How To Use TikTok As A Marketing Tool: TikTok Marketing For Beginners

Many of the viral content you see on the internet originates from social media platforms. But none of them is more influential than the legendary TikTok.

The platform generates trend waves with such massive awareness and robust engagement your marketing ship ought to leverage the platform, sailing with comparatively little cost and effort.

There are many successful TikTok marketing examples, such as Chipotle and Trojan, buttressing that a business can implement a successful TikTok marketing strategy, sometimes with simple, everyday, casually edited videos to increase sales.

For businesses that intend to squeeze out the maximum juice from the platform, partnering with competent TikTok marketing agencies like Influensly could be a smart option to boost revenue in 2024.

If you are searching for a robust resource on how to use TikTok as a marketing tool for your business in 2024, look no further; this complete guide will put you through it.

IMAGE: UNSPLASH

What To Know Before Using TikTok As A Marketing Tool

You’ve decided to begin your business’ tiktok journey, but before getting started, you need to answer two crucial questions: are your ideal customers on tiktok? what do you aim to achieve with your marketing.

Are Your Ideal Customers On TikTok?

It’s true; TikTok has over a billion users and has generated over $11 billion since its inception.

However, it’s a highly visual app, and a large percentage of users on the platform are Gen Z within the age range of 16-25. In other words, the service you’re looking to market must be one capable of being captured in a video and

While you might get customers on other social media platforms with a strict, business-like approach, you aren’t likely to replicate the same success on TikTok.

The reason for this is that the majority of users on TikTok use the app as a getaway tool to help them lift their spirits.

Hence, marketing on TikTok requires a soft, funny, or creative edge to first draw in a specific target audience before getting them to patronize your offerings.

What Do You Aim To Achieve On Tiktok?

Another essential factor in clearly defining you as a small business on TikTok is knowing how to structure various marketing campaigns to reach multiple target audiences.

For example, if you want to amass traffic, not necessarily followers, and then direct them to your website and other social media profiles, your campaign will follow an ‘off-TikTok’/landing page redirection approach.

Contrarily, you may want to create a loyal following that swears by your brand and boosts your business on TikTok, which would require an opposite TikTok marketing strategy, such as influencer marketing.

TikTok marketing for beginners: How to launch your TikTok marketing strategy

1. Start With A TikTok Business Account

If you want to market your brand on TikTok, you should have a business account. Right off the bat, a TikTok business account gives your profile a professional look that attracts serious customers and big brands.

These brands might find your services beneficial enough to consider long-term partnerships. You can effortlessly switch to a business page if you already have a personal profile.

Here’s how to switch your TikTok account to a business page:

Open your app.
Go to “profile.”
Click on “manage accounts.”
Switch to “business accounts.”
Type in your business name.
Make sure your business name appears in one single text.
Fill in your bio in one short, powerful sentence that communicates your brand’s voice.
Enter your email address.
Add a link to your website (only applies with 1000+ followers).
Also, include a high-quality image of your brand logo.

2. Do Your Research

Research plays a vital role, especially when building your TikTok presence as a beginner. When it comes to research, there are three main things to consider before you begin your marketing campaign.

Research Your Niche

You must research your industry and find what users in your field are looking for or discussing. This is important as it helps you curate authentic content and targeted TikTok ads that generate massive views and engagements for your business.

Research Your Competitors Using TikTok Analytics

It’s not sneaky but witty when you study your competition, who has been in the game long before. There are important questions to ask that will save you time and money if you research competitors running the same business as yours.

First, you’ll need to find out your competitors’ marketing campaigns. Second, observe what their funnel system looks like. Third, check out how well their In-feed ads convert and what kind of videos they use.

Lastly, find out if they use in-house staff or outsource services to those who create user-generated content. Additionally, marketing tools like Influensly and Trendtok analytics show how to research trending hashtags, background sound effects, and keywords to help boost visibility on the platform.

You should be able to access your campaign analytics using your business account. However, you will need to upgrade to TikTok Pro to get detailed and well-structured data that can be easily interpreted.

Research Video Content Ideas

While it’s great to check out what your competitors are doing and tag along, it’s also important to occasionally develop unique TikTok videos that help distinguish your brand from other TikTok creators in your field.

Hence, you’d want to brainstorm video content ideas that work for you, and that can be created and repeated with ease. Doing this requires being skilled at researching hashtags and video trends, which you can acquire by paying close attention to the analytics in your business account.

Here’s a quick way to find relevant topics to create a video around:

Go to the TikTok search bar and type in the content you want to create in your niche, e.g. ‘dogs collars’.
Immediately you type a word in; you’ll see a list of other suggestions in bolded letters, such as ‘trendy dog collars pit bulls,’ ‘female dog collars,’ etc. (This is TikTok Algorithm showing the top most searched keywords by users).
Grab a pen and paper and write down the broad topic keyword.
Finally, create a how-to video around the topic and use the keyword in the description as well.

3. Post Quality Videos

As mentioned before, platform is a highly visual social media app, and part of your marketing campaign should involve the creation of appealing, quality TikTok videos. Interestingly, when beginners hear the term ‘quality’ video, they freak out, thinking they have to set up state-of-the-art studio equipment to shoot and record content.

On the contrary, TikTok research shows TikTok users are more interested in the making process and engagement than in the professional output of a video.

Remember to post consistently, as the app’s algorithm favors fresh content. When posting videos, there are certain noteworthy considerations listed below:

Create Standalone Video Content

A stand-alone video is one where you convey all the information a user needs within 45-60 seconds without them having to watch follow-up or longer videos from the same creator.

Use Hashtags And Descriptions

Use the exact keywords in your first sentence to increase your TikTok presence on the platform. Also, use the title in the description box and repeat it verbally multiple times during the video for algorithm prioritization, especially when creating a TikTok channel.

Paste And Highlight The Description Text In Your Video

Another tip for posting quality videos is to copy the text in the description, paste and highlight it in the video’s intro.

4. Learn TikTok Video Editing

As you’ve read, you don’t need a huge editing budget for an editor; you only need a smartphone and know how to use the right editing tools.

While the editing steps listed below may be a partial guide, you can still edit videos better following them.

Record Videos In The App

There are two options when filming a video: film directly or record from the TikTok app. Filming inside the app gives you quick access to the filter and other editing options.

Add Transitions

Adding transitions helps you put separate clips together to appear smooth when viewed. TikTok has made it easy to set up all your video clips in one folder and add transition effects that merge them into a full-length video.

Click the right hand of your screen and select ‘effects’ to pick the best transition feature for your video.

Activate Auto-Generated Captions

According to Yahoo, having captions in your videos captures your viewer’s visual and auditory senses, doubly increasing their engagement level.

With auto-generated content, you don’t have to add captions manually; the app simply translates everything you say onto the screen, ultimately saving you editing time.

You can select ‘captions’ from the right side of the screen while editing, and you should see texts popping up on the screen.

Turn On Text-To-Speech

Before now, listening to an automated robotic voice was off-putting, but with so many accessible humanized narration tools, viewers have taken a liking to text-to-speech videos, even on TikTok.

Simply select text when you upload your video and choose from many font styles available.

Add Trending, Catchy Background Sounds

There are two ways to incorporate sounds into your video: you could record first, then add audio, upload an audio file, and then record video clips to sync with the video later. Whatever the case, be sure to search out and add trending audio to increase your video visibility.

Use Filters

Filters have that transdimensional touch to connect viewers with whatever feelings you want them to experience. From lighting to contrast to VR effects to funny emojis, there are many filters to enhance your video.

5. Grow With TikTok Advertising

Even though platform is one of the social media channels with the highest number of users, it’s relatively new, so running TikTok ads wouldn’t be much of a contest. There are so many ad options you could choose from, such as In-feed ads, Topview ads, Carousel ads, and hashtag challenges.

You can also check the homepage and use TikTok’s Audience Network feature to run pangle ads.

Remember, to run effective ads where you can monitor their reach and other metrics, you need to register for a Ads Manager account.

6. Collaborate With TikTok influencers

One of the most powerful ways of moving your business across TikTok is through TikTok influencer marketing. This is simply by partnering with influencers with clout in the TikTok marketplace. Influencers with a loyal following can share your products or services with their fans.

Alternatively, you could ask popular users in the TikTok creator place to invite you to one of their Livestream sessions, where you share the story behind your brand and make some sales afterward.

7. Follow TikTok trends

Joining a trend or challenge is one of the fastest ways of going viral and increasing your TikTok presence. A profile that ordinarily gets an average of 100 views can garner upwards of 100,000 views within the TikTok community by participating in a hashtag challenge.

As mentioned earlier, you have to be deliberate about looking for trends. While you may use the discover page button to search for trends, you should watch lots of TikTok content to help you understand what other TikTok users are doing and how you can position your campaign to soar.

Wrapping up

TikTok is a popular platform that boasts over a billion users worldwide and presents a massive avenue for marketing your business to many people.

Not only does the platform have a massive audience to which business owners can market, but mastering the algorithm allows the possibility of gaining awareness with the right target audience and creating huge revenues with lower costs than traditional marketing.

If you’re a business owner not on this platform, you may wonder whether you can still join the train and if the marketing costs and effort will be worth it. You can rest assured that TikTok marketing could be profitable with the right marketing guide.