TikTok is a popular video sharing social networking service owned by Chinese company ByteDance. It allows users to create short videos that often feature music and dance trends, comedy sketches, and so on. TikTok quickly grew to become one of the most downloaded apps globally, amassing over 1 billion active users as of 2021.
TikTok offers business accounts that provide additional tools and analytics compared to standard personal accounts. Business accounts allow you to access TikTok’s self-serve advertising platform, convert TikTok videos into ads, utilize campaign management and performance metrics, and more. Having a business profile gives your brand content more visibility and helps convert TikTok followers into customers.
Benefits of a TikTok business account
Switching to a TikTok business account unlocks additional features not available on personal accounts. Some key benefits include:
Access to analytics dashboard – Business accounts get access to in-depth analytics on video views, likes, comments, followers, traffic sources, and more. This allows you to track performance and optimize content strategy.
Promote button – Business accounts can pay to promote videos using TikTok’s advertising platform, to reach new audiences and get more views.
Link in bio – Add clickable links to your TikTok profile, allowing viewers to easily find more information.
Branded content – Properly tag branded content and disclose sponsorships on your business account.
Multiple account management – Easily switch between and manage multiple TikTok accounts from one place.
Eligibility Requirements
To be eligible to switch to a TikTok business account, your personal profile must meet certain requirements. According to TikTok’s support page, you must have a personal TikTok account registered under your legal name and be at least 18 years old. Your account must also be associated with a phone number and email address you have access to. Additionally, your personal profile needs to be in good standing without any violations of TikTok’s Terms of Service or Community Guidelines.
In terms of location, your personal TikTok account must be registered in an eligible country or region. As per TikTok’s one pager on registering a business account, eligible locations include the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Poland, Brazil, Indonesia, Russia, Mexico, Colombia, and Argentina. However, TikTok frequently expands availability to more countries and regions. Check TikTok’s support page for the latest on location eligibility requirements.
Meeting these requirements for your personal profile is the first step to switching over to a TikTok business account. This will allow you to unlock additional features tailored for brands, businesses, creators and organizations on TikTok.
How to switch to a business account
Switching your personal TikTok account to a business account is a quick and easy process that can be done directly within the TikTok app. Here is a step-by-step guide to convert your account:
1. Open the TikTok app on your mobile device and tap on your profile icon in the bottom right corner.
2. Tap on the menu icon in the top right corner (three horizontal lines) and select “Manage account” from the menu.
3. Under “Account control,” tap on “Switch to Business Account.”
4. Select the category that best describes your business. Tap “Next.”
5. Enter your business name, website, and phone number. These details will be displayed on your public business profile.
6. Accept the Terms of Service and tap “Next.”
Your account will now be switched to a TikTok business account! The process is quick and simple using the TikTok app.
Setting up business profile
After switching to a TikTok business account, you’ll want to optimize your profile to represent your brand. This includes setting up a professional profile photo, an engaging bio, and linking to your business website.
For the profile photo, use your company logo or another image that visually represents your brand. Having a consistent and recognizable profile photo will make your account easy to identify in viewers’ feeds. According to TikTok’s guidelines, profile photos should be 110 x 110 pixels.
The bio section gives you 150 characters to succinctly describe your business and value proposition. Include important keywords and optimize the bio for searchability. You can also include emojis and hashtags. TikTok recommends using branded hashtags in your bio to amplify discovery.
Make sure to link to your business website URL in the profile. This allows viewers to easily find and learn more about your products, services, and brand story. According to TikTok, adding a website link boosts website traffic.
Content Best Practices
To optimize your TikTok content, follow these best practices for business accounts:
Aim for short, engaging videos. Ideal TikTok videos are 5-15 seconds long. Keep them under 60 seconds. Short videos have the highest completion rates (www.tiktok.com).
Use captions to improve accessibility and reach. Add informative and entertaining captions to every video. Captions boost views and keep users watching (blog.hootsuite.com).
Leverage relevant hashtags. Include a mix of popular and niche hashtags. Use up to 100 characters of hashtags per post. Well-chosen hashtags expand your audience (www.tiktok.com).
Advertising Options
TikTok offers a variety of advertising options for businesses through its user-friendly TikTok Business Center. This is where businesses can set up and manage their TikTok ad campaigns. Some key features of TikTok advertising include:
Ads Interface – The TikTok Ads Manager within the Business Center provides an intuitive interface for creating and optimizing ad campaigns. You can choose between different ad formats like In-Feed Videos, Brand Takeovers, and more.
Targeting – TikTok lets you target ads based on location, device, interests, and demographics. You can also target users based on their on-platform behaviors and engagement with hashtags or sounds.
Costs – TikTok ad pricing is based on an auction, where advertisers bid against each other for ad placement. Cost per impression can range from $0.10 to $0.30 depending on factors like targeting and competition. Overall, TikTok ads can be very cost effective due to the engaged user base.
With its powerful targeting capabilities and entertaining ad formats optimized for mobile devices, TikTok provides an appealing advertising platform for businesses looking to reach new audiences.
Analytics and insights
One of the key benefits of switching to a TikTok business account is gaining access to robust analytics and insights on your content’s performance. With a business account, you can view detailed metrics directly in the TikTok app under the Analytics tab in your profile menu.
The analytics dashboard provides insights into content performance including:
- Impressions: The number of times your videos have been seen.
- Likes: How many likes your videos have received.
- Comments: The number of comments on your videos.
- Shares: How often your videos have been shared.
- Play time: Total watch time for your videos.
- Followers: Gained and lost followers over time.
- Top videos: Which videos are performing best.
With this data, business accounts can better understand audience preferences and fine-tune content strategies for optimal engagement and reach. The analytics provide actionable insights you can use to improve performance over time.
For even more detailed analytics, TikTok offers advertising partners access to its Business Analytics platform. This provides further breakdowns including audience demographics, traffic sources, and content benchmarking against competitors.
Managing multiple accounts
Switching between personal and business accounts on TikTok is easy. Here’s how to do it:
Open the TikTok app and tap on the profile icon in the bottom right corner. This will open up a menu showing any accounts you have logged in. Simply tap on the account you want to switch to. TikTok allows you to seamlessly switch between your personal and business accounts.
According to https://gologin.com/blog/multiple-tiktok-accounts, you can long tap the profile icon to switch between accounts or add a new one. This makes managing multiple accounts straightforward.
Some key benefits of having separate business and personal accounts include: keeping content organized, separating analytics, and maintaining brand consistency, as outlined by https://tryshift.com/blog/apps-hub/how-to-manage-multiple-tiktok-accounts/. Overall, TikTok’s account switching capabilities make it simple to operate multiple accounts for different purposes.
Additional resources
Here are some helpful links, guides, and tips for getting the most out of your TikTok business account:
TikTok’s own business blog provides lots of articles with expert advice covering topics like best practices, advertising, analytics, and more.
Hootsuite’s guide “How to Use TikTok for Business” outlines the step-by-step process for setting up and optimizing a TikTok business account.
For creative advice, check out TikTok’s guide on “Creative Best Practices for TikTok Ads” which provides top tips for creating engaging branded content.
TikTok also provides an array of free marketing resources, including strategy guides and creative templates, to help small businesses thrive on the platform.
