Today’s youngsters are much smarter about advertising. They do not watch as much TV as their older counterparts, and they tend to ignore overt online advertising by either using ad blockers or even paying for premium services just to forgo them.
That’s why companies are scrambling to find unique and interesting ways to make their brands more visible. Social media has proven to be such a valuable tool for marketing these days. With TikTok being one of the fastest-growing social media platforms ever, it would be silly not to tap into the potential it has to benefit your business. Many brands already understand this and have taken to actively growing an audience on TikTok.
The average TikTok user spends more than 50 minutes per day on the app, and each TikTok video can last anywhere up to 1 minute. That’s at least 50 videos per day! However, you can’t simply post your television ad to your TikTok account and expect it to go viral. Today’s generation craves originality and creative content over “professionally-produced” ones. Having a viable marketing strategy will help get their eyes on your brand.
Here are 10 valuable tips that’ll help you get the best out of TikTok marketing.
Relatable Content
Millions of videos live on TikTok, with more being added every single day. The only way to make yourself seen above the sea of content is to create unique and interesting content. One of the reasons why TikTok and other social media platforms like it are so popular is that viewers feel like they can relate to the content they are watching.
Contrary to popular norms, videos that don’t look professionally produced perform better (even if you are getting the help of a marketing agency). It’s important to build a brand for yourself and garner genuine followers who trust you before jumping into any sort of advertising. One of the reasons why TikTok marketing is so effective is because there is a sense of “normalcy” in these videos, unlike a traditional TV ad.
Use TikTok Effects
Another way to make your content stand out is to use the wide range of effects that TikTok provides in-app. You can find them under the “Effects” tab, categorized into Trending, New, Interactive, Editing, Beauty, Funny, World, and Animal categories. TikTok even has a green screen effect which you can use to place an image or video of choice in the background – much like it’s often done in TV and the movies!
Use the Right Hashtags
Anyone who knows anything about social media knows that hashtags are an integral part of it. As with many other SM platforms, TikTok users use hashtags to categorize their videos and to search content. The discover tab on the app shows features videos based on trending hashtags, so using the right ones will help you get more views.
At the same time, it’s best for you to avoid overdoing it. Keep your hashtags limited and relevant to your campaign so your videos appear on the associated categories. Generic hashtags should also be avoided because your videos have a high probability of getting lost in a sea of unrelated content.
Engagement is Key
As with most other social media, TikTok rewards users for frequent user engagement. This means that you should dedicate a good chunk of time to engaging on other videos. Not only does this increase your visibility, but it also encourages users to comment and engage on your own videos. While you’re at it, make sure to make meaningful comments beyond the perfunctory “nice video” ones because TikTok ranks comments by the likes they get.
Follow Current TikTok Trends
Instead of seeking hashtags for your content, another strategy would be to create content tailored towards trending hashtags. The key is to be quick because trends tend to die out quickly. It is also important to try and differentiate yourself from the pack by adding some creative twists to it so your video doesn’t end up being a copy of everyone else’s.
Get the Influencers
There is much debate on whether influencers are celebrities, but regardless of if they are or not, it’s no secret that they have quite the, well, influence, over their followers. The younger generation tends to trust their favorite content creators over a conventional movie star. That’s why it’s important to get a few influencers in on your marketing campaign. Even creators with smaller followings can help you grow your brand as they tend to have a very niched following, meaning that every one of them is likely to be interested in your product or service.
Post Regularly
While certain social media sites discourage too much posting, TikTok is one place where you will get rewarded for it. Simply put, the more videos you post, the more likely you are to get a higher view count. Since your videos will be much more prominent and easier to find, you will also get more people following you.
Use Clear Descriptions
It’s not ideal to post long, rambling descriptions to your posts when the videos themselves don’t last beyond a minute. That’s why it’s important to keep them clear, concise, and compact. Make sure to get your message across without launching into an essay.
At the same time, you should choose the words you use carefully as it is also essential for SEO purposes. TikTok indexes your posts into different categories and suggests them to audiences with similar viewing habits based on your descriptions. So, make sure to use as many keywords as would fit in naturally in your video descriptions.
You can also begin or end your description with a question or prompt that’ll tempt the viewers into leaving a comment, which is a great way to boost engagement on your post. You can also do the same with in-video captions.
Use TikTok Ads
TikTok has recently launched a formal advertising system that makes it easy for brands to advertise on the platform. You can choose between in-feed native ads, hashtag challenge ads, and brand takeover ads. They are all a bit different and would best fit in with different brands and customers, so you have to choose the most suitable one for yours.
Set a Hashtag Challenge
Speaking about official advertising systems on TikTok, perhaps the most successful kind is the hashtag challenge ones. This is probably because of how important hashtags have become in popular culture as it extends far beyond TikTok. Plus, they are most often fun!
How this works is that the brand chooses a hashtag and sets a challenge for users to try and post themselves. It’s important to pick a unique, yet rememberable hashtag to encourage engagement and brand awareness. Recently, McDonald’s launched the #bigmactiktok challenge where fans had to select a Big Mac chant genre they liked and record a video of them dancing to it.
