Strategic TikTok Tips for Marketers
TikTok is not only just another social media platform, but a powerhouse that has grown to one of the most popular and influential search engines for a wide variety of niche topics. It took me some time to warm up to this platform, but once I did I realized that TikTok marketing strategies would be beneficial for me as well.
With over 1 billion users, this network, which used to be primarily relevant for ‘tweens and teens has now been flooded with men and women of all ages – including senior citizens.
Not only are people using TikTok to find the content they need, but they’re using it to discover a community of like-minded individuals they can interact with for camaraderie, growth and understanding.
Based on a concept of short-form video creations, it doesn’t take much effort (or time) to learn, master and excel at benefiting from the content you publish on this platform. This is a place where ordinary people are seeing success and big brands are making sure they have a presence, too.
Here, you’ll find more than a dozen of the most important things you need to remember when developing TikTok marketing strategies and an agenda for your online niche business. The best part is, there’s no need to try to be someone you’re not on this app – because authenticity is something that will work in your favor.
How to Get Around Stingy Link Capability
The rules on TikTok are simple – you can’t post active hyperlinks in the videos or descriptions (or even the comments) on a video, but you are allowed a single link in your profile’s bio area.
This is different from YouTube’s lax rules about linking. But many creators on TikTok often refer to the link in their bio, which is similar to how Instagram suggests people do it.
So if you’re only allowed one link, how do you succeed as a marketer? After all, you might want to build a list of subscribers by driving people to a lead magnet page. Or link to a product you are reviewing, or elsewhere.
Use a simple tool like Linktree as your link of choice. Like a tree with branches, your Linktree hyperlink will branch out to showcase all of the different pages you want to link out to.
They have various plans, including a free one where you get unlimited links, social icons and QR codes, and more. If you want one of the more extensive plans, you can level up to pro or premium and get access to features like email collection, etc.
The Sweet Spot for Consistent Posting
Every niche audience will perform differently on TikTok, as well as other social media platforms. Depending on what topic you are discussing and what time your audience logs on, you might be posting early in the morning, in the afternoon, evening, or late at night.
On TikTok in particular, consistency and frequency is one thing that can help you get more traction using this social network. Your followers will want to hear from you on a daily basis, or at least several times per week.
Ideally, you will be able to upload at least one to four times per day. The great news is that TikTok is rooted in shortform video, which can last anywhere from about fifteen seconds to three minutes in length.
They do allow slightly longer videos of up to ten minutes, but it’s very rare for you to see one of these on this app. Most of the users will complain if a video reaches 3 minutes. This can work in your favor because it requires less work from you.
You need to test out a variety of times to see when your specific target audience is most responsive. People who use TikTok off and log on many times during the day. That they might sit down to consume a lot of information at one time in particular, such as after work or right before bed.
Instead of Making Longer Videos, Use Parts
You might be tempted to use longer videos just because you can. But many people will simply scroll by whenever they see a lengthy video. This might be because the attention span has waned over the course of many years.
If you have more information than what you could ideally fit in a 60 second video, you can break it up into parts instead. You’ll often see a creator’s video on your For You Page (FYP), which is another word for your news feed, that is labeled as part one.
Usually, the creator will put part 2 or the following parts as the first or pinned comment on the previous part. The one mistake you don’t want to make is to post part one without having the other parts of your videos ready to upload simultaneously.
When people are scrolling through TikTok, they want the entire story or instructions all at once. They don’t want to have to wait 24 to 48 hours to see the follow up information dripped out to them.
This is definitely a platform where instant gratification is a necessity, so you need to keep things succinct and swiftly moving for them. Sometimes, people will make too many parts to their story, such as using 15 second videos.
You don’t want to annoy your followers by forcing them to continually watch individual parts in hopes that they will follow you on the app. Likewise, you don’t want to stretch out a story for longer than it needs to be.
Use Playlists to Your Advantage
As online entrepreneurs, you may have many different branches of a specific niche topic that you want to discuss with your target audience. For example, if you are in the Internet marketing niche, you might teach them about email marketing, affiliate marketing, social networking, info product creation, etc.
In order to give your users a better experience on TikTok, you can utilize their feature called playlists where you categorize your videos in a series that people can click on and watch instead of sorting through all of your videos on a myriad of topics trying to find what they need.
These are not readily available to every creator on TikTok. this is a platform that sometimes rolls out features to individuals after a certain amount of time or once they reach a specific goal like a certain number of followers.
But if you see the option to create a playlist on your video tab from your profile, you will be able to add the videos that you want in a specific playlist that will appear below your bio, above all of your other videos.
Whenever you have a video that you want to add to a playlist, you can simply tap on the three dots in the upper right hand corner of your video and then click the option to add it to a playlist.
Keep in mind that each video can only be in one playlist, so don’t try to take one video and categorize it in many different playlists. If you want to reorganize them, you can take the same steps and remove it from your playlist before adding it to another.
You can do this in any niche that you want to. For example, a gardening TikTok account might have a playlist for indoor gardening, raised bed gardening, garden designs, salad gardens, trellis creations, or gardening, and more.
This is very helpful to the end user because they are able to click on your profile and immediately go to all of the information that is most beneficial to their needs. It is similar to how YouTube allows you to create playlists and how you categorize information on your blog.
Make Sure You’re Using Hashtags and Descriptions Correctly
There are many ways people find information on TikTok when they need it, and just as they type keywords and phrases into Google, Amazon or YouTube, they also search for them on this platform.
That’s why you need to make sure you’re using hashtags strategically. A hashtag is a keyword with a pound sign in front of it like this: #gardening. You want to use a few, but not overdo it.
So for a gardening video on TikTok, you might have the following hashtags: #gardening, #ediblegarden, #raisedgarden, and more. You can certainly use keyword tools and traditional means of finding keywords, but you can also look right on TikTok!
Click on the search icon in the upper right corner and begin typing in a word or phrase, like garden. Then, you will see what’s being used on their app – phrases like #gardenideas, #gardeninspiration, #gardenlayoutideas, etc.
You also want to use the description area to give a very brief comment about what your video is about. People don’t like long descriptions because if the creator uses text near the bottom of their video, the description will often cover it up.
You have to be very careful about where you put any text on your videos, because if it’s too far to any margin, it can get covered up by the profile picture, search area, engagement icons and more.
Find Influencers to Network With
Sometimes, you can find TikTok influencers who are in your niche that you can make arrangements with to help you gain more exposure for your own business. This can be a paid or friendly arrangement.
You might simply befriend someone who happens to have a large audience and they end up sharing information about you, your brand and products. Sometimes, TikTok creators will meet up and take these friendships offline.
You can also have mutual cross promotions where you’re both sharing information with the same target audience, and helping each other get more exposure. And of course, there’s also the paid route where you can hire influencers or make some sort of arrangement for free products if they will mention you to their target audience in a TikTok.
Not all influencers are celebrities as you may have seen in the news. These can be smaller creators who have fewer followers, but whose followers are dedicated and loyal to listening to their advice.
At some point in your TikTok journey, you may be considered an influencer yourself, and you will have to field requests to present information on behalf of someone else. You need to be very selective when doing this so that you don’t align yourself with anyone who doesn’t deserve your praise and endorsement.
Engage with Your Target Audience
One of the best things about TikTok is that you have ample ability to engage directly with your target audience, and this is a very important element of succeeding on this platform.
The first thing you need to know is that many niche audiences are grouped together on TikTok. they are grouped according to the niche topic, which often ends in -Tok. for example, people who like to read books are often part of the BookTok community.
People who like to keep a tidy house are part of the CleanTok community. You have other -Tok groups, such as MusicTok, BeautyTok, PlantTok, and more. You want to get to know what these particular groups of people want to see most on this short form video platform.
Then, whenever you are creating TikToks that will appeal to this target audience, you want to stay on top of the comments so that you can interact with people who take time to engage with it.
Over time, you will eventually have too many comments to be able to answer each and everyone. But in the beginning stages, you want to respond to your followers whenever they leave a comment for you.
You may also want to follow people back initially when they follow you. While Instagram often makes people pursue a strategy where they have more people following them than people they follow, the TikTok audience doesn’t care about that kind of clout – they only care if you are genuine in your reciprocal engagement.
Remember that there were always be trolls on all social media platforms. You don’t want to waste time engaging in a battle of words with one of these people. You can either block them from following you or simply ignore their comment and let your followers handle it.
Capitalize on Trends, Sounds and Filters
One thing that’s very important in succeeding on TikTok is that you look for trends and ways to make sure your videos are getting placed on everyone’s FYP. you can do this by keeping an eye on what is considered hot on the app in that moment.
There are three different things you want to take note of. The first is an easy one period you have to make sure to use popular and trending sounds whenever you make your videos.
Many people will click on the sound itself to see all of the videos that are being made using that sound. This might be music or it can be an audio file of someone talking, yelling, or something else.
If you are making a TikTok video where you are speaking, you can still use a trending sound. However, make sure you click on the volume before publishing it to lower the sound of the music or trending sound so that they can hear your voice over it.
Another thing you want to use periodically to help your TikTok videos succeed is the various filters and effects that they have on their platform. This is another method where people can click on the effect and see all of the other videos that are using that particular one.
You want to make sure your videos are gaining traction on TikTok by paying attention to trends. For example, there was a trend where professionals and niche leaders would give tips on five things they would never do as a ______ (doctor, professional chef, parent of twins, etc.).
So if you were to make a video based on this trend as a gardener, your five things you would never do might be to never plant without testing your soil first, never try to grow vegetables without composting, never water on a daily basis, and so on.
Knowing what trends, sounds, and effects are popular can easily be found by looking on the app at any given moment. In fact, when you are creating your video, TikTok will give you the option to look at a list of sounds that are hot at that moment.
Going Live to Appease a Hungry Crowd
Going live is similar to having a webinar. This is a way for you to present information in a spur of the moment manner and interact with your followers in real time. Not everyone has the ability to go live on TikTok.
In order to do this, you have to have at least 1,000 followers, at which time this feature will unlock for you. If you plan to go live, you want to announce it earlier in the day so that people know when to tune in so that they can interact with you.
You also want to make sure you go live at a time when the majority of your target audience is on the app and the active. Make sure you have a plan in place for keeping the discussion going so that you are not just sitting there staring back at your phone silently.
It helps to have a moderator or two who can catch and delete any disruptive comments so that you can see the type of engagement that you want to interact with, such as answering questions your target audience has for you.
When you go live on this platform, you will show up on a separate feed that is just for live videos. For example, if you go onto TikTok right now and click on a live video, you can scroll through your feed and see everyone on the platform who is live on your FYP.
Unlike YouTube, once the live is completed, it will not be available for others to watch after the fact. If you do want to record your live session on TikTok, you might want to pull it up on your computer screen and use a tool like Camtasia to screen capture the video and upload it to a YouTube channel so that you can embed it on your blog or elsewhere.
Leveraging Duets and Stitches
TikTok has two different features you can use where you are leveraging another creator’s videos to help you with content and also to get more eyes on your own account.
These are called duets and stitches. A duet is when you take someone else’s video and record your own video side by side with it. Some people do it silently, and others talk along with it.
A stitch is when you take a portion of someone else’s video (up to 5 seconds) and then record your own. So their video acts as an intro or lead into your video, where you will then give a response.
The creator must enable duetting and stitching. If they don’t, you won’t be able to leverage their content. However, many creators like to do this because they get a link back to their account from whoever uses their video.
Stitching is a great way to give credit to someone if you are curating their content to use on your profile. This is an important factor to many on TikTok because they don’t like people unfairly using someone else’s content without credit.
You can invite your followers to duet your video with a response video to a question that you ask or a challenge that you pose to them. This is a great way to get more eyes on your account.
Have a Back Up Account
As many online entrepreneurs no, there is no worse feeling than waking up one morning and realizing that your entire social media account has been shut down without any warning.
You may have lost your YouTube channel, your Facebook group or page, or any other type of social profile that you have worked hard to build with a following. On TikTok, you are able to have more than one account using the same app.
If you do find that your TikTok has been shut down, you can always appeal the decision and try to get it reopened. However, it’s always good to have a backup account. Do you want to make sure that you notify your followers of what your backup account name is so that they can go follow you there in case your main account is ever closed.
Some people put the name of their backup account in the description on their bio so that whenever someone clicks on their profile, they can immediately be informed of the backup and go follow it.
See If Ads Will Pay Off for You
There are all different kinds of ads you can research for TikTok, but the most influential ones are probably sponsored ads that show up in someone’s FYP that look like a “real” TikTok video.
In fact, the word sponsored is just a very small word in the description. So if you’re able to create sponsored ads that look just like most of your real free content, it will likely perform well for you and most people won’t even realize they’re watching an ad.
You are able to include a link out to a page when you use these kinds of ads and it will show up at the end of the video. You want to make sure you time your ad placement for when your audience is usually active on the app.
It doesn’t take much time or effort to create a sponsored ad. Figure out what your objective is – and set a budget. Then upload your video and call to action and submit it to go live!
Understanding TikTok’s Algorithm
Like other social media sites and search engines, TikTok has an algorithm that they use to rank content and present it to a certain target audience. As an online marketer, it will be your job to pay attention to what is performing well and what is not delivering the results you had hoped.
No platform will completely divulge all of the in’s and outs of how their algorithm works. That would defeat the purpose and allow scammers and dishonest people to game the system.
They like to reward authentic content that deserves more exposure and higher coverage. There are some things TikTok well look at to determine whether or not your content is worthy of showing up on more For You Pages.
For example, when you are using the app, you may notice that every once in a while they will ask you, before you scroll, whether or not you enjoyed or appreciated the content you just viewed.
They don’t do this on every video because that would be annoying, but if they ask everyone does question periodically, it will give them a better overview of what their users want to see.
Another thing they look for is whether or not people are watching your video until the end or exiting before you have finished showing them the content. They also want to see if people watch your videos more than once, on repeat.
TikTok Also looks to see if you have been hidden as a creator by their users. If you don’t like a certain creator, you can hide their content so that it won’t be shown to you anymore, and this is an indicator to their platform that your content is not worthy of added exposure.
They also look for little things such as how many likes your video has gotten, how many comments people have left, and whether or not they are sharing it with others or interacting it in another way. These are valuable TikTok marketing strategies.
Of course, they will look to see how you are using hashtags and whether or not you are utilizing trends, effects, and other elements they provide. If you are using the built in tools and strategies effectively, they will help you get more views by allowing your videos to show up more prominently.
Keep in mind that because TikTok has proven that they have a way to help you get more views, that also means they have methods to ensure you get little to no views. If you are violating their rules or continually having problems with your account, you may get shadow-banned if not outright banned from the app.
When it comes to marketing using any social media tools, including TikTok, you never want to build your entire business on a third party platform. This is a very dangerous endeavor because you are giving 100% of control of your business to someone else.
Make sure you are always referring back to your profile and Linktree so that they can click and follow the link to your lead magnet page and get on your list. Only then will you have more assurance that you can contact these individuals in the future and serve their needs with products and promotions that you feel alright good fit for them.
Keep in mind that, as with all social networking sites, the rules are likely to change as time goes on. Changes often occur very fast when new features are added, strategies are leveraged in non optimal ways, and the platform feels the need to protect its users from unethical entities. TikTok marketing strategies are worth your time.
Create a marketing strategy for use on TikTok that will ensure you are staying above board and providing value to your target audience at all times. Make sure you are consistent with your content creation and that you are staying abreast of all changes so that you are never left behind.
I’m author, publisher, and entrepreneur Connie Ragen Green and I would love to connect further with you. If you have an interest in hosting video live streams, even if you’re an introvert, to help you skyrocket your way to success, please check out my comprehensive training for beginners at Video Live Streaming for Introverts so you may get started right away.
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