How does TikTok marketing work?
TikTok is the fastest growing social channel, recently surpassing YouTube in average watch time on Android devices. It’s also the first non-Facebook app to reach 3 billion downloads on the App Store.
TikTok presents an opportunity to change the digital marketing landscape. The biggest challenge is that we often learn about short-form, lo-fi video formats, and many of the best practices marketers know for other social channels don't apply.
While each has similar interfaces, such as short-form videos, sound-ons, and customized discoverability, it is clear that different strategies need to be developed to truly succeed in marketing Instagram and TikTok. is important to understand. These tips will put you on the right track to develop an effective approach to increasing brand awareness across all channels.
What is TikTok Marketing?
As discussed, TikTok is growing rapidly in the social space. Like other social channels, TikTok can be used as a marketing tool for influencers, creators and brands. In short, TikTok marketing is the perfect tool to promote your brand. This can be done through paid, organic and influencer efforts, all aimed at increasing brand awareness on the platform.
Looking for a good starting point? Dash Hudson offers a TikTok Insights solution that includes a variety of features that make marketing on TikTok easier.
Who Uses TikTok?
TikTok is a unique SNS that has over 1 billion monthly active users and is loved by a wide range of generations. Generation Z is the most active on TikTok, making up nearly half of the user base, but there are opportunities for brands to engage with all types of users on the app. In terms of gender statistics, over half of TikTok users are female, 57%.
Why Brands Should Use TikTok
It can be intimidating to dive into yet another social channel as a brand, but TikTok isn't going away anytime soon. TikTok's fast-moving, entertainment-focused content is what users want brands to see redefining things. Brands can show a different side of themselves on TikTok than on other social networks such as Instagram. Take the Duolingo for example. The brand has built a whole new reputation by using TikTok marketing. They stepped out of the corporate trap that many brands fall into, participating in popular trends and sometimes even pushing boundaries. Does that sound like your brand is ready? Start by setting up your business account.
How to Setup TikTok for Business
Setting up a TikTok Business account is one of the easiest parts of the process. Simply select the menu option in the top right corner of your profile. Then click Manage Account, and then click Account Control. Here you will see the option to switch to a business account. Your brand is now ready for perfect TikTok marketing.
Tips for TikTok Marketing Strategy Success
How can brands use TikTok and Instagram Reels to increase engagement? There are several ways brands starting from scratch can develop a fruitful and successful marketing strategy for TikTok.
1. Define Your Purpose and Excel at Branded Content
First and foremost, think about your “why” for appearing on these channels. Viewers flock to short-form videos to see genuinely inspiring, educational, and entertaining content that showcases their favorite creator. Use this channel to enhance your brand voice through product reviews and user-generated content (UGC).
This is your opportunity to show your audience what you can do to help build your brand. We provide behind-the-scenes insights into what it's like to be part of a brand, including influencers and employees. Content that performs best includes footage from campaign shoots, product openings by influencers, lip-syncing to relevant sounds, and employees having fun at work. People come to him on TikTok for the lighthearted entertainment, not the videos that are produced. Luckily, short lo-fi videos are easy to shoot. All you need is your mobile phone.
2. TikTok influencer marketing
TikTok influencer marketing is a big part of the app ecosystem. Big stars like Charli D'Amelio, Addison Rae, and Zach King can have a huge impact on your company's success (tens of millions of people watch your content every day).
But you don't need a famous influencer to be successful with your marketing. Try to find rising stars and influencers in your niche. For example, a small Vancouver-based cosmetics brand can search for the hashtag #vancouvermakeup to find influencers like Sarah McNabb.
3. Build Loyal Partnerships with TikTok Influencers
Influencer marketing has emerged as a creative field, and consumers are now looking for content on TikTok that entertains and educates them. Brands should strive to reinvigorate their influencer strategy on both TikTok and Instagram by working with creators who can bring their message to life in a meaningful way. Instagram offers a unified set of tools to showcase your creators in many ways, including feeds, stories, videos, and Instagram reels.
“We started contracting TikTok influencers to create content for us and then add it into our own team’s content plans.”
— Dana Nolan, Vital Proteins, Social Media Coordinator
4. Understand Current TikTok Trends
Jumping on trends and contributing to the conversation is one of the most important things to pay attention to when figuring out how to go viral on TikTok or Instagram and when building out your strategy. Pay attention to what’s trending on the For You and Discovery pages to tailor content to fit your own brand voice. Develop a habit of watching the first ten videos on each platform and pay attention to consistencies among hashtags, sounds, special effects, and transitions.
There’s always something that your brand can take advantage of to grow reach. Figure out creative ways to include your brand in ongoing TikTok trends and stand out from the crowd.
5. Understand the Nuances of Short-Form Video Engagement
TikTok is designed to scroll from video to video, giving you only seconds to make a first impression on your audience.
Whenever possible, your content should be at the forefront of the conversation, helping people focus on your brand without scrolling.
Of course, overlapping content on Instagram and TikTok accounts is to be expected. Think strategically about your content shoots so that you can show original content in both places without spending a lot of extra time creating content for your cross-channel marketing strategy. Food52 shares the same recipes across all channels, but the team knows that whereas on Reels people are only involved with images of food and recipes, on TikTok they can be a little more involved with their personalities.
Instagram and TikTok users need to show something (or at least something) different on each social channel to keep growing followers and engagement on each channel.
“We’ll do a couple different shots so that the Reel works for Reels and the TikTok works for TikTok. We don’t want each platform to feel the same.”
— Patrick Moynihan, Food52, Director of Social Media
6. Video Analytics Speak Volumes
While the goal is to create beautiful content that grabs attention, it's the data that lets us know how it landed. With the launch of Dash Hudson's Insights for TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram Reels, brands now have at their fingertips all the metrics they need to output videos that support a holistic social entertainment strategy.
Open up your TikTok analytics and pay attention to the posts that generate the best reach, video views and shares, and use the same approach when planning your marketing strategy. You have the option to switch to a Business (Pro) account to see even more analytics for your brand.
Look for similarities in your best-performing posts within individual apps to inform strategies on how to continue curating powerful, visually engaging feeds.
7. Create Fun Video Content That Entertains Your Audience
Overall, the short videos are for your enjoyment. 74% of Gen Z and 72% of viewers are 26+, they like watching the brand's fun content. It's a great opportunity to experiment, take risks and have fun with never-before-created content like Hashtag Challenge or Dance Challenge. See what TikTok influencers are doing and consider incorporating user-generated content into your strategy.
TikTok's video editing tools have a wealth of native effects that you can use to enhance your content and make it more engaging for your audience. Create fun and trendy videos with stickers and emojis, or explain what's going on with text. Experiment with the effect of maximizing brand engagement.
8. Utilize TikTok Advertising
One of the best ways for brands to enhance their TikTok marketing strategy is with TikTok Ads. Why is TikTok good for advertising? Because of reach. With TikTok being so popular, the possibilities are endless. There are different types of ads that brands can use to tailor their campaigns to their needs. Creating a campaign consists of choosing a goal, setting a budget, choosing placements, targeting the right audience, and deciding on a bid strategy. Once these requirements are met, you can create your AD. At this point, your copy and creative should be ready. Now all you have to do is insert it into your ad template.
Types of Ads available on TikTok
- In-feed ads are ads that you create yourself. Types of in-feed ads include image ads (like billboards), video ads (like TV commercials), and spark ads (which amplify existing content to appear in more people’s feeds). ) and so on. There are also Pangle Ads and Carousel Ads available exclusively on Audience Network and News Feed apps on TikTok.
- Managed brand ads may look like in-feed ads, but they’ve added a format for those who work with TikTok’s sales reps (contact them to see if it’s right for you)
- Additional ad formats include top-view ads (plays when you first open the app and can’t be skipped like YouTube ads), branded hashtag challenges (actionable hashtags associated with your brand), branding effects (such as stickers and filters). ).
9. How to make a TikTok Ad Account
If you plan to advertise on TikTok, you will need to create an advertising account for TikTok Ads Manager.
To do this, go to ads.tiktok.com, click Create Now and enter your information. (It’s just the basics: country, industry, business name and contact info.)
10. Define your target audience
Who do you want to reach on TikTok? Before you start creating content, research TikTok demographics to identify who might be interested in your brand. TikTok is the most popular among teens, but it would be a mistake to see TikTok as teen app. 20-to-29-year-old cohort is closely following is teens in the United States. In China, "glam mas" signifies that fashion gets better and better with age.
Survey your audience on other social media platforms and look for duplicates on TikTok. But don't exclude new or unexpected audiences. Your current audience may not be on TikTok, but there may be subgroups on the platform with related or slightly different interests. For example, a children's book publisher's audience may consist of LinkedIn authors, Instagram readers, and TikTok illustrators.
Once you've focused on your potential audience, research and interact with the types of content they like. Then start brainstorming content ideas for your brand.
11. Perform a competitive audit
Are your competitors on TikTok? In this case, you may miss action. If not, TikTok could be a way to gain a competitive edge..
Find at least 3-5 similar brands or organizations and see what they're doing with your app, whether or not your competitors use the platform. Try to learn from what worked and what didn't work for them. Use S.W.O.T if it helps. A framework for identifying the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of each competitor.
TikTok is a creator-driven platform, so don't rule out including TikTok stars and influencers in this exercise. Find a personality that specializes in your field, from cosmetics to medicine to education to literature.
12. How to Manage Your Brands Presence on TikTok
If you plan to advertise on TikTok, you will need to create an advertising account forNow that the brand has created a definitive list of TikTok marketing action items, it can be a little overwhelming. Social media marketing tools are key to a successful TikTok marketing strategy. With a tool like Dash Hudson as part of your social media arsenal, you can schedule posts in advance, create your own links with Likeshop in Bio, manage relationships and UGC, and monitor campaign success. Beyond these features, brands have access to next-level reporting, in-depth analytics and key benchmarks. These unique features are what the brand needs to achieve great success with TikTok growth strategy. TikTok Ads Manager.
To do this, go to ads.tiktok.com, click Create Now and enter your information. (It’s just the basics: country, industry, business name and contact info.)
13. Set goals that align with your business objectives
You can create TikToks for fun, but it's a good idea to have goals in mind that you can link to your overall business goals.
Whether your goal is to reach new audiences, improve your brand image, increase product awareness, or strengthen customer relationships through engagement, it's important to justify your efforts. Consider using S.M.A.R.T. A goal frame or other template for setting goals for: Specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and timely.
• Tap Creator Tools, then Analytics.
• Explore the dashboard and find the metrics you can use to measure your goals.
14. Track your progress
Analytics aren't just the perfect starting point for marketing on TikTok. It's also an easy way to determine if your strategy is working. Check back at least once a month to see if you're meeting your goals.
15. What’s Next for TikTok?
As time goes by, TikTok is becoming more and more popular. Social entertainment and short videos should be at the center of your future marketing campaigns.
That means it's becoming increasingly important for brands to leverage TikTok's long-term strategy now and plan ahead.
Leveraging the latest trends, harnessing the power of TikTok creators, and leveraging TikTok analytics to guide the strategy are key to the success of Lille and TikTok strategy and creating highly engaging advertising campaigns. For a comprehensive guide to getting started with TikTok marketing, check out Dash Hudson's TikTok Marketing Playbook.
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Reels and TikTok Marketing Strategy FAQs
How long should a TikTok video be?
TikTok videos can be between 1 second and 3 minutes long, but generally should be between 10 and 15 seconds for best performance. Ideally, the video should reach the point quickly so that the viewer does not skip to the next.
How often should I post on TikTok?
Like other social media platforms, TikTok recommends posting 3-5 times a week. A slow posting speed makes it harder for the brand to be discovered in TikTok algorithm. On the other hand, posting more than 5 times a week may be too much for some followers. If you want more people to see your content, consider investing in TikTok ads.
How many hashtags should I use on TikTok?
According to TikTok, sticking with 2-3 hashtags helps your posts perform at their best. And no, using #fyp won’t up your chances of hitting the For You Page. The TikTok algorithm is hard to predict, but you're better off using relevant hashtags on your posts to find your ideal audience.
TikTok is the fastest growing social channel, recently surpassing YouTube in average watch time on Android devices. It’s also the first non-Facebook app to reach 3 billion downloads on the App Store.
TikTok presents an opportunity to change the digital marketing landscape. The biggest challenge is that we often learn about short-form, lo-fi video formats, and many of the best practices marketers know for other social channels don't apply.
While each has similar interfaces, such as short-form videos, sound-ons, and customized discoverability, it is clear that different strategies need to be developed to truly succeed in marketing Instagram and TikTok. is important to understand. These tips will put you on the right track to develop an effective approach to increasing brand awareness across all channels.
What aspect ratio should TikTok videos be?
Your TikTok video should have 9:16 dimensions and 1920 x 1080 full screen crop. Although it can be resized, it is recommended to use the channel's native aspect ratio as the video will either not fill the screen or will be cropped at the top and bottom. When editing videos to preserve.
What marketing strategy does TikTok use?
TikTok marketing is the practice of using TikTok to promote a brand, product or service. It can include different tactics, like influencer marketing, TikTok advertising and creating organic viral content. TikTok marketing can help businesses: Increase brand awareness.