The Biggest TikTok Marketing Strategies
TikTok has taken over the world. It’s snappy, fun, and has an unpolished air that appeals to younger generations that value authenticity and relatability. Brands can—and should—use the TikTok craze to their advantage to boost their reach, unlock a new audience, and have fun with their content in ways that they might not be able to do on other platforms like Facebook or Twitter.
However, the popularity of TikTok also means an overabundance of content. From individual influencers to other brands and companies, everyone is posting in the hopes of growing their audience via the platform that makes it seem easy to go viral. While this excess of content and media might reduce your chances of really standing out and achieving this virality, there are some effective TikTok marketing strategies you can use to help you increase your brand’s following and reach a bigger, ultra-engaged audience. These include influencer marketing, trend research, hashtag use, and a more relaxed approach to content creation. Let’s jump in.
Include Influencers In Your Content
TikTok is known for its unedited, casual content created by influencers, who, if popular enough, gain millions of views a day. As part of your TikTok marketing strategy, instead of trying to emulate how influencers behave or alienating them altogether, feature them in your content. Whether this is through reaction videos to their content or collaborations, working with influencers can increase your audience exponentially by tapping into their loyal networks. If you’re confused about how to include influencers in your content, use some creative problem-solving. For example, while building furniture might not seem like the most exciting content, remember when AOC’s popularity boosted when she started making videos answering questions while building Ikea furniture? Influencers can help make even the most mundane topics interesting. Create challenges with your products that everyone can engage in, and invite influencers to be a part of it!
Use Viral Audio, Effects, and Trends
TikTok is an app that moves very fast, and a big part of effective TikTok marketing is keeping up with what’s popular. What was trendy yesterday will definitely not be featured on your FYP in a week. As such, the best way to stay ahead of the game is to research TikTok trends and feature them in your content. Use viral audio, filters, and content trends to reach the largest possible audience at any given time. This is especially true for brands that aren’t yet established and are trying to build a following before catering to a niche audience.
For example, at one point, TikTok’s anime filter was wildly popular. You could make funny and witty content out of this trend by incorporating it alongside promotion for your products. If you have a brand with any kind of mascot, whether in your logo or on the packaging of your products, you could film videos with the filter on your mascot. This lighthearted and fun content is exactly what will work on TikTok without compromising on brand-centricity. Make sure to keep up to date on what’s popular by using the app frequently, scouring different people’s FYP for research, or asking your teenage niece what’s cool right now.
Hashtags Are Your Friend (Still)
Another way to use TikTok effectively is to include hashtags in your posts. As with every other social media platform, hashtags can make or break your game. If you get too specific, you won’t reach a large enough audience. But if you get too vague, there’ll be too much content for yours to stand out. The trick is to once again find the perfect Goldilocks zone that lets you reach lots of people effectively. There are two ways to go about this. The first way is to find brands similar to yours and see the hashtags they’re using in their posts. This will give you a rough direction of what to do and what not to do, and it’s also always a good idea to scope out the competition. The second way is to search for a hashtag topic and see the suggested options that pop up. For example, you might be a cat treat brand searching “#catfood” on TikTok. In the drop-down search below, you’ll find other popular suggested topics you can use when posting your own content. Perhaps “#catyummies” instead is much more popular than you would have imagined! It’s important to note that TikTok as a platform doesn’t have posts with paragraphs full of hashtags, unlike Instagram, so stay as relevant and concise with your hashtags as possible to avoid alienating the algorithm and other users.
Use This Space To Be Informal
TikTok is a platform of personality, meaning that the content that goes viral isn’t always perfectly edited or posed — most of the time it’s not. It’s easy to see brands as anti-personal corporate beige boxes with no personality. But an informal platform like TikTok is the best place to dispel such myths. Part of the draw of TikTok is its focus on relatable content from creators who seem just like us. Use the platform to be more human and fun than you are allowed to be in other situations where you’re representing a brand professionally. Whether this is through funny captions, blooper videos, or even active engagement with other users on TikTok, being more casual on TikTok will increase the amount of attention you get. No one wants to follow brands that post and talk like companies because then it would feel the same as getting ads. This is also a great space to engage with your customers in. Reply to their comments, comment on posts, make video replies, and engage with the people who help build your brand in meaningful and entertaining ways.
TikTok is a great digital tool to grow your brand with its ultra-engaged user base that values authentic, relatable content. Through the above tips, you can grow your brand’s following through a fun TikTok marketing strategy that highlights what makes your brand unique while also adhering to the pulse of the platform. Ultimately, TikTok is an app that functions to be as entertaining as possible, so make sure you’re really having fun with your content and not taking yourself too seriously!
Always in your corner,
The Content Queens
