A USC student and TikTok star with 1.6 million followers explains the 3 main ways she earns money, and how much she makes

• Cosette Rinab is a junior at the University of Southern California and TikTok creator with 1.6 million followers.
• She splits her time between studying film and public relations for school, and growing her TikTok page.
• Rinab shared how she earns money through the app, from brand promotions, to music integrations, to livestreaming.
• She said the average rate for a sponsorship on TikTok is between $1,000 to $2,000 per 100,000 views, based on her experience and conversation with other creators.
• Click here for more BI Prime stories.

College junior Cosette Rinab has a packed schedule. When she's not attending class, or studying for an exam, she's working on her TikTok page.

TikTok, the wildly popular short-form video app, sat beside other giants, like YouTube and Instagram, on Apple's 2019 list of the top five free iPhone apps of the year. The platform is owned by the Chinese internet company ByteDance and has become one of the hottest social platforms among Generation Z.

Rinab got her start on TikTok about one year ago. Now she has 1.6 million followers and treats her account like a part-time job. She's also a full-time student at the University of Southern California.

"I found that a lot of my friends who were in college and then got involved with social media just kind of took a leave of absence from school or just dropped out completely," she said. "It's not easy to balance both of them, but I think it definitely can be done."

She told Business Insider that she's able to make it all work by dividing her week up into two parts. The first half of the week she attends classes. The second half she works on her social media, and as a freelance consultant where she helps companies learn how to use TikTok.

Rinab shared the three main ways she earns money on TikTok as a creator, and broke down the average rate creators charge per sponsorship for Business Insider.

1. Brand sponsorships

Creators can land sponsorships through TikTok's monetization team (which reaches out to creators), through a brand or agency, or from a record label. For an official TikTok campaign, such as a "Hashtag Challenge," TikTok will provide the sponsorship to the creator directly.

Rinab said she earns most of her revenue through sponsored posts on TikTok. She has a direct relationship with the company, and they will occasionally bring her sponsorships - and send her on all-expenses paid trips.

In November, TikTok sent Rinab, along with other creators, to Paris to judge the Elite Model Competition, and teach a workshop on how to be a successful creator.

Working with TikTok directly has helped Rinab expand her business and land sponsorships with brands like Bumble, Hollister, and Universal. There are also some management firms like Whalar Stars and Amp Studios that help creators land deals and opportunities, but Rinab said she currently manages her TikTok business on her own.

"I also like managing it myself and communicating with the brands directly," she said. "As much as I think it would be cool to put the weight of communicating with brands and negotiating on someone else, I think I would feel like I'm missing out, just because I enjoy doing that so much."

When negotiating with a brand for a sponsorship on TikTok, Rinab said she will sometimes offer a package deal, which includes both a TikTok video and an in-feed post or Story on Instagram.

In general, she said she'll charge "a couple thousand dollars" for a brand sponsorship, and according to other creators she's spoken to, the average rate for a sponsorship on TikTok is between $1,000 to $2,000 per 100,000 views.

Several Instagram influencers interviewed by Business Insider said creators often charge brands about $100 per 10,000 followers for a sponsored post on that platform, though brands are increasingly paying attention to metrics other than follower count as well.

Deciding on a set rate for TikTok can be tricky, Rinab said, and it's hard to pin-point one amount because as she continues to grow in views and followers, her rates change.

"Obviously the followers play a big part in it," she said. "I'm charging more at 1.5 million followers than I was at 800,000. But even so, I think the main thing that brands are looking for is the views."

Rinab tracks her TikTok analytics like views and audience demographics, and at the end of a campaign, around 24 to 48 hours later, she will send that data over to a brand to show how it performed.

"At the end of the day, they are paying for a commercial to be produced and posted on the page," she said. "It's really important to know the value in that and know what they are getting out of it, and how your time should be compensated."

2. Song integrations

Some record labels like Universal Music, Sony Music, or Warner Music will sponsor a TikTok creator when they are looking to increase the number of streams of a popular song or make a song popular again.

Rinab said she works with companies like Flighthouse, a digital entertainment brand that connects creators with music artists and pays them to a create video with a specific song.

"I'll charge a couple hundred dollars for a song, just because it's a lot easier for me to put the song in the background," she said.

In comparison, Salina, a popular TikTok creator with 1 million followers, told Business Insider that she charges around $200 for a song integration.

David White, the head of influencer management at the digital-talent-management firm Whalar Stars, said the factors considered when pricing a TikTok campaign generally are the creator's audience size, commercial licensing, brand exclusivity, and campaign scope. He said an audio integration for a record label was priced significantly less than an official brand sponsorship.

3. Livestreaming

Engaging with her audience by posting frequently, and interacting with them through livestreams is one of the techniques that's helped Rinab grow her following online, she said.

During a livestream, followers on TikTok can send a creator virtual "gifts" that they can purchase for various amounts of "coins" (coins can be bought by users in packs starting at 100 for $0.99).

TikTok users use cash to buy "coins," which they can then use to purchase virtual "gifts." Once they give the "gifts" to the livestreamer, those "gifts" are then converted into "diamonds." Those "diamonds" are then converted into cash for the creator, and are deposited into the creator's PayPal account.

The system for earning money through live streaming is intentionally opaque. The rate of conversion from a "diamond" to cash is "determined by ByteDance from time to time in its absolute and sole discretion," according to the company.

Rinab said that livestreaming on TikTok was a much smaller portion of her income than sponsorships.

For more on how to become a successful influencer, according to YouTube and Instagram stars, check out these Business Insider Prime posts:

• Instagram influencers explain the top 4 ways they earn money - and which is the most lucrative: We spoke with four Instagram influencers - Caitlin Patton, Jehava Brown, Katy Bellotte, and Julia Engel - about their digital businesses.

• A YouTube creator explained the strategy that earned him $400,000 last year: Kevin David, a YouTube creator and entrepreneur with 838,000 subscribers, earned over $400,000 from Google AdSense in 2019. He told us how.

• How much money YouTube paid a creator for 28 million views - on a video about snakes: Brian Barczyk broke down how much money he earned on his most popular YouTube video, which has 28 million views.