=short-read&p=199986"},"modified":"2025-02-18T10:53:55","modified_gmt":"2025-02-18T15:53:55","slug":"what-we-know-about-tiktok-content-creators","status":"publish","type":"short-read","link":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/short-reads\/2025\/02\/18\/what-we-know-about-tiktok-content-creators\/","title":{"rendered":"What we know about TikTok content creators"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Influencers
Influencers make a social media video about Sponge Cake the cat in New York City’s Times Square on Jan. 19, 2025. (Kena Betancur\/AFP via Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

On TikTok, Americans often follow people who have a strong social media presence. These people are often referred to as \u201cinfluencers\u201d or \u201ccontent creators,\u201d 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<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How we did this<\/summary>\n

Pew Research Center conducted this analysis to learn more about the content creators Americans follow on TikTok, including how creators\u2019 behavior on the platform varies based on their follower count.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The data in this analysis comes from 227,946 accounts followed by a representative sample of 664 U.S. adult TikTok users who provided their account handle for research purposes and whose list of followed accounts is publicly visible on their profile. All of these users are members of American Trends Panel. Refer to our report \u201cWho U.S. Adults Follow on TikTok<\/a>\u201d for full details on how we conducted the data collection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We define a \u201ccontent creator\u201d as any account with at least 5,000 followers on TikTok whose owner\u2019s popularity is primarily due to their presence on the internet and social media. This is in contrast to an account owned by someone who has a significant level of public awareness outside of social media, such as an actor, professional athlete or politician. Of the accounts we collected, 118,358 meet these criteria. That works out to 52% of all accounts our survey respondents follow.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We identified and excluded non-creator accounts using a combination of human coding and machine classification with large language models (LLMs). For more details on how this analysis was conducted, refer to the main report methodology<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Throughout this analysis, the terms \u201ccreator,\u201d \u201ccontent creator\u201d and \u201cinfluencer\u201d are used interchangeably.<\/p>\n<\/details>\n\n\n\n

U.S. adults on TikTok follow creators with varying levels of popularity<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
\"A<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Some creators on TikTok have amassed millions of followers on the platform. But these so-called \u201cmega influencers\u201d are not a dominant share of all creator accounts Americans follow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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 \u2013 the smallest account size we measured.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The most popular creators tend to publish longer posts and post more often<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

TikTok creators with different follower counts tend to have very different posting habits. Creators with more followers tend to:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n