Information in this blog post was obtained from Hubspot, Sprout Social, Social Media Examiner, and Influencer Marketing Hub.
Before TikTok became TikTok, it was Musical.ly. After being acquired by ByteDance in 2018, the name changed and the app exploded in popularity and user count. According to Influencer Marketing Hub, the app has been installed 3 billion times and has an active 1 billion users every month. Considering they only had about 133 million active monthly users in 2018, this growth speaks volumes about the impact the app has on society's day-to-day life.
Today, TikTok has not only grown among consumers, but businesses take to the platform on a daily basis to help promote their products and services. But does your business struggle with exposure? Are you wondering how to tap into trending TikTok? There are a few ways to make sure your company is making the most of its account.
Use Hashtags on TikTok
You can use hashtags to leverage TikTok and build your business through reach, discoverability, and brand awareness. Not only is it great exposure, but you can keep ahead of the market as well. Staying on top of the latest hashtags helps you jump onto trends and find relevant influencers who may want to partner with your business. This also allows you to identify competitors and help with the creation of new content. By understanding what your competitors are doing with their posts and hashtags, you gain a competitive edge.
But there's more to a hashtag than you probably thought. When creating a hashtag, it's important to create variety. It is especially important for small businesses to curate hashtags that are both niche and trending. By doing this, you make sure your content is not being overshadowed by other trending content. On the other hand, only using niche hashtags may lead to you not being seen by enough users. Balance is key. Creating a well-rounded hashtag strategy calls for the combination of both niche and popular hashtags.
If your company is smaller than competitors, keep up on trending sounds and hashtags to build brand awareness. The hashtags you use can be anything from what your company does to the latest trends. In order to curate the perfect hashtag compilation, you should make niche hashtags that have a high view count a priority, but also consider trending hashtags that are relevant to your post, goals, and company.
Some ways to do this can include researching the TikTok Discover tab or using a tool to discover hashtags related to a certain topic. It's important to keep track of the hashtags you do use in order to see what works well and what may need some tweaks.
For more information on this topic, take a look at my coworker Brendan's post here.
TikTok Advertising
The second method of leveraging TikTok is through advertisements. There are a few different types of TikTok Ads that your company may be interested in.
1. TopView Ads
TopView ads are advertisements that appear once a day immediately when a user opens the app for the first time. This advertisement is perfect for businesses who are wanting to advertise products or services that may require more time because they typically last about 60 seconds.
2. In-Feed Ads
In-Feed ads appear as users school through their "For You" feed. This features videos that the app believes are relevant to users' specific interests. This is a good way to build brand awareness as well as drive sales through a Call To Action.
3. Branded Hashtags
As explained above, using hashtags is extremely vital to keeping your company relevant on social media. Through branded hashtags, TikTokers can create their own content around your brand. This is also a great way to show your creativity in the hashtag community. However, it's important to remember to keep your hashtags focused on your goals, company mission, and the post at hand in order to capture your target market. This method does have a higher investment cost, but it does see a great engagement rate.
4. Brand Takeovers
This method can combine all three of the aforementioned advertising methods. With this method, the takeover features on business per day. This is a great way to gain new followers and increase engagement rates.
5. Branded Effects
Businesses can create stickers of their products or filers that TikTokers can use when they create their videos. This helps create brand awareness.
Amplify Your TikTok Video Strategy
These five methods of advertising on TikTok are great ways to help advertise your business. There are also ways to make sure your videos are created, edited, and analyzed in ways to show your company's professionalism.
This includes editing software from Splice and PicsArt. Both of these offer options for those who may not be well-versed in editing techniques.
Scheduling tools include the built-in TikTok video scheduler. Since this is a native scheduler, it is simple to use and free. Your company can also utilize the tool Planable which allows teams to collaborate on social media content.
Finally, it's important to have the right platform to track and analyze your advertisement and hashtag results. While TikTok does have a native platform to track data, sometimes it's beneficial to have an additional application. Applications that can aid in customized reports for your TikTok profile as a whole and hashtags include Analisa.io, and Sprout Social. Both of these offer great ways to understand a little more than what native advertising provides.
Now that you understand a little bit more about tools to leverage TikTok, your company can increase its competitive advantage, build brand awareness, increase engagement and followers, as well as increase sales and revenue.
Resources
Jansasoy, J. (2022, September 13). 14 TikTok tools to amplify your social video strategy. Sprout Social. Retrieved April 13, 2023 from https://sproutsocial.com/insights/tiktok-tools/
Needle, F. (2022, October 6). TikTok Ads Guide: How They Work + Cost and Review Process [+ Examples]. HubSpot Blog. Retrieved April 15, 2023 from https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/tiktok-for-business
Rodrigue, E. (2022, September 26). 10 best tiktok tricks to go viral in 2022 [+ examples]. HubSpot Blog. Retrieved April 13, 2023, from https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/tiktok-tricks
Stelzner, M. (2021, April 8). TikTok Trends: How to Leverage Trending Content for Business. Social Media Examiner. Retrieved April 13, 2023 from https://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/tiktok-trends-how-to-leverage-trending-content-for-business/
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