When you think about TikTok, you might only visualize Gen Z. Whenever a new platform becomes popular, many young people hop onto the bandwagon. As soon as their parents do the same, the young people are gone like a freight train.
However, TikTok is proving itself to be a constantly evolving and growing platform, and it will be for a while. Despite trends being set by Gen Z, older generations, professionals, and casual youngsters all coexist in their own little niches on the app. Here’s how to navigate as a brand, reap all the benefits, and ace your TikTok marketing skills, all without coming off as stuffy.
1. Know the Power of TikTok
Effective TikTok marketing is all about taking advantage of its benefits. It’s great to get a handle on any new platform as it becomes popular and effective. TikTok’s algorithm pushes out tons of specifically recommended content every day. Thanks to each video being short and sweet, with an incredibly addictive scrolling process, users view tons of content before they’ve had enough. That increases your chances of engagement.
Our Tortuga Marketing TikTok page has under 100 followers. However, one of our posts has over 6K views. That’s pretty impressive compared to what you can achieve on Instagram or any other platform. The increase in engagement signifies an increase in organic reach. Given that the content is creative and optimized with popular audio and fitting hashtags, it will be shown to more people on TikTok, without you needing to intervene.
Increase your organic reach with TikTok.
This is especially powerful, because on Instagram, your organic reach is about 10-15% of your follower count. That means if you have 1,000 followers, only 200-300 people are going to see what you post. On TikTok, it’s completely reversed. The benefit to that is the fact that engagement gives you more results than a follower count does.
2. Find your Niche
TikTok is not just for kids. Lots of respected professionals are on TikTok, as well as more casual brands looking to have some fun. You’ll see everything from doctors, to real estate agents, to restaurants, to artists finding creative ways to showcase themselves on the app.
While you’re on TikTok, it’s important to know your approach to promote your stuff. It’s a total turnoff to appear like an advertisement. People will respond much better (and you’ll have more fun) if you create content that is enjoyable and relatable. Build your community and niche up with every creative idea you come up with.
In the meantime, you can cross-promote your other platforms by linking them to your TikTok account. You can also save the TikTok videos you create to be posted on other platforms like Instagram, as stories, reels, and posts.
Your content does not have to be super clean-cut and polished for TikTok. This will save you time, money, and energy! Appeal to the casual and fun nature of the app, and embrace your opportunity to color outside the lines.
3. Know the Mechanics of TikTok
TikTok is all about entertainment, so hone in on your brand’s creative expression. That could be used for comedy, information, aesthetics, and more. Once you start scrolling through the app, you’ll know what’s trending and popular, and the algorithm will slowly start to push out things you’re likely to engage with.
You’ll want to master the TikTok video tool to breathe life into your ideas. The video creator in TikTok allows you to shoot up to 60 seconds of video with filters, text, music, stickers, and more. There are tons of tutorials out there that will show you how to use the video creator tool.
You can also use third-party apps to edit your videos, such as Likee or Boosted. What’s more is that you can upload any video from your camera roll, so you can use all your old footage.
When doing TikTok marketing, you have the opportunity to be organic and fun with what you create, which is completely different to traditional marketing. Again, take full advantage of that!
4. Hashtags and Audio
An important part of your videos getting recommended on TikTok is through hashtags and audio. It’s great to do a little “SEO” on your TikTok content by searching up the hashtags that are popular and relevant to your niche, as well as jumping on popular audio trends with your own unique ideas.
As you’re doing your research, follow users that are relevant to you. When you post, use the best hashtags and audio you can find. People will find you by searching for specific hashtags, searching for content using specific audio, or via recommendation on their “for you” page. Do what you can to be easily seen!
Find creative ways to tag your TikTok content.
5. Get Planning to Start TikTok Marketing
After you’ve gotten to know the app, you can begin to plan your TikTok marketing, and become more thoughtful with the content you share. Again, you don’t need to worry about being flashy and high-production like you might elsewhere. It is a total turnoff to look like a stuffy advertisement on TikTok, so keep it casual. It is important to flex those creativity skills, though, and work smarter, not harder.
Brands are engaging in smart TikTok marketing when they do hashtag challenges, dance challenges, funny punchlines, filter trends, and more. The best brand TikToks offer an unpolished, transparent behind-the-scenes look at their company, and creatively use popular sounds.
A great thing to take advantage of is partnering up with influencers relevant to your niche. They can help you create content that is much more natural in someone’s feed, and more likely to be noticed.
Additionally, you can create your own TikTok hashtag challenge by inviting people to make videos with a fun idea or theme related to your niche. It’s a great idea to offer prizes to incentivize the best video with your hashtag.
TikTok has recently implemented paid ads, in the form of infeed native content that shows up on a home feed, brand takeovers, which show up as soon as users open up the app, promoted hashtag challenges, and branded filters. Brands can easily engage in TikTok marketing both for free (by creating content and engaging with other users) or for a fee.
Taking all of this information into account, you can get the wheels rolling, and make TikTok work for you. Whether it’s increasing your organic reach, getting leads, or upping your engagement, TikTok marketing is a great way to achieve tons of goals. As you’re mastering this new platform, remember to always keep an eye out for the next big thing, as the social media world moves incredibly fast! 🐢
