With over 1 billion monthly active users, TikTok has so much more than a fun online place to upload comedy skits, lipsync, or challenge videos. It’s a potent marketing channel for businesses to boost their brand awareness, boost views, and expand their reach. But the thing is, the more businesses jump into the TikTok marketing strategy bandwagon, the picker the users have become.
A TikTok marketing strategy is so much more than producing content, uploading it to the platform, and hoping that it will make it into the For You Page. It takes extra effort to make sure that you leverage the platform with the right content to get noticed by the right audience.
We’ll dive into actionable practices to promote your business using TikTok.
Collaborate with TikTok influencers
TikTok is a home for influencers. If you’re targeting younger audiences, influencer marketing can be the best bet when it comes to generating trust and boosting your brand presence.
Partnering with popular TikTok creators who align with your brand can help expose your business to their followers. Instead of just paying for sponsored posts, consider co-creating content that showcases your products or services in a unique and entertaining way.
And when we talk about influencers, it doesn’t always mean those people with millions of followers. They can be micro or even nano influencers with, in fact, more engagement, despite fewer follower base.
Jump into the recent trend
TikTok is known for its challenges and trends that change in the blink of an eye. Jumping into the hottest trend is one way to get your content to be seen.
Keep an eye on trending challenges and find creative ways to incorporate your brand into them. Joining the conversation and adding your unique twist allows you to attract attention and engage with the TikTok community.
Create your own TikTok challenges
You can create your own TikTok challenge that aligns with your brand and encourages your follower participation. Come up with a catchy hashtag and provide clear instructions for users to follow.
To engage the participants and build the hype, you can like, comment, and share their entries to encourage more users to participate. Even better, you offer incentives or even small prizes to make your challenge worth trying and inviting.
Leverage user-generated content campaigns
User-generated content is not only a robust way to appreciate your customers or followers but also makes your content marketing more effortless and less costly.
Not only to keep up with the trends and technology, you can encourage your customers or followers to create content featuring your products or services. Then, you reupload their content to show them that you care about their feedback and opinions.
For example, you establish an on-brand hashtag. Whoever uses the hashtag with the content that reviews or even mentions your brand, you reupload it and add some stickers or text overlays to make it more interactive.
The genuine and authentic type of content is a powerful way to generate buzz around your brand as well as strengthen brand-consumer relationships.
Share behind-the-scenes content
TikTok users appreciate authenticity and enjoy seeing the human side of businesses. Rather than appear as a faceless, stiff brand, it’s best to let your personality shines by sharing behind-the-scenes footage.
With this type of fun, friendly content, you showcase your team or give a sneak peek into your production process. This can help humanize your brand and build a stronger connection with your audience.
Feature customer testimonials
People tend to believe the opinions of others. That is what makes customer testimonials good content for your TikTok marketing strategy. By featuring satisfied customers who share their experiences with your products or services, you attract others to experience the story themselves.
This type of content adds a personal touch and builds trust, as potential customers can see real people benefiting from what you offer. More often than not, customer testimonials involve describing the challenges that a customer faces, the journey they went through, and the positive outcomes they achieved with your product or service. This should be done in an all-friendly, narrative format.
Well-thought-out storytelling can help you add depth and emotional resonance, making the testimonials more relatable and memorable. So, even though the testimonial should sound and look natural, try to guide the storytelling process to ensure key points are covered. You can prepare some prompts or questions for the customers that you’re about to feature to help them structure their narrative effectively.
While you can share all the fun and entertaining content, you can also give a touch of “professionalism” to your brand by offering industry insight. Share valuable expert insights, industry-specific tips, or any advice related to your industry or niche.
Providing this type of behind-the-scenes knowledge attract followers who are interested in learning more about your business industry. Not to mention that this knowledge-sharing can also position your brand as an authority and resource. This is how you earn more trust and build credibility from your followers.
Also, if you attend industry events, conferences, or trade shows, take your followers along by key takeaways or conducting interviews with attendees. Therefore, they have an exclusive look into the industry happenings and position your brand as an active and engaged participant.
Collaborate with other businesses
When you join forces with other businesses in your industry, you open the door for more audiences, including your potential customers. You can collaborate with other businesses to create content or even products together.
The combined expertise helps you reach a broader audience and generate mutual engagement. This cross-promotion not only expands your reach, though, it also showcases your willingness to collaborate and engage with others in your industry– which help you build a reputation among your peers.
Wrapping Up
Once was an app just for fun. Now, TikTok has grown become a prominent marketing tool for most businesses. From animated marketing videos to engaging hero’s journey, more and more businesses are exploring various creative avenues to capture the attention of the TikTok community.
By utilizing the platform's features and algorithms, you can reach a wide and diverse audience, expanding your brand visibility and fostering deeper connections with followers– which later can be your paying customers. All those actionable practices for a well-planned TikTok marketing strategy help you understand what you need to bring to the table to leverage the TikTok platform to its fullest potential.