How to Use TikTok Promotion to Market Your Business

During all of 2020, TikTok established itself as one of the main social media platforms. Of course, this newly crafted presence led to many businesses creating TikTok accounts and using the platform for marketing purposes, by hiring influencers to create paid content or by running a TikTok promotion or two.

This interest in the social media platform is not surprising at all. TikTok seems to be able to capture the attention of the demographic groups that are most likely to be invested in brands: young people and women. So, if you’re still on the fence about using TikTok for your business, it’s time for you to change your opinion.

Now, let me try to make that happen, by showing you all the ways you can use TikTok marketing for your company.

Why Should You Use TikTok?

Many adults tend to disregard TikTok for two main reasons: it’s mostly used by younger people and most of the content consists of 30-second videos of people doing silly stuff or dancing. Even though these might sound like good reasons to you, they are in no way reasons to dismiss a whole platform altogether.

As a social media tool, TikTok tends to keep users engaged for a long time, because of the easily consumable content that it offers. Not everyone has the time to read a 3,000-word article, but almost every person can spare 30 seconds to watch a video. Along with that, the app’s algorithm uses AI to determine what type of videos users enjoy watching and then shows them more of the same. It’s thanks to the way TikTok’s AI works that the app is able to create so many viral trends and constantly keep users interested.

But TikTok is not only good for content creation; it’s also an incredible way to introduce your brand to a huge audience of people. Let’s take a look at some of the key numbers:

  • The app has over 1 billion monthly active users, with the largest amount coming from the United States (over 130 million).
  • On average people tend to open TikTok eight times per day.
  • TikTok’s largest demographic consists of people between the ages of 18 to 24, closely followed by the ones aged 13 to 17.
  • 60% of TikTok users are female, so around 40% are male.

If you weren’t convinced about TikTok’s reach until now, I hope these numbers helped change your mind.

Now that we’ve established why TikTok should be used for your business, let’s take a look at some popular TikTok marketing strategies.

How to Use TikTok For Marketing

Once you’ve decided that it’s time for your company to get a TikTok account, then you have to start learning more about how to use the platform.

Start by setting up a small business account. After that, take a look at what your direct competitors are doing and whether that type of content is working for their business or not. To do that, you can follow a few brands and start watching the type of videos that they post. Once you get a feel for the platform, you can try to create your own videos.

In the beginning, don’t be afraid to experiment – add music, try viral trends, just try different ways to attract an audience (while staying true to the brand image as well).

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The Best TikTok Tips for Marketers

Create Engaging Content

When you’ve gotten used to the app, you can start regularly creating and posting content for your business. There are many ways in which you can do that; however, only a few will really capture the attention of your target audience. Let me give you a few ideas for such videos:

  • Share the story of how the company was founded – when you got the idea, how long the process was, whether you had the support of people closest to you or not.
  • Basically, imagine a Nike ad – try to go for inspirational, relatable, and motivating as the tone of voice in this type of video.
  • Take viewers on a tour of the office – grab your phone and walk around the place. Show the different rooms; try to give people a sense of the atmosphere that exists in your workplace.
  • If your brand has a unique name or slogan, make a video explaining how you came up with it and what it means to you. People love hearing stories.
  • Introduce your team with a funny video – it can be of you all doing a viral dance.
  • If your company makes products, create a clip showing how they’re manufactured and packaged. Customers love taking a behind-the-scenes look at how businesses operate.
  • Share all the ways in which you give back to your employees and the community.

Keep in mind that these are just a few ideas off the top of my head; there are many other kinds of videos that you can post on TikTok. Overall, the main idea behind this social media platform is to encourage people to come with innovative ways to share information and make others laugh. It’s important for you to remember that TikTok videos should be fun and engaging. They’re not a sales pitch, but more so a way to introduce your brand to a large audience.

Use Relevant Hashtags

Hashtags are the way to get your content discovered without having to pay for a TikTok promotion. That’s why you need to research the right hashtags to use for your videos.

The best way to do this requires you to complete three simple steps:

  • Discover what the currently trending hashtags are. Usually, they change every week and are connected to viral dances or songs.
  • Find hashtags that are relevant for your business or your products.
  • After you’ve completed the first two steps, start testing out different hashtag combinations and analyzing how they perform. From there you can figure out what your audience responds to and what draws people to your content.

It’s vital to remember that you have to always use hashtags that are related to the video you’re posting. You don’t want to disappoint the audience by appearing on a hashtag that has nothing to do with your brand.

Along with that, try to use hashtags strategically. Remember that people go on TikTok to relax and have fun, so your videos should never be a hard sell. They exist only to make your audience associate your company with good feelings.

Encourage User-Generated Content

Creating your own videos is a great way for you to get the business account started and to begin attracting followers. However, having your audience generate content for you is an excellent way to increase brand awareness without constantly having to create videos. There are plenty of ways you can encourage that type of behavior.

One way is by creating your own hashtag and letting people use it whenever they post videos regarding your brand or a product you’re offering. Another way is by starting a challenge of some sort that involves a custom hashtag related to your company. Usually, this type of content tends to gain momentum and become viral, which can help popularize your business even more.

Discover TikTok Ads

Instagram and Facebook are famous for their advertisement capabilities and while TikTok was a bit late to the party, the new social media giant now offers paid promotion as well. Ads are a terrific way to get your brand seen by potential new customers who may be interested in the type of product you manufacture but have never heard of your company before.

There are four ways to do advertisements on TikTok as of right now:

  • Sponsored hashtag challenge: As a brand, you can choose to sponsor a particular hashtag challenge that will be advertised on TikTok’s “Discover” page. This is an excellent way to boost the engagement you generate on the app and it’s widely used, even by major corporations such as Huawei and Coca-Cola.
  • Native Ad: With this method, you can create a short video that plays in between videos of other users on their “For You” page. It sounds great until you remember that anyone can scroll past it, without even looking at the paid ad.
  • Brand Takeover: This is an exclusive feature that plays the brand-related content to any user the moment that they open the TikTok app on their device. With this type of video, you can even make a swipe-up link that leads directly to your company’s landing page.
  • Branded Lens: Here, you can create a filter that users can add to their videos after they’ve filmed them. If you really want it to have an advertising element to it, it’s best to create a filter that somehow represents your brand’s aesthetic or is directly related to a product you offer.

TikTok Influencer Marketing

All the influencer marketing techniques you’re used to seeing on YouTube and Instagram can be easily applied to TikTok as well. If you think your product suits a particular influencer’s niche and can be of interest to their audience, you can start a campaign with them and see whether it’s successful or not.

For such collaboration, I’d advise you to leave the content creation to the influencer – if you like their style of videos, you should be comfortable with leaving creative decisions to them.

The rules of influencer marketing don’t really change when it comes to TikTok. In order for a campaign to be successful, you need to set appropriate goals, set a timeframe, and then target a particular part of the purchase funnel. However, it’s vital to remember that a standard promotion video won’t do the trick. Because TikTok’s audience is young and mainly interested in fun, quirky content, you shouldn’t try to push a sale on them; instead, you should aim to create videos that showcase your product in situations that make it seem cool. Basically, you have to make them want the product.

That’s why, for me, the most important part of TikTok influencer marketing is the influencer that you will choose to work with. Before signing a contract with someone, make sure they’re able to produce original and engaging content that fits with the tone of voice of your brand.

Use TikTok For Business

TikTok For Business helps make the process of posting on the platform as a brand a lot easier. It helps business owners set up ads, present products to the right audiences, and gives regular tips on how to increase engagement and up the follower count of an account. TikTok also has a Business Learning Center that serves as a huge Q&A database, where one can find the answer to any question related to how to use the platform as a company.

Overall, the TikTok for Business initiative is a great way to promote the app to brands who are hesitant to use it, lending them a helping hand while they make the first steps on the platform.

Final Words

TikTok is the current “IT” social media platform. While you’re reading this blog post, it keeps growing its audience as more and more people download the app and start scrolling through videos.

Just a year ago, TikTok was mainly considered to be “for kids”; nowadays it has managed to draw in people of all kinds of ages and nationalities. That’s mainly because the app offers content for literally everybody: die-hard cinema fans, music nerds, car enthusiasts, beauty gurus – you name it, TikTok has it. Thanks to this abundance of creativity and diversity, the platform has become such a great place for brand promotions. There will be people on the app who are interested in the products that you offer.

Stop wasting your time and create a TikTok account for your company. I promise it’s one marketing tool that will certainly make you more popular without you needing to spend a penny on it.

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