Originally known as Musical.ly, TikTok stepped neatly into the void left by Vine after its untimely departure in 2017and has been steadily gaining the attention of young users and business owners alike ever since with its short, highly engaging content.
TikTok is all about fun and visually appealing content. If you take a look at the TikTok trending page, you’ll find tons of silly videos set to hit songs.Â
TikTok presents an untapped opportunity for businesses to advertise in a way that doesn’t feel contrived or ingenuine. TikTok is relatively new, especially to the business world, and, as such, is not nearly as saturated as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. It’s also much cheaper to advertise on because there isn’t a strong influencer community yet; there are far fewer users competing for sponsorship and ad placements.
If you use TikTok, you can introduce your business or product to a huge audience. In fact, according to the influencer marketingHub, TikTok has 500 million users worldwide, and it was the most downloaded app for Apple in Q1 2018.
Let’s jump straight into how you can use TikTok for business…
How to create ads on TikTok
- Create fun and engaging content
Unlike Instagram, TikTok largely rejects polished, high-quality content. As such, it has earned a reputation as a casual platform where users feel comfortable expressing themselves.The best way to advertise on TikTok is to create engaging and fun videos since the TikTok application is all about sharing fun videos.
Creating your own content is one of the easiest and least expensive ways to promote your business on TikTok. Plus, one of the biggest benefits of TikTok is that you don’t need to create highly-polished videos. Just pull out your smartphone and start filming. While wacky videos are widely popular on TikTok, don’t try to create an outrageous meme if that’s not your business’ style though.
- Launch a #Hashtag Challenge
Another way to promote your business on TikTok is by launching a hashtag challenge. A hashtag challenge is when you encourage TikTok users to create or recreate content and add your branded hashtag to it.
A fun hashtag challenge not only promotes your business, but it also drives user interaction and engagement.
For example, the #dollypartonchallenge was also taken to TikTok and and it had 38.3M views. Imagine advertising to such a big audience?
- Work with TikTok Influencers
TikTok-specific influencers might not be huge yet, but they will be and you can work with them to widen your reach on the platform. Working with TikTok influencers can really help you make a connection with that generation of users.
Chipotle partnered with influencer David Dobrik for a paid marketing campaign for the #ChipotleLidFlip challenge and got more than 100,000 submissions and 230 million views.
To get results from TikTok influencer marketing, just make sure the influencer’s audience matches your target audience. To find the right influencer for your business, you can look for online tools that let you search bios on TikTok, look for mentions of other brands, the most popular languages used in an influencer audience and more.
TYPES OF ADS YOU CAN PUT ON TIKTOK
- Infeed Native Content:Â This type of ad is similar to Snapchat or Instagram story ads and supports multiple features like website clicks or app downloads.
- Brand Takeovers:Â This lets brands take over TikTok for the day. They can create images, GIFs and videos with embedded links to landing pages or hashtag challenges.
- Hashtag Challenges:Â Instead of trying to make a hashtag challenge go viral on your own, you can use promoted hashtags to get more engagement.
- Branded Lenses:Â Branded lenses are like the Snapchat 2D and 3D lenses for faces and photos.
The beauty of TikTok is that it’s an accessible creative space. That means it thrives on a touch of quirkiness and avoids heavily commercial-style productions.
Having this said, the ball is now in your court. If your business has a younger target audience, TikTok is the perfect place to capture their attention. Use these tips to make sure you get the most out of your TikTok promotion strategy.
P.S: Remember to follow me on Twitter for some tweets about anything #DigitalMarketing. You can also read my blog at maxmakumucha.wordpress.com
