How to promote your business with TikTok
With more than 800 million users active every month, TikTok is one of the best new platforms on social media today.
Many people may think the platform is only for teenagers, but if we look closely, individuals of all ages, brands, influencers, celebrities, etc., are all joining TikTok.
TikTok is a social networking platform for sharing short videos. The platform first received public recognition through GenZ users. To date, it is known mostly as the pioneer of viral dance trends, contests, and lip-sync videos.
For most millennials and youth, TikTok could seem like a Vine revamp: a 6s looping video sharing platform that came to a stop in 2017.
For example, various famous TikTok content creators, like Zach King, first began their Vine journey.
With all the buzz that surrounds TikTok, it is not surprising that businesses can thrive in it. Here we shall discover everything that we can know about TikTok, tips to succeed in it, and to understand its algorithm and features.
Value of TikTok for businesses and brands
TikTok is going through a stage of positive growth in current times — this means there’s a vast number of users ready to be interacted with by smart and creative businesses.
Companies that have effectively used TikTok initially have now gained enormous brand awareness compensations, most of the time with minimum investments.
Many popular publishers like The Washington Post have gained more than 400,000 followers within a year. This made them an inspiring centre and possibly changed their target to a fresh, worldwide, and younger demographic over time.
TikTok also features an equal field with regard to attaining viral status on the app. Compared to platforms like Instagram or YouTube, even those accounts that have less to no followers can gain lots of views on a new video as long as the content is liked or viewed by many people. Content truly is a lead on TikTok.
TikTok Ads and trends
Additionally, a great benefit of TikTok is how rapidly the platform is developing to fit the requirements of brands and publicists.
TikTok ads are now an established marketing plan for several brands. For example, Guess utilised TikTok to endorse their 2018 Fall Denim Fit collection, inspiring the TikTok community to alter their fashion style by wearing denim from Guess to the song “I’m a Mess” by Bebe Rexha.
When we talk about advertising chances on TikTok, there are many choices for brands and industries to discover, such as:
- In-Feed Ads
- TopView
- Brand Takeover
- Hashtag Challenges by brands
In contrast to other social networking platforms, TikTok has a massive trend culture.
Even if creative and original video ideas work fine, the best types of TikToks are mostly those that are easier to imitate by the crowds or are a derivative of a prevailing trend.
We have discovered that adding our own unique and relevant twist on a trend that already exists performs better. The videos that use popular soundtracks and hashtags have better chances of being found on the TikTok platform and have higher chances of success.
Understanding TikTok algorithm
We should keep in mind that TikTok is infamous for holding the algorithm of their For You page a secret.
Compared to Instagram — who have clearly explained how their algorithm works — the viral algorithm. The TikTok algorithm is, for the most part, unconfirmed by TikTok themselves.
When a video is released, it is shown to a minor number of TikTok users among prevalent videos on their For You page. This is often why people may notice videos with very few likes while they scroll through the For You page.
If a brand’s video is accepted properly by the ones who first get it on the For You page, there are good odds that the video can get shared to a bigger number of users, and this whole process can escalate, leading the video to go viral.
Thus, even if a brand is new to TikTok and has merely some followers on TikTok, their videos could still get viral and gain success!
Remember that if a TikTok video is openly amusing or educational, it will most possibly perform great and get shown to the crowds.
A good tip to know is that, when TikTok videos go live initially, it’s typically exposed to those users that live in the same geographical location, to begin with.
Using good Hashtags and Soundtracks (that is, the music used in TikTok videos) are two of the most effective methods to increase the brand’s content’s discoverability.
Cross Promotion
After a TikTok video is released to the public, it is often an excellent step to cross-promote the content on different social media platforms like Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, etc.
This idea is not only good for creating exposure of the brand’s TikTok account, increasing their TikTok followers, and boosting the performance of the video, but it is also an excellent opportunity for content.
Moreover, it is fairly simple to make and save a TikTok video to the device gallery, and this ensures that users can share their videos almost anyplace.
TikTok videos are 15s long by default, making them an excellent size share on Instagram Stories. Just keep in mind to pair the two contents with an easy to understand call-to-action option (for example- “Click here to follow us on TikTok”)
TikTok Analytics
The analytics feature of TikTok is accessible only by Pro accounts, so this means that if we are completely fixed on the idea of gaining on TikTok marketing, it is an excellent time to go for the upgrade.
When we switch to a Pro account, we will get access to the key metrics of our profile, and it’s completely free to do.
For almost every brand, the Content Analytics of TikTok is good for seeing a clearer understanding of how their videos perform over time.
Thus, businesses should give good focus on those videos of theirs that are trendier than others.