While regular TikTok accounts allow users to consume content, TikTok business accounts unlock a suite of tools to create and promote content directly to the TikTok community. Business accounts provide valuable analytics on content performance, allow promotion through advertising, and give a professional appearance with business profile customization.
However, TikTok business accounts also come with their own set of challenges. Standing out requires creativity, high-quality content, and commitment. Content creation takes time and testing different approaches. There are also risks around changing TikTok algorithms, competition, and platform regulation.
This article will dive into the key pros and cons of TikTok business accounts to understand how they can help grow your business on TikTok, as well as some of the potential pitfalls to be aware of.
Pros of TikTok Business Accounts
Access to Analytics
One of the biggest advantages of a TikTok business account is access to TikTok analytics. Regular TikTok accounts do not provide any analytics on content performance.
With a business account, you gain insight into:
- Impressions – Number of times your content is displayed to users
- Likes, comments, shares
- Follower growth
- Content reach and engagement
- Traffic sources
- Audience demographics
These metrics are vital for understanding what content resonates with your audience. You can use the data to refine content strategies and capitalize on trends and opportunities.
Advertising Capabilities
TikTok business accounts unlock powerful advertising capabilities to boost content reach and conversions.
Key advertising options include:
- In-Feed Video Ads – Native video ads displayed between other TikTok videos. Helpful for brand awareness.
- Brand Takeovers – Sponsor branded videos and images when the app is launched. Create early awareness.
- Hashtag Challenges – Sponsor branded hashtags to launch viral challenges.
- Branded Effects – AR effects featuring brands, products, logos.
Paid advertising provides businesses great control over content targeting, placement, and spending. With a massive TikTok audience, advertising unlocks huge potential to scale brand awareness and performance marketing campaigns.
Simple Account Switching
Transitioning from a personal account to a business account on TikTok is quick and painless. You can easily switch between account types at any time without losing followers or previous content.
This makes it simple to test the waters first with a personal account, before upgrading to access business features. It also allows managing separate personal and business presences on TikTok.
Professional Brand Customization
TikTok business accounts enable defining your brand profile through:
- Business category
- Profile and cover images
- Bio description
- Contact details
- External website links
Properly customizing your brand profile makes your presence look more professional, legitimate, and appealing to users.
Unlocking Special Business Features
Exclusive business account capabilities help optimize branded content:
- Longer videos – Upload videos up to 10 minutes instead of 1 minute.
- Video labelling – Add title, location, and other info to brand video content.
- Pro analytics filters – Filter analytics by video, sounds, hashtag, and more.
These tools help craft content that resonates and provide data to inform content strategies.
Cons of TikTok Business Accounts
No Guarantee of TikTok Success
While business accounts provide helpful tools, they don’t guarantee results or TikTok fame. Winning on TikTok still requires creativity, understanding your audience, testing content, and persistence.
Many brand efforts flop because content simply isn’t compelling or relatable. Having access to more data and features helps, but success ultimately depends on your strategy and content quality.
Requires Significant Time Investment
Building a popular and effective TikTok presence doesn’t happen overnight. It requires planning, production time, and analyzing performance data to implement improvements.
Brands need to commit dedicated time from their marketing team and/or content creators to ideate and produce enough content. Ad hoc, inconsistent efforts typically won’t cut it on TikTok.
TikTok Algorithm Changes
As TikTok rapidly evolves, changes to its algorithm can significantly impact branded content reach. Tactics that once worked well may later see declining engagement.
Staying on top of updates and being quick to adapt strategies is key. However, brands may still see dramatic fluctuations in metrics through no fault of their own.
Rising Competition
TikTok’s popularity and success stories make it attractive for brands. But with more business accounts flooding in, standing out becomes increasingly difficult. Rising spend on advertising also drives up costs.
Strong competition means brands need very high-quality content and savvy organic and paid promotion strategies. Expectations are high and budgets may need to increase over time.
Ongoing Platform Risks
Regulatory and platform risks pose threats to TikTok. Content moderation, advertiser boycotts, privacy concerns, and government bans all provide uncertainty.
Brands investing heavily in growing their TikTok could see efforts wasted if the platform falls out of favor or gets banned. Diversifying across social platforms remains important.
Should You Create a TikTok Business Account?
Here are some key questions to consider when deciding whether to create a TikTok business account for your brand:
- Who is your target audience? Is TikTok a key channel to reach them?
- Do you have creative content ideas that would resonate on TikTok? Fun, entertaining, inspiring, informative, etc.
- Are you able to commit dedicated time and resources for ongoing content creation and optimization?
- Do you have goals that align with TikTok’s strengths like brand awareness, engagement, or viral reach?
- Does your brand content align with TikTok’s community guidelines?
The right expectations are also important before diving in. A business account can help, but growing a large, engaged audience takes time unless you already have strong creator talent or highly viral content.
Get clear on your objectives, develop compelling content ideas, allocate a budget, and don’t expect overnight success. With proper effort and optimization, TikTok business accounts offer amazing potential to bolster brand awareness and connection with the platform’s massive user base.
Best Practices for TikTok Business Accounts
If you decide to create a TikTok business account, here are some top tips for getting started:
- Optimize your profile – Fill out profile, upload brand images, link website.
- Study competitors and influencers – See what content works well with your audience.
- Post consistently – Establish a regular content schedule and stick to it.
- Use hashtags wisely – Include relevant hashtags without keyword stuffing.
- Engage with followers – Like, comment and follow them back.
- Analyze performance data – Optimize based on your analytics.
- Advertise selectively – Test paid ads to complement your organic content.
- Be authentic – Align with your brand voice rather than chasing trends.
Staying agile, learning quickly, collaborating with influencers, and providing real value will help set your TikTok marketing up for success.
How do I create a TikTok business account?
You can easily convert a personal TikTok account to a business account. In your profile, tap the 3-dot menu button and select “Switch to Business Account”. Follow the prompts to set up your business profile and access additional features.
Can I run ads without a business account?
No, only TikTok business accounts have the ability to run paid advertising campaigns. To boost content reach through paid ads, you’ll need to convert to or start with a business account.
What’s the difference between a personal and business TikTok account?
Personal accounts allow you to consume content, while business accounts enable you to create branded content and enable additional analytics and advertising capabilities. Business accounts also have profile customization like links, contact info, and more.
Do I need a business account to go viral?
No, you can absolutely go viral and gain followers with a regular personal account if your content resonates widely. However, business accounts provide helpful analytics to optimize content as you grow.
Can multiple people manage one TikTok business account?
Yes, you can have multiple administrators and content creators collaborating within the same TikTok business account. Grant account access to others on your marketing team to collaborate.
Conclusion
TikTok provides an amazing engagement channel, but also requires unique content tailored to the platform. With powerful analytics and advertising options, TikTok business accounts can help brands maximize success – but still require a thoughtful strategy and creative execution.
Understand your goals, assess if TikTok is a fit for your brand, and allocate appropriate resources. With the right approach, TikTok business accounts offer immense potential to engage the next generation of consumers and drive viral reach.