TikTok is expected to hit 2.2 billion users by 2027. According to the latest statistics, the platform’s short-form video offers the largest return on investment. That means TikTok can be a real goldmine for creators and businesses looking to build a social media marketing strategy. TikTok marketing has the potential to reach a larger audience and drive sales for your brand.
TikTok is one of the best social media platforms for businesses to reach millennial and Gen Z consumers. About 62% of its audience fall into the age group of 10 to 29 year-olds. Besides, TikTok ads have the potential to reach more than 945 million users aged 18 years old and above.
Marketing on TikTok varies widely from one brand to another and, across different industries. So, what does TikTok marketing entail and how can businesses use it to attain success? This article will dig into what TikTok marketing is and, provide practical tips for ramping up your brand’s strategy on the platform.
What is TikTok Marketing?
TikTok marketing refers to the process of promoting a brand, products or services to consumers on the platform. Marketers can use different tactics such as influencer marketing, creating viral engaging content and user-generated content (UGC) to drive authenticity and engagement. Marketing on TikTok involves using short-form videos to show of your business offerings and engage your audience.
Unlike social media marketing strategy that creates a cohesive strategy for all social platforms, TikTok marketing focusses on just one platform. However, you still have to ensure that the overall messaging on TikTok is similar to other platforms where your brand has a presence. Sometimes, you could even repurpose TikTok marketing videos for Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts to reach a larger audience.
Benefits of TikTok Marketing
TikTok marketing can help businesses to achieve the following;
- Increase brand awareness
- Boost the sale of products and services
- Build engaged communities
- Get feedback from audiences and customers
- Advertise products and services to target audiences
- Provide better customer service
TikTok Influencer Marketing and TikTok Affiliate Marketing
Influencer marketing on TikTok involves businesses partnering with creators to promote their brands. Businesses will partner with influencers and agree on an arrangement whereby payment is exchanged for content. For example, a food products brand can pay a foodie influencer to post a TikTok to promote its rice noodles.
TikTok influencer marketing is everywhere and, you just have to find the right match for your brand. So, do some research to find the perfect creator that naturally fits into your strategy and resonates with your brand.
In the following video, Nivea wanted to re-introduce their brand to the Kenyan market and increase its products’ knowledge among the youth demographic. They partnered with Woowzi to launch the #NiveaFavPiece influencer marketing campaign. The campaign attracted over 1.7 million views and a 17.42 engagement rate for its duration.
TikTok affiliate marketing is whereby companies partner with creators to promote their products or services in exchange for commissions. Unlike in influencer marketing, affiliate programs only reward creators when customers actually buy the products or services they promote. Content creators or marketers are given affiliate links or codes that customers must use to buy products or services. Then, the brand will simply look at the number of times that code was used to determine the compensation.
TikTok offers three different affiliate marketing programs;
- The Shop Plan: This is the simplest form of TikTok affiliate marketing whereby you set a flat commission ate for all your products. For example, creators receive 5% of sales they make on any product.
- The Open Plan: This plan allows businesses to set different commission rates for diverse products.
- The Targeted Plan: This plan allows you to invite specific creators to promote specific products.
Steps to Creating a TikTok Marketing Strategy
Creating a TikTok marketing strategy is essential to making sure that your efforts are focused towards achieving your business goals. Here are the important steps to creating a successful TikTok marketing strategy:
Set up a TikTok Business Account
One of the most important things that you must understand about TikTok marketing is that you need a TikTok business account for the strategy to work. The TikTok business account offers features such as email button, access to the business creative hub and commercial music library. You also get options for adding calls to action, auto replies for direct messages among others.
For those who already have personal TikTok accounts, you can easily switch to a business account for free. Here’s how to go about creating a TikTok business account;
- Go to your profile and tap the menu button.
- Click on Settings and Privacy
- Select Account
- Tap Switch to Business Account
The TikTok algorithm makes it easy even for accounts with fewer followers to go viral. However, you still need a significant following to boost your presence, reach and engagement on TikTok. Superior Social Boost offers tailor-made packages to help businesses to get more TikTok followers, TikTok comments, TikTok likes, TikTok shares and TikTok views.
Define your Target Audience
TikTok is no doubt a popular social platform for Gen Z consumers but, that is not the only demographic with a significant presence on the app. Gen Alpha is also an emerging demographic of future consumers on TikTok. The platform’s usage is also growing among boomers.
Try to paint a picture of the people who are most likely to convert into customers to identify your audience on TikTok. The following are the key elements to focus on;
- Location: Find out where your ideal customers live physically. Knowing even just the country is important but, local businesses or brands seeking to serve specific areas should isolate those places or regions.
- Age: What is the age range of your target customers? Keep the age gap as broad as possible unless you are very sure that your target audience is at a certain stage in their life.
- Gender: what gender do they identify as? That might be unimportant or essential, based on your brand.
- Interests: what are your target audience’s interests, hobbies or passions? These help with generating content ideas and audience targeting. For example, yoga, cooking, dance.
- Career/ industry: what industry does your audience work in and what job titles do they hold? Besides, that might not be as relevant depending on your brand.
- Income level: what is the income range of this buyer persona? Are they price sensitive or are they willing to spend more money on premium products?
- Relationship status: Are they single, actively dating or married? That may be relevant if you are in the wedding industry.
There are other elements that you should also focus on to define your target audience including favorite sites or apps, motivation to buy and buying concerns. You may also want to look into your target audience’s education and stages in life such as parents with newborns. If you are looking to develop a strategy for TikTok event marketing, it would also be ideal to consider the events that your target audience attend.
Understand the TikTok Platform
Brands that do TikTok marketing usually have two sets of competitors. The first one is the business competition who you have likely already identified while the second one is your second competition. Like other social channels, TikTok is home to millions of brands and individuals. That means you are not only competing with other businesses but, also other content creators.
Examine your business competitors and see if they have a presence on TikTok. If they do, check out the type of content they post and the ones with significant engagement levels. That can give you clues into what interests their audience, which could be similar to what your audience like. However, you should be careful to create your own unique content.
Take some time to look at TikTok content to see what other brands have already created in your niche. Search hashtags, trending sounds and what comes up on your For You Page. Take note of any overlaps from those posts with your business competitors.
Map out a Promotion Strategy
Besides investing time and efforts into creating your branded TikTok profile and content, you can take things a notch higher by partnering with TikTok influencers and paid ads.
Influencer marketing serves as a form of social proof, putting your brand and products in front of some else’s audience. And, it is quite huge on TikTok.
A good example of TikTok influencer marketing is Peace Out Skincare. The brand gifted its products to TikTok influencers, two of whom collaborated on a video. The video generated 12 million views, 2.4 million likes, 60,000 shares and $15,000 worth of product sales in just one day.
If you are looking to work with influencers in your TikTok marketing strategy, scout for talent that resonates with your audience and industry. Get in touch through direct messages on the platform and send free products in exchange for a video of their honest feedback and experience.
In case you want to leverage paid ads into your strategy, TikTok Ads Manager allows you access to a set of tools that can help to boost the visibility of your ads to a specified audience. For example, Omolola Jewellery blends organic posts with paid TikTok ads to reach new audiences. That was very effective in supporting its business during the pandemic, when customers were unable to safely visit its physical stores.
Examples of TikTok Marketing in Action
Ready to put your TikTok marketing strategy to the test? The following examples will help you to spice things up and ensure success.
The following TikTok marketing video is by @makeupmaddie. The creator made it great for marketing Pandora. The text (this is your sign to go to Pandora) shows that the user viewing the video is by pure luck. It directs the viewer but, it is not too pushy. And, the creator has used Taylor Swift’s song that gives the video a more personal and authentic feel.
The above video works because it suggests to viewers that the algorithm showing it is luck or, ‘’a sign’’. It also clearly displays the product and service offered by showing an example of the steps of custom graving. Besides, the video uses a trending song for the audio, which makes it feel familiar and personal to the audience.
This next example is a behind-the-scenes TikTok video by @kovessentials. It does not just show off the product but, also explains part of the manufacturing process. The video opens the door to a not-often shared part of the retailing chain, with all the imperfection and trial-and-error that goes into it.
The video works because it makes the audience to feel like they really know this product. They saw a prototype and understand how the final product is attained. The brand demonstrates transparency by giving viewers a peek at the design process. The video is satisfying as you can see the prototype and the final product all in it.
For Kenyan content creators and aspiring social media marketers, here’s where to discover more videos related to marketing trending videos in Kenya.
Final Thoughts
TikTok marketing can help your business to boost brand awareness, increase sales, build engaged communities and get feedback from your customers and audience. However, building an effective strategy takes time, creativity and effort. This article has outlined the essential guidelines, with practical tips and examples to help you grow your audience and achieve business goals.