Businesses are always on the lookout for new platforms and strategies to connect with their target audience as well as attract new customers. TikTok, as a powerful tool for marketing products and services, has emerged as one such platform. Its user-friendly interface and extensive reach allow you to connect with a diverse audience, thereby boosting your brand presence. Now, let’s delve into how you can effectively use TikTok for marketing your small or large businesses.
10 Steps to Use TikTok for Business Marketing
With over 1 billion monthly active users and a highly engaged audience, TikTok has emerged as a powerful marketing tool, especially for small businesses. The platform’s algorithm heavily favors user-generated content, making it easier for small companies to reach a massive audience organically. To maximize TikTok’s marketing potential, small businesses should:
- Analyze their target audience
- Create visually appealing content
- Participate in popular trends and challenges
- Collaborate with relevant influencers
- Utilize hashtags effectively
By approaching TikTok marketing with the right strategies, businesses can enhance brand awareness, boost engagement, and drive growth in the fiercely competitive landscape of social media marketing. But what are these strategies?
Let’s get into the step-by-step guide on how you can use the TikTok platform to expand your brand’s reach and achieve desired results.
Step I: Create TikTok Business Account
First, you should start off by creating a TikTok Business account to access various analytics and marketing tools. With these tools, you can promote your products or services through ad campaigns and collaborations with influencers, effectively boosting brand visibility.
Note: TikTok Business account only works on public accounts. So, if your account is private, it will automatically switch to public after the creation of the Business account.
1. Open the TikTok app on your Android or iOS mobile device.
2. Tap on the Profile tab from the bottom navigation bar.
3. Then, tap on the hamburger menu icon from the top right corner.
4. Then, tap on Settings and privacy.
5. Tap on the Account option.
6. Now, select the Switch to Business Account option.
7. Then, choose the desired category for your business account and tap on Next.
8. Add your photo and desired bio, and tap on Confirm. Your Business account will be set up successfully.
9. Set up your profile by adding the brand logo as the profile picture and changing the brand name as the username on your TikTok Business account.
10. Also, add your business website link to the profile bio to redirect potential customers.
Now, let’s dig deeper and understand the to-do’s in TikTok business marketing.
Also Read: TikTok New Creativity Program Monetization Tool in Beta
Step II: Get to Know Platform & Target Audience
Before strategizing your goals and content on TikTok, it’s essential to understand how the platform works and become familiar with the content categories already available within your target niche. You can do so by:
- Explore content on the For You Page (FYP) and Discover tab
- Identify trends and challenges that closely align with your marketing interests
- Recognize related hashtags to search for content within your niche
- Conduct in-depth research to understand your target audience’s preferences, interests, and behavior
- Identify the type of content they engage with the most
- Analyze the audience’s reactions and feedback on the content relevant to your target category
Step III: Determine Business Goals
Now, you will have to clearly outline your business goals and marketing objectives for using TikTok. These could include:
- Increasing brand awareness
- Driving website traffic
- Generating leads, or
- Boosting product sales
Step IV: Make TikTok Content Strategy
Creating a content strategy is important to ensure that your profile’s content aligns with your audience’s interests. It helps you establish a unique brand identity among the many others in the market.
- Choose Content Types: Experiment with various content formats such as short skits, behind-the-scenes glimpses, product demonstrations, challenges, and user-generated content. Select content types that align with your brand and will engage your audience.
- Define Your Brand’s Voice: Specify a consistent tone and style that represents your brand. Whether it’s humorous, informative, or inspirational, maintaining a coherent voice will help build brand recognition.
Furthermore, you can use content planning applications to outline your content strategy and streamline various tasks.
Also Read: Microsoft Lists VS Planner: What to Use?
Step V: Set Schedule to Post Content
You will also have to create a schedule for posting content. As consistency is key on TikTok, you should decide how often you will share videos and choose optimal times to reach your target audience. For that, refer to our guide on When is the Best Time to Post on TikTok?
Step VI: Produce Engaging Brand Content for Target Audience
To use TikTok effectively for business marketing, it’s essential to create brand content that specifically suits your target audience. To achieve this, consider the following strategies:
- Be Creative: TikTok thrives on creativity and originality. Create content that is unique and attention-grabbing, while still aligning with your brand’s values and messaging.
- Use Trends: Stay updated with the latest TikTok trends and challenges, and incorporate them into your brand’s content. This will make your content more relevant and appealing to a broader audience.
- Keep It Short and Engaging: TikTok’s format revolves around short videos, so make sure your brand’s content is concise, captivating, and delivers the message quickly.
- Showcase Your Brand Personality: Use your brand’s personality to stand out. Be authentic, entertaining, and consistently showcase your brand’s voice.
- Include a Call-to-Action (CTA): Encourage users to take action after watching your content, like commenting, or redirecting to the brand’s website or other social media pages, and more. Include clear and compelling CTAs to drive traffic, engagement, or conversions.
- Utilize TikTok Features: Utilize TikTok’s built-in features such as filters, effects, and stickers to enhance the appeal of your content.
Step VII: Share Created Content
To make the most of your marketing strategy, effectively share your created content via:
- Use Relevant Hashtags: Include popular and relevant hashtags that align with your content and brand. This will help increase visibility and reach a wider audience.
- Post at Best Time: As determined in the content strategy step, post the videos at the predetermined time to get more traffic.
- Go Live: TikTok’s Live feature allows you to interact with your audience in real time through live video streaming. It can be a great way to engage with your followers, answer their questions, showcase behind-the-scenes content, host live events, and more
- Cross-Promote on Other Platforms: Share your TikTok videos on other social media platforms to attract your existing followers to your TikTok account.
Also Read: How to Go Live on TikTok without 1000 Followers
Step VIII: Analyze Engagement Metrics
After posting and sharing your brand content on TikTok, you can navigate to the Analytics menu on your TikTok Business profile to:
- Monitor views and likes to gauge content resonance
- Analyze watch time to calculate content engagement
- Identify the most popular videos for content replication
- Pay attention to comments and shares as indicators of engaging content
- Understand audience age, location, and interests through demographic data
- Use analytics data to refine content and posting schedule
- Stay aware of emerging content trends for timely adaptations
It is why it’s important to analyze all the analytics about your TikTok videos for effective business marketing.
Step IX: Collaborate with Other TikTok Creators
To improve your business’ reach, collaborate with other TikTok creators whose content aligns with your brand’s message and target audience. You can personally reach out to these creators and discuss the objectives of the collaboration, such as boosting reach, gaining followers, or promoting a specific campaign. You can also plan content together and use each other’s strengths to create authentic and engaging videos.
Step X: Use TikTok Advertising Options
You can also take advantage of various TikTok advertising options to deliver your content to the users.
- TikTok Ads Manager: Access TikTok’s Ads Manager platform to create and manage your advertising campaigns.
- Ad Formats: Choose from various ad formats, including in-feed ads, branded effects, branded hashtags, and more, based on your marketing goals.
- Explore TikTok’s Creator Marketplace: Consider collaborating with popular TikTok influencers through the Creator Marketplace for sponsored content that can reach a wider audience.
Also Read: Top 35 Best Social Media Marketing Tools for Small Businesses
How Powerful is TikTok for Marketing?
TikTok proves to be a powerful marketing platform with its vast global audience and rapid growth. Its algorithm treats all users equally, regardless of their follower counts, giving businesses fair opportunities. The short-form video format enables authentic connections with the audience, leading to high engagement and lasting relationships.
Ultimately, TikTok’s strength lies in its capacity to create virality and empower businesses of all sizes to make a significant impact in the digital world.
Thank you for reading this article on how to use TikTok for business marketing. Whether you’re a major industry player or a small business, TikTok can help take your marketing to the next level. Feel free to share your queries or suggestions in the comments below. Stay tuned for our future guides!
