Trigger Warning
TikTok is a video making app where you can create bite-sized video clips. Think videos that you post to your Instagram stories – authentic and creative. But here’s the cracker: TikTok videos are evergreen. They’ll stay in your feed unlike most social stories that disappear within 24 hours.
The app’s user base is steadily growing, with the number of US adults on the platform increasing 5.5 times from 2017 to 2019 to almost fifteen million users. So, TikTok is becoming as much an app for adults as it is for teens.
From a marketers standpoint, one of the best things about TikTok videos is that they are easily shareable to other networks, which explains why you’re frequently seeing videos on other social channels:
All you have to do is choose the ‘share’ button on the bottom right when you play videos. You can directly share the video to other social channels from there, download TikTok videos or get their links to share them elsewhere.
The easy share option makes one thing crystal clear: you can easily cross-promote the content you create here on other channels.
Tiktok also offers an extensive library of filters, effects and pre-licensed music that’s ready to use.
If you’ve added music to your marketing videos before, you’ll know how challenging it can be to find the right tune that you’re allowed to use. TikTok offers a commercial music library for businesses tiktok-music-restrictions-brands-royalty-free-commercial-use-copyright-infringement-2020-5?r=US&IR=T) to sort this issue, so you get a vast range of music to pick from without worrying about permits and licenses.
Another plus point of TikTok for business? You can reap a lot from TikTok organically. The app isn’t anywhere near commercialisation (yet) and its engagement rate is great. In fact, it has the highest follower engagement rates across 100,000 user profiles:
What’s more, TikTok users spend a good 52 minutes on average on the app. That’s plenty of time to get your target audience’s attention.
But here’s the thing: your TikTok videos have to be super creative to catch your viewers’ attention. How so? Let’s look at that next.
Broadly, your focus should be on either of the two content types:
Educational
Short videos educating the audience perform really well. For instance, Marketing Dudes create educational content that covers marketing case studies as well as explains various marketing tactics.
Entertainment
Chipotle is a great example of a product-based business doing well on TikTok. Their TikTok marketing focuses on making funny videos that feature the items on their menu, and they produce tonnes of entertaining content.
If you’re already creating video content for other social channels, this won’t be challenging. You only need to add your brand’s unique spin to what’s trending on TikTok.
Here are some ideas to get your creative gears moving:
Bloopers are fun clips of mistakes that occur as you shoot videos. Normally, you’d delete them, but if you find something funny, you can always share it with your audience to give your TikTok channel a more authentic feel
You’ve two options moving forward: either you grow your TikTok organically or you pair your organic efforts with ads. Let’s look at the organic and ad-based options you have at your disposal.
Start off with creating content around trends on TikTok. It could be either a sound-based trend or a challenge-based trend. Either way, making TikTok videos based on trends is a “great way to jump on to something that’s already getting a lot of viewership,” in TikTok influencer Lauren Pope’s words.
Find these trends from the Discover option at the bottom of your screen:
A hashtag challenge gives video making challenges to users – they make their version of the challenge (the more creative the better) and tag it with the specific hashtag. This way the video is discoverable.
As you jump start your TikTok marketing efforts, it’s a good idea to get involved in the hashtag challenges that others create. However, as you grow and your account gains traction, you could think about starting your own hashtag challenge too.
One thing’s for sure, getting involved in hashtag challenges brings engagement. Mercedes-Benz introduced the #MBStarChallenge, asking its audience to re-envision their logo. The challenge got 1.64 million page views in the UK alone, resulting in lots of new user generated content and 30,000 new followers for Mercedes-Benz.
This works pretty much in the same way as influencer marketing on other social channels. As a rule of thumb, aim to work with influencers who are relevant to your target demographic and who have a consistently engaged presence on TikTok, just like clothing brand Aerie does here, with influencer Iskra Laurence
If you’re looking to accelerate your TikTok marketing, you can explore this with the following advertising types:
These ads run between 9-15 seconds and support multiple CTAs. As the name suggests, TikTok shows in-feed videos in between user videos. Users are free to skip these video ads.
For inspiration, look to French dessert company Danette, who used in-feed ads with other ad types to drive traffic to their hashtag challenge page:
These ads can be in the form of still images, GIFs as well as videos. They appear in users’ feeds before any UGC appears. The ad links to the business’s landing page or hashtag challenge within the app.
A good example of brand takeover ads is their use by makeup brand Too Faced for driving awareness and direct sales:
Unlike native videos, TopView ads fill the entire screen space. However, like brand takeover ad types, these launch first thing in a user’s feed before any other content displays.
A case in point here is Balenciaga, who used TopView ads in combination with brand takeovers to raise awareness of their brand:
Lastly, you have the option to create your own filter to promote your brand. Colgate ran this ad type by creating an effect with exploding hearts:
Interested in trying any of these ads on TikTok? Here’s a quick look at the pricing for each ad type – keep in mind that advertising on TikTok is expensive, and might not be suitable for smaller businesses.
As with any social media platform, it’s best to get started with a plan on TikTok. Set up your profile – we’ll get to that part in a bit – and start looking at what others are doing.
Lauren Pope’s journey on TikTok began much the same way. She observed the type of content brands were creating for about two weeks before she posted her first TikTok video.
Work on your TikTok marketing plan. Start with deciding your niche and the type of content you’d create for this platform. Would it be educational? Or, would you like to keep things light-hearted and humorous?
Work out how you’d showcase your product or service. If you’d like to create some BTS content, hold a brainstorming session to figure out a few initial ideas.
Simply download TikTok and sign up either with your phone number or email. Alternatively, you can continue with your Facebook, Google or Apple ID:
Once done, click on the ‘Me’ icon on the bottom right of your screen and press ‘Edit profile’ to add your details including your bio:
Get started with creating your first video by clicking the + option in the centre of your screen:
Choose your video duration and press the red button to start recording. From there, you can add sound, effects, text and stickers from the options laid out for you at the bottom of the recorded video clip:
You can also change the filters and apply voice effects to your original audio and recordings where you aren’t using sounds.
Save your videos with a tick mark on the bottom right and press ‘Next’ when you’re done editing them. This will give you the option to tag other accounts and add hashtags. As you type out your hashtag, you’ll get a view of other hashtags and the views on each. This way you can select the hashtags with the most views, increasing your odds of being found by the right people.
Click ‘Post’ when you’re ready to publish your video. See, wasn’t that easy?
Finally, before we wrap this up, TikTok influencer Lauren Pope gives us some additional tips for brands aiming to grow on TikTok:
This is the universal rule for success on any social network, not just TikTok. Your TikTok videos will pick up steam only if you show up daily – that’s how Lauren built 40,000 followers organically.
Finding it hard to dedicate daily time to video shooting? Take a page from Lauren’s book and batch video creation. She uses a note app to jot down her ideas and then creates about ten videos in one sitting. This way, anyone can have ready-to-post videos in their draft that they can post any time.
This one’s another no-brainer – something you need to do on all social channels to grow. With TikTok though, everything is organic for now, so you can easily increase your chances of growth if you engage.