How to Develop A TikTok Strategy
TikTok is the fastest growing social media platform, and is rapidly becoming a social platform of choice for the youngest generation. It makes sense why many brands would be interested in meeting their newest consumers where they’re already hanging out by establishing a TikTok presence.
Even though it seems like videos are everywhere, TikTok is still so new that many brands and marketers are still unsure about its relevance to them, or the opportunities it offers. It can be tough, seeing as Gen Z and younger millennials are highly cynical about traditional advertising. To a large extent, they no longer consume mainstream television or radio, and receive more of their news via social media than a newspaper. They use ad blockers online, and “suffer” banner blindness, making much of the more overt online marketing pointless.
However, TikTok –– where they spend an average of 52 minutes per day with their favorite TikTok influencers –– is fertile ground, especially for influencer marketing.
1. Find Your People
Regardless of your brand’s industry, there is likely a community for it on TikTok. Find your niche by deep-diving into trending hashtags and exploring relevant brand and industry keywords. There may be more than one conversation that makes sense to join and see which audience your content resonates with the best.
2. Be Real
Humanize your brand by featuring real people and sharing user-generated content from fans. That includes your own employees! This can be as simple as giving office tours, providing product tips, talking about areas of expertise…or even featuring pets interrupting meetings. TikTok is all about people and, while graphics are an integral feature, they are most always used to support live video.
3. Go Native
That said, take advantage of TikTok’s native features. Music and sounds from the TikTok library increase the likelihood of your video being shown in a FYP (For You Page). Additionally, keep inclusivity in mind. TikTok’s accessibility features and captioning options are easy to implement and incredibly accurate. When selecting hashtags, it’s important to create a mix of generic keywords relating to your industry and not unique hashtags (unlike on Instagram where this could be beneficial for brand awareness).
Avoid using hashtags such as #fyp and #foryou as these won’t boost your viewership and will appear to spam accounts. When deciding how many hashtags to use, keep in mind the 100 character caption limit. Include as many as you can in addition to the caption copy. Looking for additional hashtags? Go to the Discover tab and enter in a keyword and similar hashtags will populate.
4. Spread the Video Love
One of the nicest, and most convenient things about TikTok is that the videos you create in the app are easy to export and can add new flair to your omnichannel content strategy. There’s no need to wait for people to discover your TikTok channel, spread the news and cross-promote on your other social channels. A common content strategy will repurpose TikTok videos into Reels on Instagram.
5. Partner With Creators
Partnering with creators, or influencer marketing, is a great way to expand your audience with an authentic touch. Just make sure you give them creative freedom to actually be creative, otherwise it won’t resonate on this platform. To learn more about the costs of partnering with creators and marketers’ best practices, check out some info around the creator economy.
6. Stay Active
According to recent research, the average TikTok user spends 68 minutes per day on the app. TikTok recommends users to post 1-4 times per day, however this can be difficult to achieve in real time for most brands. It’s recommended to create content in bulk and save it to drafts, deploying it with a regular cadence.
7. Spend Money
TikTok does offer advertising, similar to Facebook and Instagram. Here are the primary ad types:
- In-feed Ads: up to 60 seconds, available for all ads, and appear on users’ “For You Page” feeds between user videos –– similar to Instagram Story ads.
- Brand Takeover: these appear upon opening the app and a user’s “For You Page” as still images. A user will only be shown one brand takeover per day, which makes them a much more expensive ad unit.
- TopView: 5-60 second video ads that appear in-feed after the first 3 seconds of a user’s scroll.
8. Test and Learn
Just because one video does well and brings in new followers, doesn’t mean your next video will strike a nerve—and that’s okay! Take note of the variables that differentiate high-performers and flops, and use your findings to inspire your next TikTok.
The primary goal for TikTok is increasing awareness among key target audiences. When you’re testing, try not to set hard goals and key performance indicators (KPIs) like video views, profile views and audience growth. From a qualitative perspective, consider trying to understand which subjects and storytelling styles that are the most resonant with the right audiences.
If you’re ready to start developing your brand’s TikTok strategy today, contact us today to help.