What is a TikTok Business Account?
A TikTok business account is designed for brands, businesses, creators and publishers to manage their presence and promote their content on TikTok (https://ads.tiktok.com/help/article/tiktok-business-account-features?lang=en). It unlocks additional features not available on a standard personal account, allowing for more customization, analytics, and advertising capabilities.
The key differences between a personal and business account include:
- Business accounts get access to TikTok’s Ad Manager, allowing you to create and manage advertising campaigns. Personal accounts cannot run ads.
- Analytics are available on business accounts, providing data and insights about your followers, content performance, and traffic sources. There are no analytics on personal accounts.
- Business accounts can use branded content tools like clickable links, product tags, and digital storefronts. These are not accessible to personal accounts.
- A business category and contact info can be added to your brand’s profile. Personal profiles lack these fields.
- Content restrictions are loosened for business accounts, enabling features like longer videos.
In summary, a TikTok business account enables brands and creators to unlock more monetization features, analytics, advertising capabilities and content flexibility (https://sproutsocial.com/insights/tiktok-business-vs-creator-account/). It allows managing your presence on TikTok at a professional, optimized level.
Benefits of a TikTok Business Account
There are several key benefits to using a TikTok Business Account over a standard personal account. One of the biggest advantages is access to TikTok’s analytics dashboard, where you can view detailed metrics on your videos and profile performance.
With TikTok’s analytics, you can see important data like play counts, comments, shares, follower growth, traffic sources, and more. This allows you to optimize your content strategy based on your top-performing videos.
Business accounts also get access to TikTok’s promotional and advertising tools like promoted videos and hashtag challenges that can help expand your reach and engagement. You can also use these paid features to target your ads to specific demographics.
Other benefits include the ability to add links to your profile bio and videos to drive traffic to your website or online store. You also get access to creative tools like TikTok jumping and green screen effects that can make your videos stand out.
Overall, the analytics, promotional capabilities, and creative tools available with a TikTok Business Account make it the optimal choice for brands, businesses, creators, and organizations looking to grow and engage their audience on TikTok.
Eligibility Requirements
To be eligible to convert to a TikTok business account, your account must represent an authentic business, brand, organization, entity, or influencer. Personal accounts are not eligible.
According to TikTok’s support page, to be eligible your account should:
- Represent a legitimate business or brand
- Have a website or social media presence beyond just TikTok
- Post content relevant to your business, brand, products, or services
- Comply with TikTok’s Terms of Service and Community Guidelines
TikTok reviews all applications to ensure accounts meet these requirements before approving a switch to a business account. This is to prevent abuse and maintain the integrity of business accounts on the platform.
If your account does not yet fully represent a business or brand, you may need to build up your TikTok presence with more branded content before applying for a business account. But any legitimate organization should qualify. There are no fees or costs associated with registering a TikTok business account.
How to Convert to a Business Account
To convert your TikTok personal account to a business account, follow these steps:
- Open the TikTok app and tap on your profile icon in the bottom right corner.
- Tap on the menu icon (three horizontal lines) in the top right corner of your profile screen.
- Select “Manage account” from the menu options.
- Under “Account control,” tap on “Switch to Business Account.”
- Select the category that best describes your business. Tap “Next.”
- Enter your business name, website, and phone number. Tap “Next.”
- Read and agree to TikTok’s Terms of Service. Tap “Next.”
- Congratulations! Your TikTok account is now a Business Account.
Once you have a Business Account, you’ll have access to additional analytics, advertising options, and tools to help promote your business on TikTok.
Setting Up Your Business Profile
Optimizing your TikTok business profile is crucial for presenting a professional image and attracting your target audience. Here are some tips for setting up an effective profile:
Choose a high-quality profile photo that represents your brand. Make sure it’s well-lit and eye-catching. Some brands opt for their logo or product imagery. Consider having a consistent brand color scheme in the photo.
Craft an appealing, concise bio highlighting your business offerings. Include relevant keywords and emojis to make it stand out. You’re limited to 80 characters, so make them count! Check out examples of creative TikTok bios for inspiration here.
Link to your website, online shop, or social media profiles so viewers can easily find you and convert to customers. This clickable link is highly visible on your profile.
Set up branded stickers, effects, and hashtags to curate content and engage your audience. This allows fans to easily find, share, and interact with your content.
Complete all profile fields like username, bio, links, and contact info. This builds credibility and professionalism for your brand.
Content Best Practices
When creating content for your TikTok business account, focus on strategies that promote your brand while engaging users. According to TikTok marketing: The complete guide for brands in 2023, the best practices include:
– Creating fun and entertaining videos using trends, challenges, or viral sounds. This helps increase shares and engagement. Consider collaborating with influencers in your niche.
– Showcasing your products or services in natural and creative ways. Demonstration videos and behind-the-scenes content perform well.
– Engaging followers by asking questions, running polls and contests, etc. This fosters community and gets valuable feedback.
– Using relevant hashtags that help users find your content. Include both popular and niche hashtags.
– Posting consistently, at least once a day. Use analytics to find your best posting times.
– Optimizing your videos for mobile viewing and vertical orientation.
– Monitoring comments and responding promptly. Be conversational and add value for viewers.
The key is creating fun, engaging content tailored to the TikTok audience while authentically promoting your brand.
Analytics and Insights
One of the key benefits of a TikTok business account is access to expanded analytics and insights data to help you understand your content performance. This data can be accessed through the TikTok Business Suite.
With a business account, you can view analytics on your videos including number of views, likes, comments, shares, audience demographics, traffic sources, top videos, follower growth, and more. This allows you to identify your highest performing content to inform your content strategy.
You can also access in-depth analytics on your LIVE videos through the suite. This includes number of views, new followers, engagement, traffic sources, and other metrics to optimize your live streaming approach.
According to TikTok’s Business Account Features page, the suite provides easy export of analytics reports for deeper analysis.
Regularly monitoring your TikTok analytics through the Business Suite is crucial for gaining insights that can improve your content, engagement, and ultimately lead to business growth.
Advertising Options
TikTok offers a variety of ad formats for businesses to promote their products, services, and brand on the platform. Some of the main ad options available include:
In-Feed Video Ads – These are full-screen video ads that appear in between TikTok user videos. They can be up to 60 seconds long and are a great way to creatively showcase your brand story.
TopView – This is a 6-second ad format that appears when a user first opens the TikTok app. It provides high visibility and impact at the start of the TikTok experience.
Branded Effects – Interactive AR effects and filters that allow users to engage with your brand in a fun, organic way. You can promote your branded effect to reach new audiences.
Brand Takeovers – These display your brand on the full screen for 3-5 seconds when the app is launched. They help drive strong brand awareness.
In addition to video ads, TikTok also offers options like Hashtag Challenges, Branded Hashtags, and more for reaching and engaging your target audience.
Driving Traffic and Sales
Using TikTok can be an effective way to drive traffic and sales for your business. Here are some best practices:
Make your profile shoppable by adding buttons that link directly to your online store or product pages. TikTok allows you to add up to 6 buttons to your profile, so highlight top products, promotions, or other important links.
Use shoppable video ads that drive to specific product pages or add a pixel to track conversions from your video views. TikTok’s vertical video ads are perfect for short demos and tutorials.
Add shoppable links or website URLs to your video captions. Many viewers will see your captions and links without even watching the videos.
Run influencer marketing campaigns to have creators showcase your products to their followers. Make sure to track sales using creator codes or trackable links.
Use TikTok’s pixel and analytics tools to identify your top converting content. Double down on what drives real revenue for your business.
Be strategic about using popular audios, songs, hashtags, and effects related to your niche to get content seen by more potential customers.
Retarget engaged viewers by syncing your TikTok account with platforms like Facebook Custom Audiences. Flood them with ads across channels.
Partner with online retailers, delivery services, gig workers, etc. to offer viewers exclusive discounts, deals, or incentives.
Remember, creativity and value for the viewer come first on TikTok. Sales will follow if you consistently provide entertainment, education, inspiration, or solutions.
Measuring Success
Once you’ve set up your TikTok business account and started posting content, it’s important to track key metrics to measure the performance and success of your account. Some key metrics to monitor include:
Video views – This shows the total number of times your videos have been viewed over a certain time period. It’s a good indicator of how much reach your content is getting. You can track views for individual videos as well as your overall account views (see source).
Likes, comments, shares – These engagement metrics show how much your audience is interacting with your videos. Higher engagement numbers signal your content is resonating with viewers (see source).
Follower growth – Gaining more followers over time means your account and content are attracting an audience. Analyze follower growth week-over-week or month-over-month (see source).
Traffic – Check your website analytics to see how much traffic is being referred from TikTok. This helps determine if your TikTok presence is driving visits to your site or sales (see source).
Conversions/sales – For ecommerce brands, track how many sales or conversions are coming directly from your TikTok account. See if TikTok ads or organic content result in more conversions (see source).
Analyzing these key TikTok metrics can reveal what type of content resonates most with your audience and where there are opportunities to improve. Consistently monitoring your performance data is crucial for measuring the success of your TikTok business account.
