How to Create a Successful TikTok Marketing Strategy

January 19, 2022
Contents

By July 2021, nearly 57 percent of the world's population was on social media — resulting in TikTok marketing becoming a talking point. Suddenly, most of the popular videos online came from TikTok. 

Funny videos, entertaining videos, short lip sync videos, and other exciting content have attracted approximately 30 million TikTok users each day and spend an average of 52 minutes on it.

Many celebrities and businesses have created a TikTok account and started posting videos. Furthermore, Nike, Pepsi, Walmart, Dunkin' Donuts, and Universal Pictures serve as examples of using TikTok marketing to boost brand awareness.

No wonder this social media platform showed significant growth by surpassing 1 billion monthly active users. And according to the company report, TikTok users have increased by 45 percent since July 2020. 

This app has evolved into more than just a destination for short-form mobile videos. It is an effective marketing tool for companies to reach a young audience. If you are running a business, it is time to learn more about creating a TikTok marketing strategy.

What is TikTok?

Before going to a deeper discussion about TikTok marketing, let's get to know TikTok. It is a video streaming app that offers a ton of unique filters, effects, and music. 

This app is the international version of Douyin, a video app in China. Both are under ByteDance (TikTok's parent company) and use the same software. However, they maintain separate networks to obey china's censorship laws.

Each TikTok video is 15 seconds to 60 seconds long. TikTok offers features that allow users to add music, interact with other accounts, discover something with keywords and hashtags, scroll through For You Page, and many more.

When you make a TikTok video, you can share it on other social media channels. There are some formats on TikTok Video such as TikTok Trends or TikTok Challenges, TikTok Duets, Cringe Videos, Reach Videos, and Cross-Platform sharing. 

You can start making a video if you've got your TikTok profile.

Is TikTok Good for Marketing?

Marketing strategy is now in the hands of social media. You may acknowledge how popular TikTok is. Business owners and marketers start wondering whether or not this TikTok app can be one of the social media channels to boost business. 

You can give it a try because this platform can help you reach a broader audience at a lower cost. Some initially believe that TikTok's users are limited to young people under 24. 

However, by March 2021, approximately 38% of users in the United States were over 30 years old. Moreover, according to Marketing Science Global Time Well Spent, 92 percent of users took action after watching a TikTok video.

Distribution of Tiktok's users in the Us. Image: Statista

 

TikTok, like other social media platforms, can serve as a first touchpoint for selling your products or services because it has a high engagement rate. 

According to Upfluence data, the TikTok platform has higher engagement rates than Instagram and YouTube. 

Engagement Rate Comparison

Influencer Type Engagement Rate on TikTok Engagement Rate on Instagram Engagement Rate on YouTube
Mega-influencers 4.96% 1.12% 0.37%
Micro-influencers 17.96% 3.86% 1.63%

 A high engagement rate means a lot in achieving your target audience and raising brand awareness, too.

Another reason you should consider TikTok Marketing is because 90% of its users access the platform daily. Not only do people create TikTok videos, but 68% of users also watch other people's videos. They also give comments and likes. 

Furthermore, TikTok videos are more than just dancing and lip-syncing. Creators have a wide range of topics and themes. 

To support their creativity, TikTok offers a music library and filters. People even use this platform to create social campaigns.

How is the TikTok App used in Marketing?

The most crucial aspect of TikTok marketing strategy is defining your objectives. You can choose whether you want to reach a younger audience, get more social media engagement, attract new followers, grow brand awareness, or anything else.

Once you've identified your goal(s), you can look into TikTok marketing strategies that will work for you.

Before anything, you need to create a new TikTok channel in the app. Then post some relevant videos. 

If your TikTok content gets very few likes, you can collaborate with TikTok influencers to create trending videos.  You can also plan a marketing budget for an ad campaign.

TikTok, like other social media platforms, provides TikTok for Business. Content creators and brands can use the accounts to add more information to their profile pages. 

A pro account can access TikTok Analytics to see real-time metrics and audience insights.

How to create a TikTok business account

  1. Launch the TikTok app.
  2. Sign in using your email address or another social media account; Instagram, Facebook, Twitter.
  3. Navigate to Me in the lower right corner of your screen, then tap Edit Profile to add a bio and a profile picture.
  4. Tap the three dots in the upper right corner from your profile page to access Manage Account, switch to Pro Account and select Business or Creator.
  5. After choosing the business category, click Next.

If you intend to run TikTok ads, you must first create an ad account. Simply go to tiktok.com/business, click Get Started, and fill out the information form. 

When you are done, you can look at the ad products generated by TikTok, such as

  • a Brand takeover,
  • In-feed ads,
  • Branded hashtag challenge,
  • Top-view ads, 
  • Branded effects.

How to build an effective TikTok Marketing Strategy?

TikTok Ads is not the only way to do TikTok Marketing. Creating an interactive video could be a good starting point. 

You can do more by encouraging user-generated content, promoting hashtag challenges, and doing influencer marketing. 

If you are not yet familiar with all of those strategies for TikTok advertising, here is the information that may help you.

Ideas to Encourage User-Generated Content

TikTok demographics show that Generation Z dominates the platform. By nature, they love challenges. That is why we recommend posting user-generated content for TikTok marketing. 

They do not engage in passive experience or boring advertising. This emerging generation will be delighted to be involved in your content or campaign. 

One of the simplest ways is to encourage customers to create a new video to interact with your product. It could be an unboxing or review video.

Promoting Hashtag Challenges 

Marketing on TikTok is quite different from other platforms. You can post short videos with hashtag challenges on them. However, it is better not to add more than ten relevant hashtags. 

So, people will find your video content on the Discover Page. If it is interesting, people will talk about it. You can conduct preliminary research or observe your competitors get ideas for creating your challenge. 

You can take a look at trending hashtags that may help you, too.

Running Influencer Marketing Campaigns

Influencers can now be found on all social media platforms, and you can work with them. They can support you in promoting your brand because they can convey your messages to their many followers.  

They can create content creation in the form of popular videos. More than that, TikTok influencer marketing is regarded as effective TikTok marketing because the influencers are well-versed in the platforms.

However, filtering TikTok creators are crucial before collaborating.

Each of them has a different audience and character. We recommend you ensure that they fit into your brand and that both of you have the same target audience. 

More than that, specific targets and goals are needed for influencer campaigns. When all those things have been set up, you can leave it to the influencer to create engaging video content.

What is the algorithm of TikTok, and How to Hack it?

Tiktok Algorithm

TikTok marketing is not merely about making videos. It deals with algorithms like another social media platform. To optimize your campaign or ads, you need to understand its algorithm better. 

The For You Page, for example, can be personalized based on your preference. The system will automatically recommend the TikTok video based on your interest. 

The TikTok algorithm will read your habit by detecting videos you share, likes, comment, and account you follow. It also sees your preference based on video information, device, and account setting.

Adding Trending Hashtags

As a brand, you must compromise with TikTok Algorithm to increase views, likes, and comments for every TikTok video. Adding #fyp is not enough to boost your TikTok video or guarantee it will appear on For You Page. 

However, finding trending hashtags that are still relatable to your brand and checking a hashtag's performance can increase your odds of winning favor over the TikTok algorithm.

Writing a Short and Engaging Caption

Another TikTok Algorithm factor is on the caption. Short copywriting is way more friendly for this social media platform than writing a long caption.

You can consider a joke or a question for the caption to make TikTok users engage with your content.

Using Trending Sounds

Furthermore, using a trending song or sound makes your content easier to be found. 

Unlike trending hashtags, finding popular songs needs some steps. 

First, go to Sound in Video Editor, click on the plus icon, press "Sounds". Alternatively, you can see top songs on the Analytics dashboard.

Upload TikTok Videos at The Perfect Time and Consistently

Uploading videos for marketing on TikTok is also about best timing. The algorithm will be on your side if you upload when TikTok users are most active. To get the answer, tap on audience analytics.

Moreover, consistent uploads are good to maintain the engagement rate and tricking the algorithm.

Conclusion

TikTok marketing is undeniably essential for a brand that has young audiences. It is a low cost, yet the engagement rate is relatively high. 

Though TikTok has many unique factors in its algorithm, you can still win over it by applying some hacks. 

If you want to make the most of your marketing on TikTok, consider creating a creative video using Offeo.

It has a wide range of video marketing options that can effectively grab your target. Because the template is ready to use, no prior video editing experience is required.

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