TikTok for Businesses—How To Approach Your Strategy

Sep 15, 2023
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TikTok for Businesses—Everything You Need To Know

Using TikTok for business is an excellent way to expand your brand’s reach and engage with new potential customers via bite-sized clips. Many companies, especially those that have already conquered other social media platforms, now turn to TikTok to spread their brand’s messaging and attract younger consumers. TikTok’s algorithm allows content to go viral faster and with less effort. As the number of users on this platform keeps growing at exorbitant rates, it’s also getting easier to reach more people than on other social media platforms.Even though the largest number of TikTok users falls between the ages of 16 and 24, this app is not just a Gen Z craze anymore. TikTok has grown from a fun app where users come to express their creativity and have a few chuckles to a huge marketing and advertising tool.

Should My Business Be on TikTok?

There’s hardly any business out there that doesn’t understand the importance of solid social media presence anymore—and that includes being on TikTok. Social media is changing fast, and there’s always something new around the corner that you need to know about and utilize if you want your business to thrive in the digital world. As one of the latest additions to the portfolio of must-have social media apps, TikTok initially seemed like a teenage craze, but it has become a powerful tool for building brand trust and making profit—the unconventional way.As a new platform, TikTok is still focused on attracting users and hasn’t started aggressively monetizing the platform yet. Because of this, marketers can easily use TikTok with minimum spending and excellent ROI in a short amount of time.

Why Use TikTok for Business—The Numbers Speak for Themselves

Take a look at the statistics that show why businesses should get on TikTok ASAP:

  • In 2020 and 2021, TikTok was the most downloaded app in the world
  • TikTok has been installed 3 billion times globally
  • The platform boasts 1 billion monthly active users worldwide
  • TikTok users spend 858 minutes per month on average on this platform

Brands should get on TikTok since that's where their customers are now—especially if the business is in the entertainment, interior design, fitness, or beauty industry, as these categories get a lot of attention on this app.While certain industries may benefit from marketing on this platform more than others, any brand targeting customers younger than 45 should take TikTok seriously. Check out the TikTok adult user distribution by age in the U.S. in 2021:AgePercentage18–2429.9%25–3424%35–4418.4%45–5414.6%55–649.6%65+3.5%It is also worth noting that the number of TikTok users aged between 35 and 54 tripled within one year.

Why Brands Need To Incorporate TikTok in Social Media Strategies

Source: Kaboompics.comNo matter how traditional or well-known a brand is, new trends are springing up like mushrooms, and businesses need to get on board to avoid being left behind. Consumers love interacting with brands on TikTok because:

  1. TikTok marketing is less pushy—The consumers of today don't like advertisements, and a significant number of them use ad blockers. Old marketing techniques don't sit well with them, so using less aggressive methods and grabbing their attention through engaging content is the better way to go
  2. TikTok is perfect for user-generated content—Gen Z and Millennials are fans of authenticity. Your brand will do better on TikTok if you inspire followers to participate in challenges, answer questions, or include your hashtags in their posts

TikTok Business Account

Explicitly designed for brands and companies, TikTok business accountshave extra features that help businesses optimize their content, build awareness, drive sales, and build solid content strategies.A TikTok business account provides:

  • An easier way to partner with TikTok influencers using the TikTok Creator Marketplace
  • Performance metrics and audience insights
  • Video showcase that helps discover what’s trending
  • Option to run paid ads
  • Insight into case studies
  • Royalty-free music for commercial purposes

Switching to a business account is easy—you just need to locate the Manage account option in settings and choose Switch to Business Account.

How To Market Your Business on TikTok—The Essentials

Get to know what works on TikTok as it may be different from what works on other social media platforms. Learning how the algorithm works is essential, but you should also spend time identifying your target audience and checking out what the competition is doing to succeed.A brand should also be particular about what its profile looks like as it is the face of the business on TikTok. Pick the profile picture carefully and make the most of the 80-character bio. Still, content is king on TikTok (and elsewhere), so your content production game needs to be top-notch. Luckily, this app offers numerous opportunities to go crazy with creativity.

Create Your Own Content on TikTok

Whether your brand is well-known or just starting up, you can successfully use TikTok for business marketing by creating original content. The key is in planning and figuring out what works for your target audience.

Research What Is Popular

What content typically helps TikTok videos go viral? It could be anything from pets and children to fitness and beauty. There is a lot of interest in humorous and entertaining videos. According to InfluencerMarketingHub, the top three categories are:

  1. Entertainment—with 535 billion hashtag views
  2. Dance—with 181 billion hashtag views
  3. Pranks—with 79 billion hashtag views

Taking this into account when creating TikTok videos for businesses can be a great way to attract target audiences for any brand.You should strive to create original content, but it's a great idea to get a feel of TikTok's unique style before diving in. It shouldn’t be forgotten that TikTok is not a formal platform. It is ideal for users and brands to experiment, be playful, and show their fun side.

Jump on the Latest Trends

Unique content ideas for TikTok are sometimes hard to come by. Since this platform is driven by engagement and hashtags, piggybacking on popular content trends and putting a spin on it is an excellent idea for brands new to TikTok.You can find top trending videos and hashtags on the Discover page, and checking it often will provide guidance on what is hot at the moment and what to use to draw attention to your brand.Hashtag challenges or trending dances and songs are an excellent way for a brand to join in on the fun and generate some serious views.

Source: TikTok

Stay Authentic

When making TikTok videos for a business, focus on presenting your brand as relatable and help the audience feel more connected. Even if you follow trends and use popular themes, you should work on incorporating your products or brand messaging into videos in an engaging and entertaining way. Remaining authentic and putting a personal spin on popular trends is vital because every brand wants to be recognized as unique, offering something that no one else does.

Get Creative With Everything That TikTok Offers

TikTok has hundreds of unique effects and music that can be added to videos. Brands should make use of these tools to create videos that are more attention-grabbing.TikTok offers endless options of currently popular music without copyright infringement issues—from the latest releases quickly rising on the top charts to quirky video game music used for comedic effect. Adding these to videos can make your brand TikTok famous and attract new audiences.Effects and features like Stitch or Duet can be utilized in many engaging ways to make your content stand out and position your brand as fun and entertaining. Videos of many celebrities and influencers like Addison Rae Easterling and Charli D'Amelio have been used in Duets, where they appear side-by-side with users, drawing massive attention to such content.

Promote Your Hashtags

Come up with effective and impactful hashtags that will be easy to connect to your brand. Promoting hashtags in challenges and influencer collaborations will have them trending and attracting traffic to your business.

Source: Jon Tyson

Post Frequently

One of the most important rules of navigating TikTok successfully is maintaining a constant—but not overwhelming—presence. Posting one to three times a day should do the trick. Publishing content three times a day followed by a week of silence is a surefire way to be forgotten. Consistency is critical, and it is hard work to keep it up. You should also establish the best time of the day to post on TikTok that works for your target audiences to ensure the best engagement and maximize exposure. Track the analytics in the Creator tools or Business suite section of your account and easily discover when your followers are active the most.

Create a Challenge

Challenges are a fantastic way for brands to speed up growth, reach millions of users, and get new followers. You can partner with famous TikTok creators or use existing challenges for making new content, but you should also look into creating an original challenge.Here are a few tips on how to create a challenge:

  1. Research existing successful challenges to see what works
  2. Create a memorable and straightforward hashtag to help a challenge go viral
  3. Keep the focus on the brand and make sure the hashtag has a clear association with the brand. This can be accomplished by using your products in the videos
  4. Promote the challenge—this can be done on other social media platforms or by collaborating with popular TikTokers
  5. Stimulate participation by offering to post the most interesting video responses on your profile or offer prizes for participation

Work With TikTok Influencers and Creators

Influencer marketing has an incredible impact on all social media platforms, including TikTok. A brand can use influencers to attract new followers, promote products, and expand its overall reach.To choose the ideal TikTok influencer for your campaign, you need to:

  • Understand your audience
  • Have clearly defined goals
  • Research influencers (their reach and audience, type of content they make, previous collaborations with brands, engagement rates, etc.)
  • Take your budget into account

Doing research and choosing the right influencer is important, but you should also give the creator freedom and not control every step of their creative process. Those on the Creator Fund are there thanks to their creativity and knowledge of what works on TikTok, and they can help businesses by coming up with fresh content ideas. The best part of working with creators on TikTok is that you don’t have to focus on top-tier TikTokers—you can have excellent results even with micro-influencers if what they do fits well with your brand’s messaging.

How Some Big Brands Use TikTok for Their Businesses

Many famous brands have excellent campaigns on TikTok. Think challenges, giveaways, entertaining content, original filters, etc. These brands know what their audience responds to, and they’re not afraid to take risks.

Netflix

Netflix is one of the most followed brands on TikTok, with over 21.7 million followers. They have accomplished this by creating tailor-made content for their community and staying on top of trends. The company’s presence on TikTok thrives on user-generated content created in numerous challenges and with branded AR filters.In cooperation with TikTok's creative team, Netflix came up with an interactive filter for the fans of the Cobra Kai series. TikTok users were invited to add their own spin to the filter using the hashtag #CobraKaiChop. Paid content accumulated over 2.8 million views, and the hashtag received over 5.6 billion views. Netflix’s #WhatsYourPower campaign resulted in more than 100,000 user-generated videos that included the #WhatsYourPower AR branded effect.

Source: Netflix

e.l.f. Cosmetics

e.l.f. Cosmetics is well-aware of the importance of music on TikTok and uses it to their advantage. This famous beauty brand was the first to create an original song, called Eyes, Lips, Face, specifically for a TikTok challenge.Many celebrities got involved and used #eyeslipsface in their videos. Lizzo, Reese Witherspoon, Terry Crews, and many more showed their support in short videos using the e.l.f. song.This is an excellent example of how an original, catchy, brand-focused, and fun campaign can lead to a brand going viral overnight. With one innovative TikTok marketing move, the campaign hit 1 billion views in just 6 days and inspired millions of user-generated videos.

Source: Terry Crews

Using TikTok as a Marketing Tool Means a Lot of Work

Promoting your business on TikTok may seem like a walk in the park, but there’s a reason why many businesses now reach out to professional social media agencies for help. Figuring out all the kinks and analyzing what it takes to succeed on TikTok can take ages, and most businesses have a lot on their plates already. TikTok is typically just one of many platforms they are trying to master.To establish a strong TikTok presence, a brand needs to invest in a solid strategy, engaging content, high video quality, thorough data analysis, and much more. Success requires time, resources, and experience in the field, and many in-house marketing teams fall behind easily because they’re stretched thin and can’t keep up with the fast-changing social media landscape.

Don’t Sweat It Out on Your Own

Kubbco is a team of innovative social media marketers who know how to achieve incredible results on TikTok with tailor-made campaigns and content. Whether you need better strategy, content, or community management, we can take care of your social media needs on any platform. Our process starts by analyzing your brand and defining your goals. Then, we brainstorm, test different ideas, and devise a detailed strategy to achieve those goals and reach your target audience. Our experts create premium content that reflects your brand and your story the way you see it. Most importantly, we are there every step of the way, following the metrics and analyzing what works and what needs to be adjusted. By joining forces with Kubbco, your business will receive:

  1. A tailor-made TikTok strategy
  2. Proven experts in social media management who can help you grow your account
  3. Content production that includes videos, photography, graphic design, written content, and much more
  4. Organic and paid media campaigns to help you reach a wider demographic

Kubbco is dedicated to helping businesses navigate TikTok and other popular social media platforms, even if you are taking the journey on your own. Subscribe to our newsletter and get our take and tips on the latest social media trends and ways to crush your TikTok campaigns.

How Businesses Use TikTok—Kubbco’s Success Stories

Kubbco’s team has collaborated with many brands on their TikTok campaigns and achieved impressive results. The likes of OLAPLEX, essence cosmetics, Matas, and many more have achieved their TikTok goals by collaborating with our agency. If your intent is to go viral, grow a bigger following, or increase overall brand awareness on this platform, our team of professional content creators and strategists has got you covered.We worked with essence cosmetics, an internationally famous German makeup brand, over the course of two years and two months. Kubbco’s campaign made a huge difference in their TikTok game:Total ViewsInteractionsNew FollowersNumber of VideosVideos Over 100,000 ViewsViral Videos (Over 1 Million Views)73 million7.1 million386,00055614412Their three top-performing videos reached excellent engagement rates, ranging from 4.62% to 8.95%. The success stories of essence cosmetics, Matas, NATURLI’ Foods, and OLAPLEX are just a few examples of what our experts can do. Get in touch with our team and learn how Kubbco can help your business find its place on TikTok.

Featured image:fauxels

Malene Hold
Head of TikTok

TikTok and social media expert helping clients leverage the power of viral concepts to grow their businesses.

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