TikTok is still a baby. Founded in 2018 as the result of a merger between two apps, Musical.ly and Douyin, by a Chinese tech company. To think that TikTok has only been live for just over 2 years is insane. TikTok now has over 3.7 billion active users as of January 2021.
In terms of social networking services, TikTok sits at the top of the food chain. No other social networking service has had the exponential growth that TikTok has had. Some would attribute the recent COVID-10 pandemic to TikTok’s success. It became somewhat of a trend to be on TikTok, which resulted in a 180% growth in users.
The growth of TikTok has not only been amazing for the billions of users who spend hours passing time scrolling, or the TikTokers who have managed to make a great passive income. It has been excellent for businesses that want to market their products. Utilising TikTok is a lucrative modern-day marketing strategy that shouldn’t be missed. Here are some of the best tools for marketing on TikTok.
Influencers
There are influencers on every single social media platform, and TikTok is no different. Although the potential for influencers to make money through TikTok doesn’t seem to be as high, some influencers would jump at the chance to promote your products for a fee. It works the same way as it does with Instagram. You partner with an influencer and agree on a deal for posting content related to your business.
It could be a funny TikTok with your products, it could be a sit-down video talking about your services, or it could be an outright review. Influencers are easy to spot, much the same as they are on Instagram because they will have millions of followers and hundreds of thousands of people viewing their TikToks. TikTok influencer marketing campaigns work the best when creators are allowed complete freedom.
TikTokers are so successful because their loyal followers love their style and personality. Try not to create a robotic TikTok post by giving an influencer a script to follow. It’s noticeable!
At present, the platform isn’t the sharpest at tracking ad performances, but this is something TikTok is promising to change.
Ads
Ads are always an excellent way to promote your business. TikTok is no different. There are a few ways of using ads on TikTok to gain maximum exposure.
The first way is perhaps the least lucrative because studies have found that most users tend to skip them. It’s not the same as with Youtube, where users have to wait several seconds to skip the ad. TikTok ad videos tend to play for up to 15 seconds. However, the shorter the video, the more likely people are to engage. These ads are known as native ads.
Ensuring maximum engagement is key.
But it is not always easy to achieve. It’s important to create content that’s fun and exciting. The best way of engaging with people scrolling through TikTok is to create an ad that follows one of the latest TikTok trends. The main TikTok trends are lip-syncing and dances. These often form hashtag challenges.
Using Hashtags Challenges
Moving swiftly on, hashtag challenges are another excellent way of advertising on TikTok. There are two ways that you can use TikTok challenges to your advantage. Hashtag challenges are often created by TikTokers. Brands can then jump on the bandwagon and use it as a way of advertising.
Just so you know, hashtag challenges are kind of a big thing on TikTok. It’s what makes up pretty much the entirety of TikTok. The easiest way to market using hashtag challenges is to sponsor one of them and use a custom banner on the discovery page. When users click on the banner, it will take them to the TikTok challenge that you’ve helped to create. Promoted hashtags like that are great for brand engagement.
Create Your Own Content
Out of all the ways of marketing on TikTok, this seems to be the last on the list. TikTok has made it unbelievably easy to make videos and trends for them. Sometimes, all you need to do is follow a TikTok trend, such as a new dance, and you could gain millions of followers in days. TikTok is now so big that some would even think it possible to have someone managing a TikTok account and marketing full time.
Setting up a TikTok account is easy. Creating content that’s going to engage with the billions of users isn’t. Videos need to be fun, have personality, be a little bit silly, but also related to your brand. That’s why it’s advisable to learn the ins and the outs of the app. You need to know what works and what doesn’t and how to create amazing content.
Brand Takeovers
Takeover ads are an excellent way of promoting your brand on TikTok. Brand takeovers mean that users have to view the ad first, rather than the normal TikTok feed that they would. This ad can either be an image or a short video. Advertisers takeover that category, and only one advertiser can advertise using a video per day.
This comes at a cost. The minimum spend is around £40,000 per day, but that buys you 8.9 impressions. It’s a costly marketing method, but it does work.
TikTok is an incredible platform with a plethora of ways to advertise. The app is still growing exponentially. Utilise the many ways of advertising via TikTok to boost your marketing efforts.