12 TikTok Marketing Tips For Success

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you certainly would know TikTok.

TikTok is the most popular social network now with over 1.5 billion users worldwide. This video-sharing app is entertainment-focused and has great viral potential. Precisely because it’s well suited for viral marketing, brands and businesses can leverage this and make their videos go viral, thereby increasing brand awareness and potentially boosting sales.

TikTok users are generally young so this social media channel works best if you provide products or services targeting these teenagers and young adults.

Are you ready to jump on the bandwagon and join TikTok? Here are some tips to be successful on TikTok.

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1. Be You & Build Your Community

TikTok is about showing the real, true you. It’s about being authentic. Be yourself and build relationships with your audience. When you share your creativity and knowledge, you’re building a community that trusts and supports you.

Compared to Facebook and Instagram, I feel that TikTok is more intimate. The distance between your brand and audience should be the closest here.

Think of how you can express yourself through TikTok content. But of course, also consider your audience and create content that they care about, love and can’t resist sharing.

Photo by Helena Lopes on Pexels

2. Create Original Content

Since TikTok is all about being you, you naturally should share original content.

But what content should you post?

Anything (as long as it abides by the community guidelines). The possibilities are endless.

Depending on your brand personality, your videos could be funny, educational, poignant and many more. The key is that the content should be something you came up with. Also, don’t worry about making your videos perfect. Just have fun!

Photo by Ramdlon on Pixabay

3. Don’t Just Create Videos For The Sake Of Creating. Provide Value To Your Viewers.

The key to growth on TikTok is providing value. Your TikTok content needs to provide some kind of value to your audience.

Step into the shoes of your viewer: Imagine you’re scrolling the For You page, what will make you like a video or follow the TikToker?

Now think about why people should follow you. How did your videos help them? What kind of value do you provide?

Consider making educational or funny videos. For instance, you can provide tips or how-to tutorials. Such educational content will encourage people to follow you since you’re their go-to resource. Alternatively, you could share stories like your experiences working in your industry, your typical day in the life as a certain profession or the things you love most about what you do.

Ensure that the story is short and succinct. Also, think about the emotion that you want to elicit in your audience. Check out these emotion wheels for the range of feelings that you can elicit in your TikTok videos.

Source: Human Systems

4. KISS: Keep It Short & Simple

TikTok is all about short-form videos. This snackable bite-sized content makes it easy to watch on the go and appeals to both young people with short attention spans and adults who have hectic work schedules.

Thus, you should aim to keep your videos short and simple (also known as the KISS principle). Pack lots of value into a short amount of time. Hook your audience from the beginning and engage them throughout the video with a juicy story.

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5. Arrest Attention Right From The Start

Just like how you exit a page or close a window if it takes too long to load, your viewers also have the same short attention span when viewing TikTok. You need to arrest their attention right from the start to avoid viewers from swiping away or scrolling past your video.

Get straight to the point and show your value immediately, rather than teasing them for 3 seconds.

Plan and outline your videos such that they’re concise and value-packed from the very first second to the end.

Photo by Pavel Danilyuk on Pexels

6. Leverage Trending Hashtags

Similar to Facebook and Instagram, do include hashtags to amplify your reach. If you use trending hashtags, your videos are more likely to be discovered and have a better chance of success.

You can use a combination of broad and niche hashtags. But try to keep to a maximum of 5 hashtags due to the character limit of TikTok’s caption. Remember, relevance is more important than trends. Ensure that the hashtags you add are relevant to your video.

Check out this site for trending hashtags and ride the wave~

Photo by Katie Harp on Pexels

7. Leverage Trending Songs

Again, tapping into trending songs will maximize your reach.

You can use the site mentioned earlier to discover trending songs.

Since your videos are short, they probably can’t fit the entire song. Thus, do trim the song to focus only on the part that you like or you think is suitable for your video. Likewise, you can adjust the volume. For instance, you might want to lower the volume of the song such that it becomes background music to your video.

Photo by whoalice-moore on Pixabay

8. Be The First To Comment On Your Video & Pin It

Since the caption has a character limit, you can post additional information in the comments under your TikTok video.

You can encourage viewers to take a specific action or spark conversation in this first comment. Do pin this comment so it’s the first one everyone sees on your video.

Replying to everyone who comments will build trust and encourage others to join in and share their thoughts (since you acknowledge everybody and answer all their questions).

Photo by rawpixel on Pixabay

9. Build Relationships: Engage With Others

TikTok is about building relationships.

Here are some ways to drive engagement and get your content in front of people

• Like videos
• Leave thoughtful comments
• Interact with people who commented on your videos
• Reply to comments with a video

The comment section is not just a place for jokes and reactions. It’s also an avenue to let your brand voice shine. Connect with people and start building your community today!

Photo by fauxels on Pexels

10. Post Frequently & Stick To A Consistent Schedule

Unlike Facebook and Instagram, you can afford to post more frequently on TikTok. In fact, some people have posted up to 3 videos daily on TikTok!

But of course, you should consider your resources. Creating a video requires time and effort, including filming, editing (or at least adding a song, filter or sticker) and writing caption (do include relevant hashtags).

To avoid burnout, I strongly recommend that you decide on a frequency that is comfortable for you then stick to this schedule. Instead of trying to share as much content as possible, you should aim to post well-thought-out quality content.

Source: TheSparkArt via Etsy

11. Tap Into Analytics For A Data-Driven Marketing Strategy

With TikTok’s built-in analytics, you can identify what works and what doesn’t.

Analyze the videos that resonate best with your audience and figure out if there’s anything common among them. It could be the topic, hashtag, song, content type (like how-to tutorials) etc. You can then create more videos similar to what works or optimize your videos such that they include these successful elements.

Remember to be patient. Sometimes, a TikTok video will take weeks to take off and get pushed to more people by the algorithm.

Whether you’re just starting out or you’ve been using TikTok for a long time, always continuously test, measure and learn.

Be creative and open to new trends and ideas. This way, you’ll be able to find out what type of content your community enjoys.

Photo by Lukas on Pexels

12. Balance Between Entertainment & Advertising: 80/20 Rule

One of the biggest reasons brands and businesses jump on the TikTok wave is its potential to go viral. Thus, you probably want to promote your products and services in your TikTok videos. This is understandable and absolutely fine.

But take note of the 80/20 rule. Try to ensure that your content sticks to 80% entertainment and 20% promotion. By balancing entertainment and advertising, you’ll foster a connection with potential buyers.

If your videos are all promotional, it just means that you’re not making an effort to know and engage your audience. People who clicked through to view your profile and past videos will know that you’re on TikTok to solely promote your products and services. They’ll probably form a bad impression of your brand.

How many times have you skipped an ad when watching YouTube videos? Likewise, viewers will skip a TikTok video if it feels like an advertisement. It is thus important to entertain and educate first. Build your audience by engaging them with interesting videos. After you have followers, you can then sprinkle a few promotional posts such as product tutorials, software demos, exclusive offers, testimonials and case studies.

Remember, the key is to humanize your brand. This will help to form a deeper connection with your audience.

Photo by Karolina Grabowska on Pexels

Now It’s Your Turn

Give yourself the best chance of success with these tips~ Here’s to more TikTok viral videos!

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