Launched in August 2018, TikTok was first introduced to the general public as a video-sharing social networking service, which was believed to be the next Instagram or Facebook one day. During the first months of its performance, the app’s actual marketing and ad tools were rudimentary, especially if compared to its competitors’ marketing strategies, which have already been established within the target industry.
A year after, TikTok has outranked the most popular social networking apps, which has, in turn, stimulated its marketing offerings. From a simple platform featuring branded hashtag challenges, it has now transformed into a fully-fledged marketing machine for businesses. No wonder that with over one billion monthly active users worldwide, it is now listed among the most powerful social media platforms with decent marketing potential for enterprises across different industries.
In this post, we’ll discuss what TikTok marketing is and the key specifics of its performance compared to the established platforms within the target niche. Additionally, we’ll analyze the most effective TikTok tips that can help you maximize the efficiency of your marketing strategy and enhance your business performance regardless of its industry.
What is TikTok marketing?
As you might already know, TikTok marketing is the process of promoting a business, brand, product, or service to TikTok users. Typically, it implies using diverse marketing tactics, such as influencer marketing, trend-driven organic content, popular hashtags, and many more.
Being targeted at younger generations, TikTok marketing can significantly enhance the performance of nearly any business. As a rule, marketers use this platform to:
- promote products, services, or brands for different audiences;
- sell products or services;
- enhance the brand awareness online;
- build large communities;
- get feedback from their customers and users.
Though most of the approaches listed above might seem similar to those marketing strategies implemented for Facebook, Instagram, or YouTube, the TikTok network has occupied its unique niche in business advertising. Let’s now review what makes TikTok so different and how these features help you create a powerful marketing campaign for your business.
Key aspects to know about TikTok marketing
Though it might seem similar to Snapchat, Pinterest, or Vine, TikTok is the only social media platform to reach the milestone of one billion users in only three years after its launch, outpacing Facebook and Instagram. Unlike its competitors, the platform has a slightly different focus, which affected the development of its marketing system.
So, before you start considering the most efficient marketing tactics for your TikTok profile, it’s essential to learn the specifics of this social network. This will give you a better idea of what makes it so popular among large audiences and how lucrative it is for many businesses across various industries.
Finally, these aspects can give you some thoughts and ideas on how to go viral on TikTok.
TikTok is not the same as Vine
When TikTok was launched, most users believed the platform would have a similar future to Vine, the short-form video app that shuttered in 2016. However, though both platforms made a key focus on video creation, TikTok offers more versatility and editing features, which has been highly appreciated among the creators and users.
For instance, when Vine clips could run up to six seconds, on TikTok, users can film up to 60-second videos, with the ability to add effects, cut the footage, embed music, and many more.
Additionally, both platforms feature different content segments: while Vine was best known for ultra-short-form comedy, TikTok gained its popularity with lip syncs and viral dances.
TikTok is not solely for teens
Though the platform began as a teen-oriented app, today, it’s been widely used by people of all ages, which became exceptionally obvious during the pandemic lockdown in 2020. Influencer Marketing Hub shows that a whopping 92.39% of all TikTok users are aged 13 to 34, clearly showing TikTok’s appeal to teens and young adults.
TikTok is different from other networks
Unlike Instagram or Facebook, TikTok has slightly different content deliverables. As a rule, its competitors aim to uncover some social aspects or create a perfect picture of life. On the contrary, TikTok is less filtered and more about “at the moment,” trend-setting, or even at some point, stupid things.
TikTok is a universal editing workspace
One of the major benefits of TikTok is in-built editing, which provides various options to unleash creativity. Users are free to edit their footage, add split screens and creative transitions, apply filters and text annotations, and more.
This reduces the time spent to create and post content, significantly improving app usability.
TikTok is great for branding
Though the platform provides the basic set of effects to get started, it also enables brands to create custom filters and effects for users. Thus, you can find plenty of user-generated content with filters featuring the product or logo in the foreground, altered background, or some more specific AI elements embedded.
Paired with a hashtag challenge or giveaway, that’s one of the most effective TikTok marketing tips that can significantly enhance engagement rates and increase brand awareness among larger audiences.
TikTok is a powerful marketplace
Similar to Instagram or Facebook, influencers have already become an integral part of TikTok marketing. Recently, TikTok beta-tested the TikTok Creator Marketplace — a “Facebook” of TikTok’s creator network, which features the influencer profiles with their price point, audience size, and the keywords or industries they’re connected to. In other words, TikTok puts an influencer database “literally in front of you.”
This useful feature allows marketers to find the most appropriate creators with the relevant audience pool that can help them achieve their business goals.
TikTok is great for advertising
The most valuable feature of TikTok is that the platform is mainly used to drive awareness — and that’s exactly what you need when building the presence of your brand or business online.
At the same time, it can enable redirecting high-quality traffic to external pages, driving your potential clients to the point of sale.
Must-try TikTok tips to use in your marketing strategy
Having learned some marketing specifics, let’s move further on discovering the key tips that will help you go viral on TikTok.
Optimize your TikTok profile and add a link
A creator’s profile on TikTok is one of the most essential aspects to consider when working on your marketing strategy on social media. It allows you to effectively introduce yourself and your brand to every potential follower and provide a clear message on why they should tap the “Follow” button.
Here are some tips that can help you boost your profile bio on TikTok:
- ensure to briefly describe your business and its industry;
- make it fancy with emojis, if possible;
- include a powerful CTA to continue interaction with your audience;
- fit your idea into a character limit;
- put multiple links to move your customers further in a conversion channel.
Here’s an example of a classy, functional, and appealing TikTok bio that covers all the essential things to know about this blogger: current location, email, and a link to a product page. And the creator’s nickname — Scincarebysnega — directly references the beauty industry.
Jump on the trends
Once you’ve decided to launch a TikTok marketing campaign, it’s essential to effectively incorporate it into the brand personality to avoid being too promotional or intrusive to users. The easiest way to stay closer to your target audience is to follow the emerging trends on TikTok or even create branded challenges for your followers.
For instance, Guess kept this in mind when launching their ad campaign on TikTok. Marketers leveraged the idea of “transforming your looks” with the slogan “Transform your outfit from a mess to best-dressed! All you need is denim!” accompanied by Bebe Rexh’s “I’m a Mess” and the hashtag #InMyDenim. Thus, they’ve used both musical and “trending challenge” approaches when making the key focus on user-generated content.
Focus on a specific niche
The next one in our list of essential TikTok tips for marketing is understanding your niche focus. Regardless of the social network and type of marketing strategy, finding the target niche for shooting your content can help your audience better understand what your brand or business is about.
Brands can easily reach out to their audience on TikTok and create specific content that is valuable and relevant to them. For instance, on her TikTok profile, Daniellemarcan has focused on the beauty industry, sharing various beauty hacks and makeup product testimonials.
Be authentic
What we really like about TikTok marketing is that the platform encourages any sort of creativity with your content strategy. In other words, that’s an excellent social network for the “at the moment” video content that doesn’t require to be too ideal to go viral yet gives a lot of chances to test some new, extraordinary ideas to see what works best for your brand or business.
Once you find the format that resonates with your target audience, you can start interpreting it into different variations to build a successful TikTok marketing strategy. For example, Dave’s Hot Chicken posts diverse content on TikTok to highlight the brand’s authenticity.
Prepare and practice
There is no secret that you can create a strong marketing strategy for TikTok through building your brand personality and consistent practice. High competition across various industries has pushed businesses to express their identity while creating different videos instead of randomly posting content.
At present, TikTok has gone far away from dancing and lip sync videos: you can also find short clips sharing useful hacks, recipes, product testimonials, and other valuable content. What is more, businesses have also implemented personalized stuff like brand voice, specific video formatting style, and many more into their marketing strategies so that users can recognize them at a glance.
Though all these steps take lots of time, effort, and resources to be created, they can also help your brand to remain competitive.
After a long period of practice, Resaksgraffiti has developed its own style of TikTok videos that users widely recognize.
Post often
If you’re still questioning how to go viral on TikTok, here’s a short but really effective trick shared by all the TikTok experts: consistency. If analyzing popular influencers across different niches, you’ll see that each of those posts a new video at least once a day. Some influencers, like Chriselle, can even post up to five videos daily.
Use hashtags
Hashtags have been one of the basic features of TikTok since its launch. Unlike on Instagram, TikTok hashtags haven’t lost their value over time and can still provide many benefits for your marketing.
Using some tried-and-true general hashtags that have surged in popularity allows for engaging as many people as possible. But how to identify the most effective ones for your niche? Here are some proven TikTok tips for hashtags to try:
- scroll through hashtags displayed on the “Discover” page;
- grab some inspiration from niche influencers;
- use general popular hashtags.
Here’s a great example of how Coosh has implemented generic and niche-targeted hashtags into its content.
Collaborate with influencers
Working with influencers can become an excellent alternative to getting high-quality content for your brand. Luckily, influencer marketing on TikTok has gained a similar recognition as the one on Instagram, so today, more and more brands have started collaborating with TikTok influencers that are popular among their target audiences.
The reason for that is pretty simple: showing the products or services to the relevant audience can result in higher ROI and, of course, better conversions. Moreover, it allows earning your customer’s trust as well: according to PR Newswire, nearly 37% of consumers trust social media influencers over brands.
Here’s an example of such collaboration in practice.
Wrapping up
As you can see, TikTok marketing can become a unique chance to effectively enhance the online presence of your brand and boost your business performance. Regardless of the type of your campaign, it can surely find its audience as long as you have a clear objective.
And remember that in addition to your TikTok marketing campaign, you can always use SendPulse to nurture leads you capture on social media.
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