New Tips For A Successful TikTok Marketing Strategy

If you want to know how a TikTok marketing strategy can help you promote your products and services, you have come to the right place.

With over a billion downloads worldwide, TikTok – a short video sharing app – is a promised land for businesses. Nevertheless, it is so different from what we have observed from other social media platforms that companies are still treading very small steps to test the water.

Read on the following tricks. You may find that TikTok marketing is not as hard as it seems.  

Have A Clear Goal

Determining the objective before you do anything is crucial, and this is extremely wise for digital marketing.

Demographics

A business is not like an average user who opens a TikTok account for reasons like sharing and watching videos for fun. But a business should not be too focused on the commercial side of the matter and forget that TikTok users hate blatant advertising.

The majority of TikTok users are under 35 years old. They have long turned away from traditional media like television and radio. If your target audience is from the older crowd, using TikTok to promote your products will prove inefficient.

On the other hand, TikTok encourages uniqueness. With the number of users and enormous types of content, there is an audience for everything. Make sure you find your niche to attract a more engaged audience.

Budget

TikTok works for a wide range of budgets. You have the choices of a daily and a lifetime budget.

The former option is for a business that wants to go slowly but surely. You want to penetrate the market carefully, constantly go back and test out the result of your TikTok marketing strategy before making the next move.

The latter option is for a business that wants to approach the largest market in the shortest time. To reach that conclusion, a business may have taken a lot of things into consideration, like the characteristics of their followers or the nature of their products and services.

Measuring Parameters

TikTok is different from other social network platforms in that success is not always measured by how big your account is. A lot of viral hits on TikTok come from small accounts which have few followers and videos with a low number of likes.

If you are a business, you should focus on building brand awareness instead of boosting performance-based metrics like KPIs or media benchmarks like the number of followers.  

Be Quick On The Trend

One way to survive in the unsure world of TikTok is to be sensitive to its trendy norm. Using trending hashtags, trending songs, trending effects, etc., is the quickest way to boost your video to the Discover Page and For You Page of many users.

Speed is also the key. Something relevant today may not be so tomorrow. Try your best to record and upload a video on the same day.

Do not worry if your video is not perfect. Compared to Facebook and Instagram users, TikTok users are less likely to judge the video’s aesthetics. They look for relevance and authenticity.

For this reason, reconsider whether you want to pursue a long social media marketing process. With a detailed plan and some luck, it may still work. Though be prepared to make constant readjustments to catch up with the robust culture of the app.

Content Strategy

Research The Market

When you are new on TikTok, we advise that you devote some time to immerse yourself in the app. Watching popular videos is both a fun and educational way to invest your time if you work as a marketer.

As already mentioned, this video-sharing platform offers some features that are not observed in other popular social media sites. Therefore, applying the old mindset to this app will not work.

If you are struggling to come up with original content, watch TikTok videos on the Discover Page or For Your Page to see what is trending. You can also follow the rival companies to research what is working and what is not for your industry.

Next, decide on the type of content you think would attract your target audience. Are they into dancing, skit, slapstick, or business tip series? Do they like props such as food, animals, or musical instruments?

While planning for your video, you must keep your brand identity in mind. The story of the video can change from time to time, but the overall style and format of videos should be consistent and align with the brand.

Practice Makes Perfect

TikTok is an ever-changing world, so being patient sounds like counterintuitive advice. However, as with anything in life, practice makes perfect. The faster pace something has, the more you have to be patient to learn to figure it out.

A 15-second transition video that may look effortless can take hours to record and edit. For example, if a model changes 5 outfits in that time frame, do you think she does that by magic?

She has to pop in and out of the frame 5 times, and she has to control her move so that when combining the 5 clips, the transition is smooth.

Learning how to make videos using TikTok is quite a useful skill to gain too. The app is a hub of hit songs and lots of effects. It is a nice video editor tool to have on your phone, even if you are not into TikTok.  

You can create a video using TikTok and share it on other social media platforms. This is the age of video marketing, so you see sites like Instagram, once stick to photo sharing, are now investing in video features like Instagram Story and Instagram Reel.

Post Often

Having a frequent posting schedule is the key to retain your viewer base. Another benefit of posting is to get a higher follower rate.

Unlike YouTube or Instagram where brands overthink their content and try to make it perfect, TikTok is loved for the ease of creating content. It encourages frequent posting and engagement. If you want to hop on a trend, a delay in posting means you miss the boat to go viral.

If you are new to TikTok, posting regularly is also a great way to test new ideas. Replicating trending videos is ok, but you do not want to be buried in the sea of generic content.

In the beginning, when you are not able to come up with a new idea from scratch yet, add your twist and spin on the existing trends. Try to balance organic and trending content to a 3:7 ratio.

Whenever you can, also pay attention to the posting time. According to the four phases that the TikTok algorithm works, the initial exposure is critical in deciding whether a video will reach the mainstream (aka the For You Pages).

Therefore, try to post when your audience is most active. For your information, there is no specific universal time that works for everyone.

Last but not least, posting does not only increase your feeling for the app but also brings about valuable information. Upgrade to Pro accounts, and you will get detailed TikTok analytics of your videos. 

You will have something as a reference point to understand consumer behaviors more, thus improving upon your next video or your products.

User-Generated Content

TikTok marketing is difficult since it challenges brands to develop a deeper, more intimate understanding of their customers. But the result is worthwhile.

Due to the fast pace of the app and the simplicity of interaction, TikTok is leading in the engagement rate among popular social media apps.

You should take advantage of the ease to interact and create videos to design hashtag challenges and brand challenges, spreading the popularity of your brand.

We will provide two examples so you can better visualize how it works. Do you still remember the Chipotle Lid Flip challenge? That is one way to boost Chipotle visibility on TikTok.

Another excellent example is Haidilao. The restaurant allows the customer to style their hotpot and show it off on TikTok.

User-generated content is free advertising and a great call-to-action, so why waste this valuable resource?

Hashtag

Hashtags on TikTok are equivalent to SEO keywords for a webpage. Choosing relevant hashtags will help you climb on the search pages – the Discover Page and the For You Page.

Nevertheless, avoid using an overly generic hashtag for your post, or it will be lost in a sea of content. Choose several potential hashtags and enter them in the TikTok browser one by one. A hashtag is good enough if it appeals between 300,000 to 2 million views.  

As briefly mentioned above, a hashtag challenge is a great way to increase engagement and build your brand awareness. It creates a marketing opportunity for you to connect to a wider audience beyond your followers.

Once your brand recognition has reached a certain level, you can create your unique hashtag and encourage users to use it for their posts. Again, user-generated content is one of the most effective marketing efforts that you should utilize.

Marketing Strategy    

Influencer Marketing      

Incorporating influencers is probably the quickest way to introduce your brand to a broader audience. You can hire them to mention your product in their video, tag your product, or include a link to your brand in the description.

If you have a small brand and do not want to go with influencers yet, or you cannot find an influencer that can well represent your brand, we suggest you partner with a content creator.

TikTok makes it easy to find one through the TikTok Content Marketplace. You can also find influencers using various database platforms and influencer marketing software.

Whatever you do, remember two important things for influencer marketing: be authentic and be careful.

Generation Z, the majority of TikTok users, hate blatant ads. Even if a professional advertising agency participates in the process, they have to make ads like there is no agency involved.

Influencers have a huge follower base because they understand the platform and their fans. Instead of exercising too much control over their creative process, you should listen and respect what they have to contribute.

Nevertheless, you should carefully research the person who will present your brand. Factors like the number of followers are important, but they alone cannot decide the success of your campaign.

The best partner for your brand would be someone who has a good track record of quality content and who is authentic and aligned with the brand.

Tiktok Ads

Like most other social media, TikTok has developed its ads features to help brands increase their influence and their sales. Here we will explain three formats so that you can choose the most suitable one:

• In-feed ads: They are the most popular choice for brands that are not well established yet. You can add a website link and the Order Now button to these ads.
• Branded hashtags: This format is already mentioned throughout this article. A typical hashtag campaign lasts for 6 days. The banner will appear on the top of the Discover Page and drive users to a landing page. It encourages viewers to share the content of your brand for you.
• Brand Takeover: This ad format allows your brand to take over the whole category for a day. A full-screen ad will pop up when the users open their TikTok. As you can guess, the price will not be cheap, but it is a bang for the buck.

Regardless of the types you choose, make sure TikTok ads come after you have raised an audience for your account. TikTok users focus on entertaining and informing content, so releasing promotional materials too early in the process can kill your brand prematurely.

Even after you have a consistent follower base, blend in branded content discreetly. Try to connect and put yourself in your target audience’s shoes.

Conclusion

TikTok marketing strategy is unlike anything that we have seen before. For that reason, many businesses and marketers have shown skepticism for it since day one.

However, no one can deny the development of TikTok. To stay out of that promised land is to be ignorant.Follow the provided TikTok marketing tips to advance your brand. The app’s large user base highly likely includes the potential audience for your products and services. Be patient and good luck!