Introduction
TikTok has exploded in popularity over the last few years, becoming one of the top social media platforms. With over 1 billion monthly active users, it’s an extremely attractive platform for brands and creators looking to expand their reach and engagement. One of the biggest questions around TikTok marketing is whether you can pay to promote your account and content. The answer is yes – TikTok does offer various paid advertising options to amplify your presence.
There are a few main ways to pay for promotion on TikTok. These include TikTok ads, influencer marketing campaigns, going live, using hashtags and challenges strategically, and leveraging TikTok’s creative tools like effects and sounds. You can also run cross-platform ad campaigns on TikTok’s ad platform. Each of these options allows you to get your brand and content in front of larger, more targeted audiences on TikTok.
TikTok Ads
TikTok provides a powerful advertising platform called TikTok Ads Manager that allows businesses to promote their accounts and content. According to the TikTok Ads Manager Intro article, TikTok Ads Manager has tools for launching campaigns, managing ad resources, monitoring data, and optimizing advertising efforts.
With a TikTok Ads Manager account, brands get access to a comprehensive dashboard to view campaign metrics and budgeting, as explained in the TikTok Ads Manager Account overview. Key features include campaign management, audience targeting, creative tools, and analytics.
Business accounts on TikTok also unlock additional advertising capabilities through TikTok Ads Manager according to this article about TikTok Business Account Features. Overall, TikTok Ads Manager provides robust options to pay to promote TikTok accounts and content.
Influencer Marketing
One way to promote your TikTok account is by partnering with influencers. According to a recent article, influencers charge between $800-$2,400 per sponsored post depending on their follower count. Nano influencers with 1,000-10,000 followers charge around $800. Micro influencers with 10,000-50,000 followers charge $1,000-$2,000. Macro influencers with over 50,000 followers can charge $2,000-$2,400.
When reaching out to influencers, be clear about your goals and ideal audience. Offer to collaborate on creative content that aligns with their brand. Negotiate pricing based on follower count, engagement rates, and video views. Using influencers is an effective way to expose your TikTok account to a larger, targeted audience.
TikTok LIVE
Going live on TikTok is a great way to promote your account organically. When you go live, your broadcast gets shown to your existing followers as well as anyone who comes across it while browsing TikTok. You can also enable gifts during your livestream, which allow viewers to send you virtual gifts like diamonds, drama, roses etc. in exchange for real money. This is a direct way for your viewers to financially support your account.
If you want to take your livestreams up a notch, you can pay to get promotional perks during your broadcast through TikTok LIVE Subscription. This gives you access to multi-guest streaming, subscriber-only chats, subscriber badges and emotes. It costs $4.99 per month for fans to subscribe. As the broadcaster, you get to keep the full subscription cost minus app store fees. This is a great way to monetize your account and promote yourself through LIVE features.
You can also pay TikTok creators with large followings to go live with you or shout you out during their broadcast. The cost varies depending on the influencer, but this type of organic promotion can be very powerful. TikTok LIVE enables various paid promotion opportunities to grow your account.
Hashtags
One popular way to promote your TikTok account is through sponsored branded hashtags. TikTok allows you to pay to place your own branded hashtag in the trending tab, making it more discoverable by users. According to Influencer Marketing Hub, the cost for a branded hashtag challenge on TikTok is a flat fee of $150,000 per week. When users click on your sponsored branded hashtag, they will be brought to a page featuring top videos using that hashtag, helping increase engagement and views for your content.
Brands like Chipotle, Guess, and Ralph Lauren have run successful sponsored hashtag challenges on TikTok. The key is choosing a branded hashtag that fits your brand identity and sparks creative and engaging content from users. While $150,000 per week is a significant investment, promoted hashtags can be an impactful way to get your brand name and TikTok account in front of new audiences organically.
In addition to paying for a sponsored hashtag, you can also use relevant popular hashtags in your TikTok captions to increase discoverability. However, branded hashtags allow for deeper branded integration and ownership of a hashtag on the platform.
Challenges
One effective way to promote your TikTok account is by sponsoring hashtag challenges. Brands can pay to have their hashtag challenge featured prominently in the app, encouraging users to create content using the branded hashtag. According to Sproutsocial.com, “TikTok hashtag challenges create a perfect storm of user-generated content and virality.”
Some examples of successful sponsored hashtag challenges include:
- Guess’ #InMyDenim challenge, which gained over 4 billion views
- Chipotle’s #GuacDance challenge, resulting in 250,000 video submissions
- Samsung’s #GalaxyA challenge to highlight their new phone, reaching over 6 billion views
Sponsoring a branded hashtag challenge can significantly boost your TikTok presence if done right. But you’ll need a budget to promote the hashtag and incentivize participation. Overall, challenges allow organic engagement between users and brands on TikTok.
Effects
One way brands can promote themselves on TikTok is through paid branded effects. Branded effects allow brands to sponsor AR effects that users can apply to their videos. According to TikTok, branded effects “let you lead your brand and its style into trending conversations in fun, direct ways, and be at the epicenter where new trends emerge.” (Source)
Branded effects are created through TikTok’s Effect House platform. Brands can work with TikTok to develop customized effects that feature branded elements. These effects then become available for users to find and use in their own videos. Branded effects provide a creative way for brands to engage audiences and increase visibility on TikTok in an organic, native format.
Some examples of successful branded effect campaigns have come from brands like Ralph Lauren, who created a virtual clothing effect, and Sephora, who had a virtual makeup effect. The effects aligned with each brand’s products and aesthetics. Branded effects can help tell a brand’s story while connecting them to trending TikTok conversations.
Sounds
Getting your sound featured on TikTok can be an extremely effective way to promote your music and reach new audiences. TikTok launched its SoundOn platform in March 2022 as a way for artists to upload music and get their tracks featured in videos on TikTok.
To get your song featured, you’ll need to upload it through SoundOn. This gives TikTok permission to use your track, and makes it discoverable by creators looking for music to use in their videos. SoundOn offers unlimited uploads starting at $14.99 per year.
Once your song is uploaded, use relevant hashtags so it’s findable by genre. Engage with creators and encourage them to use your track in their videos. You can also pay influencers on TikTok to create videos featuring your song, which helps get it heard.
According to Reddit and industry sources, the cost of getting a track featured by an influencer can range from $100 to $4,000 depending on their follower count and engagement levels [1]. The more users that create videos with your sound, the more it gets recommendation by TikTok’s algorithm.
TikTok announced that through SoundOn, creators retain 100% royalties in the first year, and 90% thereafter. This makes it an attractive platform for monetizing and promoting music [2].
Cross-Platform Ads
One effective way to promote your TikTok account is by leveraging other platforms like YouTube and Instagram. You can create ads on these platforms specifically targeting TikTok users and drive them to your TikTok profile or videos. According to this YouTube video, using YouTube ads is a great way to reach potential TikTok fans, gain followers quickly, and increase views.
Instagram ads also allow you to target TikTok users and create custom audiences based on interests like comedy, dance, music, etc. As explained in this Instagram marketing playlist, you can create Instagram ads driving people to your TikTok page or individual videos. This cross-promotion across platforms is an efficient way to expand your reach beyond just TikTok.
The key is making sure your ads showcase the type of engaging, entertaining content people can expect on your TikTok. With strategic cross-platform promotion, you can gain more followers and visibility for your TikTok account.
Conclusion
In summary, there are several options for brands and creators to promote their TikTok accounts and content. The main paid promotion options on TikTok are: TikTok Ads, which allow you to create in-feed video ads and brand takeovers; influencer marketing, where you collaborate with popular creators; and cross-platform advertising, where you can extend your TikTok campaigns to platforms like Facebook and Instagram. While organic promotion through compelling content, hashtags, challenges, effects, and sounds can also be effective, paid promotion provides more guaranteed reach and exposure. Ultimately, a strategic combination of paid and organic promotion is key for growing and engaging an audience on TikTok.
