TikTok allows brands to connect with users in an authentic and engaging way through short videos. The platform’s algorithm is designed to quickly determine each user’s interests and preferences to serve them highly personalized content. This allows brands to reach a very targeted audience efficiently.
There are a few key ways brands can leverage TikTok to grow their business:
TikTok Business Accounts
Any user can create a TikTok account to start posting videos. But to access TikTok’s advertising and analytics tools, brands need to create a TikTok Business Account. This unlocks key features such as:
- TikTok Analytics – Track data and metrics on your videos and account performance.
- TikTok Advertising – Create and optimize ads to reach new audiences.
- TikTok Creator Marketplace – Discover and collaborate with influencers.
With a Business Account, brands can directly engage with users, track growth, run ads, and collaborate with creators.
Posting Organic Video Content
Posting high-quality, engaging videos is one of the best ways for brands to organically build a following on TikTok. Some effective types of video content for brands include:
- Behind-the-scenes – Give an inside look at your brand, products, office, etc.
- Explainers – Educate users on how to use your products.
- Quick tips – Share a short tutorial or “hack”.
- User-generated content – Repost customer videos of your products.
- Challenges – Create a branded challenge/dance for users to participate in.
The key is creating fun, engaging videos optimized for TikTok’s platform. Adding music, text, effects, etc. can help videos stand out and get more views.
Influencer Marketing
Collaborating with popular TikTok creators is an impactful marketing strategy. Influencers already have an established audience and credibility with fans. Partnering allows brands to tap into their follower base. Some influencer marketing options include:
- Sponsored content – Pay an influencer to create branded content.
- Affiliate links – Influencers can promote discount codes/links.
- Product seeding – Gift products in exchange for reviews.
- Takeovers – Temporarily feature influencer content on your brand account.
- Challenges/Campaigns – Have influencers participate in branded challenges.
Make sure to find influencers whose image and content aligns closely with your brand. Look for creators who genuinely like your products, not just those with the most followers. Micro-influencers with a smaller but highly-engaged audience can be great partners as well.
Hashtag Challenges
Launching a branded hashtag challenge is a creative way to drive user generated content and engagement. A hashtag challenge invites TikTok users to create videos around a certain theme or using specific branded effects. Popular examples include:
- #ShareACoke
- #MakeItHappy
- #DoTheTwist
The best hashtag challenges are fun, accessible, and highly shareable. TikTok’s Branded Mission feature makes launching challenges easy by providing a special landing page and video templates. Challenges can go viral quickly, exposing your brand to a massive new audience.
Shoppable Videos
TikTok now allows businesses to add shoppable elements directly to their videos. This takes users from discovery and inspiration straight to checkout in a few taps. To enable shoppable videos:
- Link your TikTok account to your ecommerce site.
- Add product links within your video captions.
- Use visual cues like graphics/text to highlight featured products.
Viewers can tap on product links seamlessly within the app to explore and purchase featured items. Shoppable videos provide great visual storytelling combined with the convenience of in-app shopping.
Advertising
For brands looking to scale quickly and maximize reach, advertising on TikTok through paid campaigns can be highly effective. TikTok provides robust analytics to target, optimize, and measure ad performance. Brands can choose from a range of flexible ad formats including:
- In-feed video ads – Appear directly within video feeds and can be easily skipped.
- Brand takeovers – Briefly display your ad creatively between videos.
- TopView – Grab attention immediately as the first video a user sees upon opening the app.
- Branded AR lenses/effects – Integrate your brand into user-created effects.
Detailed audience insights allow you to really personalize and tailor ad content. TikTok advertising also features robust automation tools to help streamline and simplify campaign management.
TikTok For Business Tools
TikTok offers a powerful suite of free business tools to make it easier to create, manage, and optimize branded content. Key tools include:
- TikTok Creator Portal – Provides video templates, tips, and guidelines.
- Sound Library – Discover trending songs/music for your videos.
- Effects Library – Browse AR effects to enhance your videos.
- Analytics – Track engagement, traffic, reach and more.
These tools help streamline content creation and provide valuable insights. The Creator Portal is especially useful for understanding best practices when starting out on the platform.
Measuring Success
Consistently tracking performance is key to assessing the effectiveness of your TikTok marketing strategy. Important metrics to monitor include:
- Follower growth
- Engagement rate
- Video views
- Shares/Reach
- Website traffic
- Ad conversions
- Sales impact
TikTok Analytics provides excellent tools for monitoring your owned performance data. With advertising, TikTok pairs this owned data with third-party conversion tracking to optimize toward your marketing objectives. Analyzing both quantitative and qualitative data will reveal what types of content and tactics perform best.
Content Creation Strategy
Having a thoughtful content strategy is key to growing your brand on TikTok long-term. Consider these tips:
- Find your niche – Stick to content themes that authentically fit your brand.
- Study trends/competitors – See what content resonates, but offer your unique take.
- Highlight your personality – Let your brand values shine through.
- Post consistently – Establish a regular content schedule.
- Use data to optimize – Double down on what performs best.
- Engage with your audience – Like, comment, and reply to build relationships.
- Be creative and take risks – Stay ahead of the curve with fresh concepts.
Blending data insights with your creative brand identity will lead to an impactful channel. Your content and community growth will build off each other the more you post actively.
Do’s and Don’ts
Keep these best practices in mind as you establish your TikTok presence:
Do:
- Engage with trends and challenges
- Show behind-the-scenes company culture
- Collaborate with employees or fans
- Feature user generated content
- Participate in duets/stitch videos
Don’t:
- Stray from your brand identity
- Prioritize followers over engagement
- Just repurpose content from other platforms
- Use overly promotional messaging
- Ignore or delete negative comments
The most important rule – make content specifically for the TikTok audience and platform. Don’t just duplicate your Instagram or YouTube videos. Embrace what makes TikTok unique.
Additional Tips for Success
- Optimize hashtags – Use a mix of popular and niche hashtags.
- Improve discoverability – Include keywords people may search for.
- Leverage trends – Put your spin on popular formats people are viewing.
- Encourage shares – Inspire users to duet, stitch, or reshare content.
- Offer value – Entertain and educate vs. constant promotions.
- Partner strategically – Align with influencers who complement your brand.
- Reward engagement – Feature top fans to motivate participation.
- Promote on other channels – Drive followers from your additional social accounts.
- Analyze your data – Continuously refine based on key insights.
- Have fun – Let your personality shine through.
Why TikTok is Worth the Investment
Some key reasons TikTok is an impactful platform for brands include:
- Massive engaged audience – Over 1 billion monthly active users.
- Addictive algorithm – Supercharges shareability.
- Trend creation – Challenges/effects go viral quickly.
- Valuable targeting data – Highly personalized ads.
- Shopping integration – Seamless path from video to purchase.
- Interactive features – Allows easy participation and sharing.
The level of short form video immersion on TikTok is unmatched. As other platforms struggle with declining organic reach, TikTok continues to see explosive engaged growth.
Now is the time for brands to establish their presence and start connecting with this young, influential audience.
Getting Started on TikTok
Ready to dive into TikTok marketing? Here are some steps for getting started:
- Research your audience – Study competitor content and trends relevant to your customers.
- Set up your Business Account – Convert your free TikTok account.
- Create engaging content – Film some authentic videos that align to your brand.
- Promote your account – Cross-promote across other social channels.
- Analyze performance – Track growth metrics and engagement.
- Refine your approach – Optimize your content, hashtags, captions, etc.
- Run ads – Create targeted campaigns once you establish some organic traction.
- Collaborate with influencers – Team up with creators to expand your reach.
Patience and persistence are key – it takes time to build an engaged audience and truly master short form video content.
Conclusion
TikTok has developed into a marketing powerhouse, presenting a massive opportunity for brands. By launching business accounts, posting engaging content daily, collaborating with influencers, running ads, and analyzing data, brands can gain loyal followers and drive business growth.
Now is the time to start developing your TikTok channel. Don’t be intimidated by the app’s young user base. Lean into the fun, participatory culture of TikTok. Showcase your brand personality in a way that resonates with the highly influential TikTok community.
The strategies and best practices covered in this guide provide the blueprint for TikTok marketing success. So grab your phone, get filming, and start connecting with the next generation!
