How Your Brand Can Use TikTok To Its Advantage

Recently, TikTok has evolved from people’s guilty pleasures to everybody’s new obsession. According to Oberlo, TikTok is the most downloaded app on the Apple app store, so unless you’ve been living under a rock, it’s likely that you’ll have heard of the popular video app. If you have heard of it, you may be mistaken in thinking that this app is just for young people, but businesses can use the app as well. Which is why we want to talk about how your brand can use TikTok to its advantage today.

Finding Your Audience

Recently we’ve seen a change in the way people consume content on social media. Wyzowl found that we tend to watch an average of 16 hours of online videos per week, which is a huge 52% increase in the last 2 years. So what does this mean for you? 

Well, with this in mind, it’s very likely that your audience may already be using the app and let’s not forget that although 41% of TikTok’s users are made up of 16 - 24-year-olds, (Gloablwebindex, 2019) there are people of all ages on the app. In fact, if you already have an account on TikTok, you may have noticed that there are some larger businesses on there too. 

Guess, for example, use TikTok to engage with their audience and appeal to a younger demographic. However, that’s not to say that if you’re a smaller business, you shouldn’t be using the app. Out of the lockdown restrictions, TikTok saw a rise of the small business owners and even created a small business trend. 

If you’ve seen these videos it may be because their ‘for you’ algorithm makes it much easier for smaller accounts to go viral and gain a larger following. If you take this into account with the sheer mass of people that use the app, you can begin to see how using TikTok for your business may work in your favour. 

Creating Awareness

As we’ve mentioned one or two times, a lot of people use TikTok. So even if your brand isn’t very well known, you can use the app to create awareness for your business. This will, however, require you to make a plan, because much like everything else in business, when you’re venturing into unknown territory, you need a plan of action to see you through. 

When you’re making that plan, the good news is that unlike Youtube, you don’t need to buy expensive equipment to make a successful TikTok video. Most TikTok videos are recorded on the viewer’s phones and edited on a mobile editing app. This makes creating content a whole lot easier, quicker and more affordable, but it doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t try to make quality videos. 

As a business on TikTok, you still want to appear to be a little professional even if you are showing a part of your brand that most people wouldn’t usually see. The best way to do this is to plan your content. Instead of just jumping on when you’ve got a minute, plan your content to show your viewers certain aspects of your business in a certain order. This will make your videos much more engaging and will make your business look like you put a lot of thought into everything you do. 

With a younger demographic making up a larger proportion of the users on TikTok there are certain videos that do better than others. For example, often funny videos, filter videos and videos with pets tend to do quite well. So, if you have an adorable office pet show them off. This will not only show your business’s culture and personality but will also make your account seem as though your willing to share more of your business with your consumers. 

TikTok Reviews

While you want to make most of your content original, some brands simply use user-generated content on their pages and, while it seems like a very uncreative way to use TikTok, there is something to take from this marketing method.

A good example of this tactic comes from Nike. Originally their Tiktok page was private which made their account appear exclusive to their fans and consumers, but there is still an element of this on their page as their feed is made up entirely of user-generated content from these people.

If you were to search #Nike on TikTok you’ll see that millions of users are using the hashtag for an opportunity to be reposted by the brand. This means that they’re getting millions of free adverts, reviews and trends because they thought outside the box with their content. 

Of course, it’s not realistic for most businesses to rely solely on the content of their consumers, but adding a few videos dueted with your customers does work really well. You may have seen Gordon Ramsey do this style of video with amateur (and just plain bad) chefs but brands often do this as well when a customer is showing a ‘how-to’ of one of their products. 

Wyzowl found that 96% of people watch explainer videos to learn more about a product or service, so dueting with somebody who has already made the content for you, and adding a few pointers, creates content that users of the app actually want to see. This is a really quick way of making content as well, but more importantly, this style of content will boost engagement with your consumers and will allow you to start building relationships with them. All of which makes your brand seem more approachable to new and existing audiences. 

TikTok can be great for businesses, but you do need to find a balance between making something creative and maintaining a sense of professionalism. The best way to do this is to listen to your audience, distinguish what they are responding well to and what they aren’t, and try to create content that they will enjoy. 

If you’ve enjoyed this blog, why not check out some of our other blogs here.