Do you know what’s taking the internet by storm these days? TikTok videos! This app has more than 500 million users worldwide.
The millennials and Gen-Z are drooling over it every day for their daily dose of entertainment but It’s way more than just a teen-centered lip-syncing app. Celebrities like Jimmy Fallon, CardiB, Ed Sheeran, Britney Spears are on TikTok nowadays. Moreover, Brands like Chipotle, Elf Cosmetics, Guess, NBA, NFL, and more use this platform to grow their business.
So, If used wisely this can be the best marketing platform to boost your business in 2020. How? Let us explain.
illustration by Hurca
#1. Understand the Platform
Start by understanding what this platform really is. TikTok is an entertaining social media platform that allows you to create videos with customized audio effects.
So, there's a database of music from which you can pick your favorite, film your own video of 15 seconds, and lip-sync to create comedy sketches.
This app is actually the second iteration of another popular app called Musical.ly.
Musical.ly was launched in 2014 by a few Chinese entrepreneurs. Seeing it’s growing popularity, TikTok absorbed Musical.ly in August 2018.
TikTok’s main TG falls between the age group of 16-24 years. Now the vital question is, how does it relate to your business? Using TikTok features you can elevate brand awareness and engage the customers with your brand.
You can go for paid marketing or organic approaches to reach out to your target audience. You can also follow the current trends to run your own TikTok campaigns. Just download the app, play around with its features and you’ll know how it works.
#2. Set a Content Plan
Setting a strong content plan is the first approach to hit the TikTok platform. It might be easier if you’re engaging only for yourself but planning content and campaigns for a particular brand may require professional help.
Remember that TikTok is a free-spirited social media platform. So, your content shouldn’t be too serious. No matter what content you prepare, your audience should be able to connect with it.
When starting, you can try planning humorous content to gain the attention of the audience. This type of content gets more shares. We recommend that you be creative and keep it simple. Memes are fine but can go wrong sometimes.
So, if memes don’t work with your brand identity, try out other emotional approaches. Most importantly, stay true to your brand image. This will prove your authentication in the business.
#3. Paid Advertisements
Initially, TikTok did not have paid advertisement facilities. It got introduced recently and business owners are taking full advantage of it. Paid advertisement categories include- hashtag challenges, infeed native content, brand takeovers, branded lenses, etc.
Hashtag challenges allow marketers to pay for their hashtags that appear under the discover section. You can promote these hashtags to get more engagement.
Infeed native content works like your Instagram sponsored stories. If you tap the story, it appears in full-screen mode.
Brand takeovers are effective and costly at the same time. This approach allows you to take over TikTok for a whole day. They’ll add embedded links of your business landing page and your hashtag challenges inside different videos, images or GIFs.
Lastly, branded lenses are like customized 2D or 3D Snapchat filters. These lenses are helpful in building brand connectivity.
#4. Hashtag Challenges
This is the most talked-about of the challenge of TikTok nowadays. It’s a challenge you throw to your audience introducing an interesting hashtag and ask them to reinvent their own content by following it. Your audience will then share their content on TikTok with that Hashtag.
Content with more views and likes will dominate the platform. If you can’t generate those naturally, you can always buy TikTok likes and go viral.
Hashtag challenges are the ultimate way to increase brand visibility on TikTok. Plus the right content and fun hashtag will also drive user interaction.
When you introduce a challenge and people start accepting it, you can share their content to promote your brand as well. All you need to do is to search with your hashtag on the discover option and if people use it, you’ll find hundreds of content under that hashtag.
Then to take your challenge to the next level you can reward the best content and spread the words to create the hype. This is how the trend lives and gains popularity. Thus, a good strategy goes a long, long way.
#5. Collaborate With Influencers
TikTok users are mostly millennials and millennials don’t buy traditional marketing approaches. Thankfully there's an easy way out. Collaborating with influencers!
Really. It makes a whole lot of difference when an influencer will praise your brand or use your hashtags. It’ll make your brand look more reliable. Plus, well-established influencers have large fan followings. So, using them may benefit you in elevating brand visibility.
The daunting task will be to choose the right influencer who’ll compliment your brand image. Relevancy is the key point here. If your influencer or their content is not relevant to your brand, there is actually no point in investing any money on them.
So, tap into your marketing instincts, discover influencers who can exploit your brand image, and create viral content. This should be your ultimate target.
Final Thoughts
Any social media platform is a way to a wider audience. Be it TikTok, Facebook or Instagram make sure to take full advantage of their features. We hope this article simplified TikTok for you.
So, go ahead, set a goal, create content, run campaigns, and engage new audiences. No matter what you do, do some research beforehand and you’re ready!
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