TikTok has enjoyed rapid growth over the last 18-24 months, showing no signs of
slowing down any time soon. In fact, it’s presumed by many that TikTok will surpass
Instagram, becoming the number one social media app in 2022.
As a brand seeking to grow its online presence in hopes of building brand awareness
and ultimately converting sales, TikTok’s large audience is certainly where you want to
place much of your attention digitally, whether organic, paid, or both.
If you’re eager to learn more about TikTok’s abundant opportunities from a marketing
and consumer standpoint, curious as to the best advertising strategies to employ, this
article is for you. What follows will be a discussion surrounding TikTok’s inherent value
and how YOU as a brand can exploit it strategically.
What was once an adolescent social media app where pre-teen and teen users would
dance, sing, and lip-sync has now grown into a popularized application among all age
groups.
Today, TikTok is a robust video platform offering several types of video content,
including but not limited to how-to videos, comedy skits, therapy advice, news briefings,
inspirational clips, promotional ads, and more. Boasting over a billion active users and
growing, TikTok is a hub for businesses and brands alike to grow.
Additionally, unlike other social media apps, TikTok’s algorithm is much more
comprehensive, beneficial for brands because of its ability to land content in front of the
most relevant eyes in the most natural of formats; if you’re intent is to promote, TikTok
is where you want your content to live…
Although TikTok is a newer platform comparatively speaking, the idea of it is not. In
other words, the marketing strategies involved have already been proven to be effective
on other social media platforms such as Instagram and Facebook.
By becoming an early adopter of the app and employing the following tactics and
strategies, you as a brand will benefit greatly…
There are several ways to employ a marketing strategy on TikTok in order for your
brand’s advertisements to be recognized. The best part? While there are certainly
effective paid arenas that can and should be employed, many of the strategies used are
100% free to implement.
While it would be impossible to go into detail regarding all of the potential strategies for
advertising your brand on TikTok, in what follows, we’ll take a look at some of the best,
most effective strategies…
Organic Hashtag Strategy
While we’ll get into the idea of paid branded hashtags shortly, let’s not forget about the
effectiveness of a simple organic hashtag strategy. In short, an organic hashtag strategy
involves choosing the right hashtags relevant to both your brand and target audiences’
search queries and placing them intentionally in your content captions.
If the right hashtags are implemented, your brand’s video content will conveniently be
placed amidst your target market’s TikTok feed, otherwise known as the For You Page.
In other words, the hashtags that you opt to use play a significant role in the
discoverability of your brand and its organic content.
Simply start with 2-3 primary SEO-optimized hashtags and go from there! Note,
however, that TikTok only allows 100-characters per caption, so choose wisely…
Influencer Marketing Strategy
Another effective strategy for building brand awareness is by partnering with other
creators and/or influencers to help promote your product or service. By simply offering
them something in return, a dually beneficial partnership can be made…
In fact, influencer marketing is often referred to as the most effective and timely strategy
for generating any type of results on social media.
To make your job a little easier during the vetting process, TikTok has created what’s
called a “TikTok Influencer Marketplace”. Simply assess an influencer’s historical data
and choose the best fit for your brand. It’s that easy! Just make sure that those whom
you choose to partner with are both reputable, authoritative, and relevant to your brand
in order to elicit the best results…
Paid Advertising Strategy
Last but certainly not least is arguably the most guaranteed strategy for success on
TikTok; paid advertising. Similar to any other social media platform, TikTok paid
advertising simply requires a business or brand to pay the platform to promote.
TikTok, in particular, offers a total of five types of ads: in-feed, branded hashtags, top
view, branded effects, and brand takeover.
Without going into detail about each, all that’s required to employ a paid advertising
strategy is a budget and a TikTok Ad Account. Once your ad content is prepared and
ready to launch, simply choose a type of targeting, whether based on interests or
behaviors and allow the campaign to do the rest…
In Summary
There’s no denying TikTok’s effectiveness for businesses and brands seeking to grow
their exposure and increase brand awareness. Though it’s still an up-and-coming
application, it’s surely going to become one of, if not the most used social media app of
2022.
With that said, in order to take advantage of its early yet rapid growth, getting your
brand in front of an abundance of relevant eyes, it’s imperative that you employ one if
not all of the strategies discussed above.
If executed properly, there’s no doubt that you’ll see success. Good luck!