TikTok is sharpening its focus on the commercial opportunities emerging from South Africa’s creator economy, positioning its platform as a link between creators, brands, communities and customers.
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Speaking at a recent TikTok360 event in South Africa, Itumeleng Morule, communications lead for TikTok South Africa, outlined how the platform is evolving beyond entertainment to support creators building careers and businesses, while giving brands new ways to connect with audiences.
A key part of that proposition is TikTok One, the platform’s business solution designed to connect brands with creators and support collaboration around marketing campaigns.
For TikTok, the opportunity is increasingly about connecting the different parts of its ecosystem — from content discovery and community-building to creator partnerships and brand growth.
From entertainment to business opportunity
“At the heart of it, TikTok is an entertainment platform powered by an active and creative community,” said Morule.
She said that while users may come to TikTok primarily for entertainment, discovery often leads them somewhere else.
“Often you open a platform for entertainment, you accidentally also learn something new along the way,” she said.
That discovery extends across categories including music, humour, food, books, gaming, sport, anime and lifestyle, as well as broader social conversations.
Morule said this diversity creates opportunities for users to express themselves and for creators to build communities around their interests.
More importantly for businesses, those communities can become commercial ecosystems.
Morule highlighted the way creators are increasingly turning their audiences and expertise into careers, businesses and new customer opportunities.
TikTok One connects creators with brands
This is where TikTok One becomes an important part of the platform's business proposition.
The solution provides a more structured way for brands to identify and collaborate with creators, bringing creator marketing further into the mainstream marketing toolkit.
Rather than treating creators simply as an additional advertising channel, TikTok is positioning them as partners who can help brands develop content and reach communities around specific interests.
For South African marketers, that can be particularly relevant in categories where cultural context, local storytelling and creator credibility influence how audiences engage with brands.
Morule said TikTok's objective is to help businesses understand how its solutions can support their marketing goals, while creating opportunities for creators to turn creativity into partnerships and income.
The launch of TikTok One in South Africa therefore adds a commercial layer to an ecosystem that has already produced creators who have built businesses and careers from their audiences.
Creators turning audiences into businesses
Morule pointed to several South African creators as examples of the different pathways emerging from the platform.
Jade Oliver, known as Afrolisha on the platform, built her community by documenting her natural hair journey and subsequently launched her own haircare business. She was named Africa Rising Creator of the Year at TikTok's 2023 awards.
Lifestyle creator Grace Mondana also demonstrated the potential for TikTok to become a career-building platform. She joined while completing her teaching practicals, sharing her experience as a student teacher before developing her content creation into a full-time career.
Reflecting on her journey at the event, Mondana described TikTok as the platform where she discovered her passion for content creation and learned how to connect with audiences through her vlogs.
Food creator Wayne Chang, known online as @munchin_mash, was also highlighted after being selected for TikTok's 2026 Discover List, which features 50 creators globally. Three creators from sub-Saharan Africa were included.
TikTok also highlighted international opportunities created through its wider creator ecosystem, including two food creators from Kenya and South Africa travelling to New York for a Food Network opportunity.
Building a local creator ecosystem
For TikTok, creator development is not limited to commercial partnerships.
Morule said the company's communications team is focused on “innovating, championing and celebrating” its creative community in South Africa and across sub-Saharan Africa.
The platform has used initiatives around Women's Month and sport to showcase creators working across different niches, while its Discover List identifies creators building audiences through distinctive content.
TikTok also hosts its awards programme to recognise creators across the continent.
These initiatives serve a dual purpose: strengthening the creator ecosystem while demonstrating to brands the range of communities and talent available on the platform.
Local relevance in a global platform
TikTok says it now has more than 1 billion users globally and operates across more than 150 countries and 75 languages.
But Morule stressed that the platform's global scale does not mean that the user experience is uniform.
“While TikTok is global, it's experienced and shaped by local creators, communities, cultures and interests,” she said.
That local dimension is central to the commercial proposition. South African creators are producing content that reflects local humour, food, beauty, sport, music and lifestyle, creating communities that brands can engage with in ways that are more culturally specific.
For marketers, the opportunity is therefore not simply access to a large global platform, but access to highly varied local communities within it.
From creativity to commerce
The growing focus on TikTok One reflects a wider shift in the creator economy, where the relationship between creator, audience and brand is becoming increasingly commercial.
TikTok is seeking to make that relationship easier to navigate by giving businesses tools to find relevant creative talent while helping creators access opportunities to monetise their influence and expertise.
For Morule, the platform's role ultimately extends beyond providing a place to publish videos.
It is a space where people can discover communities, develop creative skills, build audiences and, increasingly, turn those audiences into businesses and partnerships.
As brands continue to move budgets towards creator-led content, TikTok's challenge — and opportunity — will be to build the infrastructure that turns the platform's cultural influence into sustainable value for both creators and businesses.
