Tanya Chisu built a $1,500–$2,000-a-month healing practice on TikTok

Tanya Chisu became a traditional healer in 2018, but for her first few years she struggled to find clients and relied almost entirely on referrals. That left her practice with a narrow route to new business.

In October 2022, Chisu joined TikTok, initially to learn from more experienced healers. She then built a following of her own and used the platform to make her services discoverable beyond her immediate network. TikTok also made it easier for clients to access traditional healers without traveling long distances.

The result was a sharp change in her economics: Chisu said she now made more than $1,500 per month, sometimes $2,000, and that TikTok income gave her financial freedom. She was saving to buy a car. The same move drew criticism from Zimbabwe's National Traditional Healers Association, making legitimacy and ethics part of the cost of the new reach.

Her practice reached more than $1,500 and sometimes $2,000 in monthly income, giving her financial freedom and a path to buy a car.

Referrals had not given Chisu enough clients during her first years as a healer.

TikTok let her learn from more experienced healers before building a following of her own.

The platform made an offline service easier to discover and access without long-distance travel.

Short-form video and livestreams opened a channel beyond the local referral network.

A specialist who cannot scale through referrals can use a publishing platform to turn expertise into a discoverable service; the reach may also create new trust and ethics risks.

By June 2024, Chisu was saving for a car and describing herself as financially free. But the transition remained contested: the Zimbabwe National Traditional Healers Association did not recognize TikTok healers, and critics accused some of exploiting spirituality for profit. Chisu had found a viable digital acquisition channel, while credibility remained an unresolved trade-off.