How to use TikTok as a Marketing Tool
It’s no secret that TikTok is the latest social media platform taking over the digital arena. The 15-60 second videos provide quick entertainment and information to its 750 million monthly users. Originally popularized over lip-syncing and dancing videos, companies are now taking advantage of the public’s attention to the app by incorporating marketing strategies to increase the traffic of younger audiences. In fact, 66% of TikTok users are under 30 and tend to focus on trending topics, hashtags, and sounds. Here are some ways that you can increase engagement on your TikTok to help grow your business.
Be consistent, build your brand
What makes TikTok unique is that videos have the opportunity to go viral regardless of follower count or date of membership. This is why it’s important to build consistent, quality videos that are quick to the point and welcome a lot of engagement. Many creators do this by posting on a schedule, posting videos easily recognizable to their brand, and engaging with their fans.
An example of this is Roni’s Mac Bar (@ronismacbar), a customizable macaroni restaurant in Waco, Texas. The restaurant has built up a following of 309K and is well known for taking macaroni requests from the comments and making it on video. In one of their most popular videos, they received 9.6 million views and almost one million likes. Because each video has a similar layout and style, it’s easy to detect their brand and become familiar with their content.
@ronismacbar For the haters 😤 #macandcheese #food #foodie #serviceindustry #haters
You can also build your brand through text and graphics. TikTok offers options for captions, text-to-speech, and on-screen text. These can be easily added after you film or upload your video footage by clicking on any of the effect features located on the bottom or right-sidebar.
These features increase the quality of your TikToks and make your videos more accessible to those who may have difficulties seeing or hearing.
Furthermore, it’s vital to always push engagement in your videos. This could mean reminding viewers to like/follow, come back for part two, or comment in response to a question.
Following trends
As users are familiar with, TikTok is all about promoting trends. In order for a video to be considered a trend, it usually has to contain a certain audio snippet and grow in popularity on the For You page. Following video trends is a simple way to increase engagement because the content idea and popularity are already there.
The For You page, or the home scrolling page, is designed to show videos that are the most similar to the user’s interests and keep you on the app for longer. Because the algorithm knows that people enjoy watching topics that are trending, it’s more likely to promote those videos and therefore reach a broader audience.
To find trending audios on TikTok, you can scroll through the For You page or create a video by clicking the “+” button at the bottom center of the app, clicking “add sound” at the top, and then browsing the recommended or “TikTok Viral” playlists.
The Washington Post TikTok (@washingtonpost) with 1.5 million followers is one account that uses trends to spread news and attract users to their site. For example, in this video, they used a popular dancing trend to show off their interns. The audio had been used by 27K videos, and attracted almost 1 million viewers to their TikTok.
@washingtonpost DC’s hottest club is the Intern Breakroom 🕺🪩
By incorporating your brand into popular TikTok trends and using trending audios, your TikTok has a better chance of going viral.
Hashtags and giveaways
Hashtags are a great way to categorize content to make it easier for users to find. By simply adding popular hashtags to your videos, you can increase discoverability.
To find the most popular hashtags, go to the discover tab in the top right corner, and it will highlight a list of trending topics below the search bar. Alternatively, when you type a hashtag in your caption, it will show the number of views associated with that tag. For example, one of the most popular hashtags, #fyp or “For You Page”, has over 30,000 billion views.
Larger brands take advantage of hashtags to make challenges or giveaways. Venmo (@venmo) created the #VenmoU challenge where users who follow their account and comment their Venmo handle have the chance of winning money. The hashtag has over 100 million views, and one of their most popular videos has 45K comments. While it may be difficult for creators first starting out to find success with their own hashtags, videos that participate in larger creator’s hashtags or include them in their videos can reach large audiences.
@venmo Get ready for 100 #VenmoU winners 🤑 Follow @Venmo & drop your handle in the comments for a chance to win $308! Must follow @Venmo. No purch nec. Ends 9/2/22. US only, 18+. Venmo acct req’d. Link in bio for official rules.
As long as you take advantage of trendy and relevant hashtags, you can more easily target the audience you’re looking for to expand your engagement.
The importance of strategy
The key to building your brand on TikTok is simple, fun and engaging content. This means taking time to expand to larger audiences and becoming familiar with the TikTok algorithm. For professional advice on building your brand, businesses like Kubbco provide content strategists that work to make a plan specific to your brand. Regardless of your approach, remember that strategy and consistency go a long way; appealing to a younger crowd can be difficult, but it’s worth it in the long run.
