How to Properly Market Your Product on TikTok
If you think there are only teenagers dancing on TikTok, you might be missing out on an incredible marketing platform.
TikTok has emerged as a global phenomenon, captivating the attention of millions with its addictive short-form videos. What began as a medium for entertainment and creativity had rapidly evolved into a powerful marketing tool, providing businesses and individuals with unparalleled opportunities to connect with a vast and engaged audience.
Increasingly popular – especially among young people – TikTok has become a hotspot for marketers seeking to harness its potential. Features such as challenges, duets, sounds and collaborations offer incredible possibilities for ad formats.
In this article, we will discuss how you can use TikTok to showcase your products and highlight your company. Find out the best strategies and discover why the platform should be included in your marketing plan.
What Is TikTok Marketing?
TikTok marketing is simply the use of the social media platform as a tool to promote products, services, brands, or individuals.
If you are unfamiliar with TikTok, we are here to help! The ideo-sharing platform allows users to create and share short-form videos of up to 10 minutes long. With its growing user base and immense popularity, TikTok has become an attractive platform for businesses and marketers to reach and engage with a large audience, particularly younger demographics.
According to the Social Shepherd, TikTok is the sixth most popular social media platform, with over 1 billion active users. Nearly half of the users are less than 30 years old.
Reaching so many people, TikTok offers various marketing opportunities for businesses and individuals to showcase their content and connect with users.
Content creation
TikTok marketing primarily focuses on creating engaging and entertaining video content that resonates with users.
The platform offers creative features that can help with the production of captivating videos, such as filters, effects, and sounds.
Influencer collaborations
As with other social media platforms, some creators stand out on TikTok, becoming influencers. They play a crucial role in TikTok marketing, and we’ll discuss working with influencers as a strategy later in this article.
Challenges
Challenges are a popular marketing strategy on TikTok. Brands create and promote challenges by encouraging users to participate and create videos around a specific theme or idea. These videos often go viral, leading to increased brand exposure and user-generated content.
Branded content
TikTok offers the option for brands to create and promote content. This involves collaborating with the platform’s ad partners or using the tools it offers to display sponsored videos.
TikTok ads
The platform provides various advertising formats, including in-feed ads, brand takeovers, and branded effects. These ad formats allow businesses to reach a wider audience and drive traffic to their websites or landing pages.
TikTok analytics
As with other social media platforms, TikTok provides insights and analytics tools to track the performance of marketing campaigns. Marketers can gain valuable data from video views, engagement rates, audience demographics, and other key metrics, leading to optimised strategies.
Why Use TikTok for Marketing Campaigns?
Having your brand on social media is essential to promote your product and strengthen your relationship with customers. Since TikTok is currently one of the most popular social media platforms, marketers should consider a presence in the app when developing their communication strategies.
Here are some of the reasons why to include TikTok in your marketing plan.
1. Growth potential
TikTok has a high potential for organic reach. This means you have a better chance of going viral with your content, meaning a large number of people will watch your content in a short period of time.
Once these videos reach a larger audience with a high engagement rate, they become “trends”. The platform will then push your content to users, understanding it is relevant and worth watching.
Unlike other video platforms, TikTok makes it easy to produce and watch content. You don’t need to invest in quality equipment, high-level production, or any other resource to get the attention of an audience on TikTok.
2. Growing user base
TikTok is a popular social media platform with over 1 billion active users. Slowly, the network is becoming more relevant than Instagram, being a significant part of users’ daily lives.
With so many people including TikTok in their daily routines and using videos to get recommendations, brands must take it seriously as a marketing tool.
3. Targeted audience
As mentioned, TikTok’s user base is largely made of people younger than 30 years old.
When aiming to reach this demographic, it is recommended to advertise on TikTok.
Users on TikTok also receive content recommendations based on their interests and activities, which means your videos are more likely to reach like-minded individuals.
The Benefits of TikTok Marketing
As discussed, TikTok marketing can provide your brand with greater reach, especially among a young target audience.
Advertising on TikTok, working with creators, or simply producing content for the platform can provide a few benefits for your brand.
1. Viral potential
TikTok’s content has a high potential to go viral. Engaging and creative videos can quickly gain traction and reach a vast number of users within a short period.
This viral nature of the platform can significantly amplify brand exposure and increase the chances of reaching a broader audience.
2. Authenticity and creativity
TikTok is a great platform for brands wanting to prioritise storytelling. Through short-form videos, companies can showcase their products or services in unique and entertaining ways, resonating with users on a personal level.
3. Influencer marketing opportunities
TikTok is home to numerous influencers with dedicated following and high levels of user engagement. Collaborating with influencers can help brands tap into their established fan base, leverage their influence, and gain credibility.
Influencers can create sponsored content, participate in branded challenges, or promote products, effectively reaching their followers and driving brand awareness.
4. User-generated content
TikTok thrives on user-generated content, where users actively participate in challenges and create their own videos. This presents an opportunity for brands to encourage user-generated content related to their products or campaigns.
When people engage with branded content, it increases exposure and fosters a sense of community and authenticity around products.
5. Data and analytics
TikTok provides robust analytics and insights to track the performance of marketing campaigns. Marketers can access data on video views, engagement rates, follower growth, and audience demographics. These insights help refine marketing strategies, optimise content, and make data-driven decisions.
6. Ad formats and targeting options
When creating sponsored content on TikTok, the platform offers different formats, including in-feed ads, brand takeovers, and branded effects. The formats provide opportunities to reach a broader audience and increase brand visibility.
TikTok also offers advanced targeting options based on user interests, demographics, and behaviour, allowing marketers to refine their campaigns and reach their ideal audience.
7. Cross-promotion and integration
TikTok allows content to be easily shared and integrated with other social media platforms. This enables cross-promotion, where TikTok videos can be shared on platforms like Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook, expanding the reach of marketing efforts and driving traffic to other channels or websites.
Best Practices for TikTok Marketing
Creating content can be a challenging but rewarding task. On TikTok, engaging videos make all the difference when it comes to promoting a product or a service. Your content should be creative and catch the attention of your target audience.
Here are some tips on how to market your product on TikTok:
Use humour
The best way of getting the attention of your audience on TikTok is through humour.
Make sure your content is fun and engaging, motivating people to share it with friends and family.
For example, you can make videos about funny situations your team faces when creating, packing, or sending your products. Try to make your content relatable, showing some of the struggles you may face and poking fun at the challenges in your industry.
Looking at what your competitors are doing can inspire you and give you ideas of what to do or not do with your content.
Work with influencers
TikTok creators are one of the advantages of using the platform to promote your products. By partnering with people with a large following, you can increase your brand’s visibility and engage your audience.
At Odore, we have created influencer campaigns for multiple clients, sending product samples for digital celebrities to review and promote items. We also encouraged followers to claim their samples. The reach of influencers helped our clients communicate to a larger audience.
Look for online celebrities that are already reaching your target audience and have a community of people interested in what they have to say.
Sponsor posts
Although TikTok offers great organic results, sponsoring posts can offer even better reach and engagement rates.
The first thing you’ll need to do is create a business account on TikTok. Once the platform approves the account, you can start creating ads.
Determine your campaign goals, select your target audience, and decide how much you wish to invest in your digital campaign.
There are five different types of ads available:
1. In-feed ads
These ads will show on your main page, known as the “for you page”. They are videos recommended by TikTok based on user activities and preferences.
2. TopView
These are 60-second long videos that will be shown to users the first time they open the app on the day.
3. Branded effects
Companies can create filters, stickers, or other effects that users can add to their own videos.
4. Branded hashtags
Companies can create challenges for users who will make a video and use the hashtag suggested by the brand.
5. Brand takeover
Combining in-feed ads, TopView and branded hashtags, this type of ad can include gifs, videos and images.
Create original content
The more you post on TikTok, the more people you reach. Don’t rely on just sharing other people’s content or working with influencers. Create your own videos and make sure your brand is well-represented in the content you post.
Get people hooked in the first few seconds
TikTok is a platform for short videos. People will rapidly scroll down if they are not immediately engaged with your content. Therefore, ensure you get viewers hooked in the first few seconds of your video.
Record vertically
TikTok videos are displayed vertically. Ensure the content you produce is in full screen by recording vertically instead of horizontally.
Use captions
Captions are a must. Most people watch content on mute, and there are many people who rely on subtitles to understand videos. Make your content accessible by captioning it.
Use hashtags
Hashtags can be sponsored and can help your content reach a larger audience.
Research the subjects that interest your potential buyers and use hashtags relevant to them and your content.
Use trending sounds or songs
TikTok promotes content using popular sounds or songs. Using the same audio resources can help your brand reach more people.
Research the most popular audio and try to create videos inspired by what other people are making.
Be consistent
It is important to post regularly. This way, your audience will be captivated by your content and know they can keep coming back to find new videos.
Promote live videos
Live streams can also help your brand reach a large audience. TikTok prioritises accounts that promote live videos, and users are notified when your account is live.
Understand your audience
Before starting any marketing campaign, you need to understand your audience, learn how they use social media and what captivates their attention.
Do your research and make sure you are using the right messaging in your content.
Final Thoughts
TikTok marketing offers businesses and individuals a unique opportunity to connect with the younger generation. By embracing the platform’s creative and authentic nature, brands can catch the attention of audiences and tell relevant stories about their products and services.
User-generated content on TikTok is also an important feature, as it fosters a sense of community and authenticity that resonates with users.
There are many different ways of creating and promoting content on TikTok. One is working with influencers and encouraging users to share their opinions about your products.
We can help you develop a product sampling strategy that includes TikTok, harnessing the power of this revolutionary platform.
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