Looking for a great way to boost your online presence this year? TikTok just might have the answer for you. This video-focused social network is a great tool that can be integrated into your digital marketing strategy particularly if you are targeting a younger audience.
TikTok allows its users to browse or create short-form videos from 15 seconds to three minutes in length. You can create content that’s funny, inspiring, educational or anything else that sparks your imagination. Users post everything from dances and challenges to tutorials and recipes. Creativity has no limit. This is why the platform offers a great opportunity for businesses to get creative with their social media strategy and to connect with their audience on a deeper, more intimate level.
How Can TikTok Marketing Help Your Business?
- Increases Brand Awareness
- Connects your brand with online communities
- Provides valuable feedback
- Advertises products and services
How to Use TikTok for Businesses
First, you’re going to want to open a Tiktok Business Account. There are many benefits to using the business platform such as having access to digital analytics, performance metrics, audience insights, editing tools, and exclusive access to resources that will help boost your performance. Once you have your business account setup, use the following best practices to get started:
Explore
Use the discovery feature to explore different trending topics and hashtags to get a better understanding of what your audience is interested in. You can also use the search bar to search for specific hashtags relevant to your industry.
Engage
Having a brand account is more than just posting great content. Part of your TikTok strategy should also include regularly communicating with the TikTok community. While you are exploring the discovery page and viewing videos relevant to your industry, don’t be afraid to comment on videos and like them.
Watch
Make sure you keep track of hashtags that use your business name. Not only is this great for damage control (on a Public Relations Level) this is also a great way to be an active participant in conversations surrounding your brand in real-time.
Pay Attention to Trends
One of the easiest ways to make entertaining content that will attract viewers is by producing content that is currently trending. Trends typically originate from features on the app such as music, dances, transitions, filters, or hashtags. If you happen to see a video that you really enjoy you can save the video in your favorites for easy access later.
Be Authentic
TikTok is a great place for brands and people to connect in a real way. Don’t be afraid to create content that truly represents your brand and stays true to your values. This is especially important considering that a recent study revealed that, ‘90% of customers mentioned authenticity as an important factor in deciding which brands they like and support’.
Be Creative
Although there are many advantages to hopping onto trends. Originality is always encouraged. After all, the trends have to start somewhere right? Make sure you take advantage of all of the filters, special effects, and sounds that TikTok has to offer and create something that is original, captivating, and entertaining to connect with your audience.
Advertising Options on TikTok
In-Feed Ads
In-Feed Ads each feature a clickable CTA button (to your desired landing page) and appear on your target audience’s ‘For you’ page. Viewers can share and comment on these videos similar to any other video that they see on their feed.
Influencer Collaborations
Great collaborations require upfront research to find the right talent for your business. You’ll need to ensure that the influencer’s content aligns with your brand’s principles and values. Once you’ve found the right person, you’ll want to give the content creator as much creative freedom as possible to keep the authenticity viewers are looking for. Typically you’ll want someone who has a strong online presence, a large following, and who stays away from controversial topics that might negatively impact your brand image.
Branded Effects
Tiktok offers branded effects that are customizable for businesses. This feature allows businesses to create 3D objects, illustrations, face filters, and other digital filters to inspire creativity in their users.
For example, #BeautyLoverReveal was launched by Shoppers Drug Mart during the global pandemic for their ‘For the Love of Beauty’ event which typically takes place in person. To encourage social distancing, they instead used a Branded Hashtag Challenge along with a custom-made Branded Effect and asked people to ‘try on different looks’ with their branded effects and reveal the results in their videos. By collaborating with beauty content creators and promoting the challenge through TikTok ads this campaign successfully resulted in thousands of video creations and reached millions of viewers.
Branded Hashtag Challenge Ads
Users on TikTok love jumping onto trends. This is why TikTok offers businesses the ability to use branded hashtag challenges to entertain and engage users. The way this works is the business comes up with a concept, a challenge, and sometimes even prizes which encourage users to create content relevant to the challenge while using the branded hashtag.
A great example of a successful branded Hashtag Challenge is Nissan Australia’s #improvisewithJUKE campaign which resulted in over 129 million views, a 92.9% increase in brand awareness, and generated over 34,000 video creations from participating users.
In Conclusion
TikTok Marketing offers valuable insight that traditional marketing simply cannot offer. It offers consumer insight, a sense of community, creative flexibility, and has a billion active users! (Thanks a Billion!, 2021) Now that’s an opportunity that’s hard to pass on. If you are willing to do your research, get creative and listen to your audience, TikTok is somewhere your business can thrive in 2022. Click here to get started on your marketing strategy today.
About the Author:
Heather Grundy is an SEO Specialist with over 10 years of experience in the Marketing Industry. Her passion is helping businesses thrive by providing strategic services to boost their online presence and support their business goals.