For overstretched small businesses, understanding the power of social media marketing assistance can transform your reach and engagement. With platforms like TikTok growing at an unprecedented rate, small enterprises have a golden opportunity to expand their horizons. This guide delves into how harnessing TikTok’s potential can help your business to reach its target audience in a new way.
In this article:
- Some TikTok statistics
- Is TikTok the right platform for your business?
- Have you got time for another channel?
- What benefits can TikTok bring?
- How to use TikTok for your business
- Social media marketing assistance for TikTok success
Some TikTok statistics
To understand the potential of TikTok for your business, it’s crucial to look at some compelling statistics that define its role in social media marketing assistance. TikTok has grown to become a phenomenally popular platform which makes it a significant tool for companies aiming to extend their social media outreach. With the majority of its users aged between 16 and 24, TikTok serves as a pivotal channel to engage with Gen Z audiences, giving brands of all sizes the opportunity to influence the next generation of consumers.
Users spend an impressive amount of time every day on TikTok, indicative of the platform’s engaging nature and marketing potential. The platform’s algorithm, designed to prioritise content discovery, allows small businesses to increase their visibility considerably, using engaging video content. Here are the stats in a nutshell:
- Over one billion global monthly active users
- Predominantly a younger demographic
- High-quality user engagement
- Available across many countries
- Discovery-focused algorithm that boosts content visibility
Is TikTok the right platform for your business?
You might dismiss TikTok initially, because you know your kids use it, or you don’t think it’s serious enough for your business. And yet big brands are on TikTok and doing well – because they see that it’s a great way to generate awareness, to reflect the ‘real’ side of your brand and to attract customers that are unlikely to see you elsewhere. Like most social channels, TikTok is free to download, sign up to and use. So any additional costs will just be in your time – you don’t need specialist video equipment, because everything can be done on a decent smartphone.
When you first look for social media marketing assistance, you’ll find that initial questions will help you to determine whether TikTok is the right platform for your business. One of the key considerations is how well the platform aligns with your business goals and target audience.
You’ll also need to think about having the resources available to create consistent and authentic content. TikTok marketing demands a steady upload of imaginative videos, so you need to have a good content plan, and the ability to execute it. You’ll need to think about the following:
- Does TikTok’s user profile and content methods align with your business goals and target demographics?
- Can you produce short-form, engaging video content?
- Do you understand how you can capitalise on TikTok trends and challenges for brand visibility?
- Could you use TikTok’s advertising options to reach wider audiences?
- Can you do this yourself, or do you need to think about social media marketing assistance?
Have you got time for another social media channel?
TikTok is quick and easy to use – you can video live to the site or record a quick video to upload later. TikTok users don’t expect slick, corporate videos – they like real life, fun and a sense of humour.
Taking on a social media platform like TikTok requires a candid assessment of your existing social media workload. Identifying whether TikTok can add value to and complement your current social media strategies helps you to understand whether this is a good way to maximise your social media marketing. Assistance, whether in-house or outsourced, might help to improve your return on investment potential compared to other channels, as time spent on TikTok could yield greater rewards due to its engaging nature and extensive reach. A well-thought-out strategy, considering these factors, will help decide whether investing time in TikTok is worthwhile for your small business.
- Review current social media workload capacity and consider using social media marketing assistance
- Evaluate the prospective audience on TikTok
- Identify if, and how, TikTok can enhance your existing strategies
- Weigh potential ROI on TikTok against other channels.
If you’re thinking about outsourcing social media services, check with your provider that they are comfortable working with TikTok.
What benefits can TikTok bring?
TikTok places a significant emphasis on authentic engagement, encouraging real interactions and building brand loyalty through short, captivating video content. So if you can produce this type of content, you can take advantage of the way that TikTok offers innovative product and service promotion.
You should also consider cost-effective advertising solutions on TikTok, which are also ideal for small businesses looking to execute impactful marketing campaigns without a large financial outlay. Maintaining a regular presence on the platform with creative content significantly boosts brand visibility and recognition within the competitive digital landscape. These potential benefits make TikTok a promising addition to your business’s marketing strategy.
- Access to a diverse and expansive audience
- Encouragement of authentic engagement and connections
- Opportunities for creative marketing via trends and challenges
- Budget-friendly advertising solutions
- Enhanced brand visibility and digital recognition
TikTok gives your business the chance to show its human face. Business brands are often faceless and, increasingly, customers want to see more about the company, the people who work there and the things they care about. This helps to build a deeper relationship and is more likely to convert potential buyers to customers. You can measure your success too – giving you a much better idea on return on investment than you get from many traditional marketing channels. In terms of deciding the strategy for social media management for business success, TikTok represents a way to reach a new, engaged audience and raise your profile.
How to use TikTok for your business
Step 1: Create a TikTok business account
Begin by downloading the TikTok app from the App Store or Google Play Store. Just download the app, create an account and go to the ‘manage my account’ option. Then select ‘Switch to Pro Account’ and sign up for a business account to gain access to the platform’s analytics and advertising features.
Once your TikTok business account is set up, optimise your profile for maximum visibility and engagement. Begin by choosing a clear and recognisable profile picture, ideally your brand logo, to ensure consistency across platforms. Write a compelling bio that concisely communicates what your business is about, incorporating relevant keywords to enhance searchability. Don’t overlook the importance of including a trackable link to your website or a specific landing page, encouraging seamless visitor conversion. To establish credibility, regularly update your profile with the latest promotions or business developments.
Then you, or the social media marketing assistance support you use, can link your other social media profiles and your website to drive traffic across platforms. Once you’ve set up your account, here are the things that our virtual social media support team suggest you do next:
- Get used to how the platform works – take some time to look around, read the TikTok guides and become comfortable with how things work.
- Look at other brand videos – check out the things that other businesses are posting on TikTok. Do this with big brands and with smaller companies. This will give you a good idea of the types of thing you can post, and what is getting noticed. Think about how you can use these ideas to promote your own brand.
- Check out TikTok’s subcultures – there are a lot of different interest groups on TikTok. Have a look to see what’s happening in areas that might be related to your business, or to things that your staff are interested in. That way, you can target similar audiences.
- Investigate hashtags – like other platforms, hashtags help users find the type of content they want to see. Look at the hashtags that might be most useful to your business.
- Find your way around the business dashboard – as well as access to license-free music, and analytics on your videos, there’s also a lot of help and advice for business users. Find out as much as you can about the resources and tools you can use to create the best content.
Step 2: Create a TikTok strategy
Identify your target audience
You’ve already decided that TikTok’s audience is aligned to your business. So now, you need to determine the age, interests, and behaviours of your ideal TikTok audience to help you tailor your content. For this, you can use TikTok analytics to gather insights about who is engaging with your content most and develop personas to better visualise and understand your typical follower or customer. Regularly reassess and update your audience profiles as your follower base grows and evolves. If you use social media marketing assistance, your team can help you manage your analytics and results.
Once you have a clear understanding of your target audience, it’s crucial to focus on optimising your TikTok content for search engines. Start by incorporating relevant keywords into your captions, hashtags, and video descriptions to boost visibility. Research trending topics within your niche and tailor your content to ensure you’re tapping into what your audience is actively searching for. Additionally, engage with your followers by responding to comments and encouraging interactions, as this can increase your reach and improve your video rankings. Remember to keep your content authentic and engaging to encourage viewers to not only watch but also share, further amplifying your brand’s presence on the platform.
Plan your content calendar
Experienced social media marketing assistance can help you to set key dates, campaigns, or events where you can integrate TikTok content into your marketing plan. Think about using different content styles such as educational, entertaining, and promotional to keep your audience engaged. Be open to spontaneous content and trends but maintain overall strategic alignment with your business goals, and make sure you review and adjust your content calendar regularly based on performance analytics.
Define your TikTok visual style
Just like you think about the way your Instagram grid looks, for TikTok it’s important to choose a consistent colour palette, music style, and editing approach that aligns with your brand identity. It’s worth developing your own brand guidelines specific to TikTok to maintain a cohesive look and feel across all videos, and ensure that all team members involved in your content – including any external social media marketing assistance – are familiar with these guidelines and approaches.
Social media marketing assistance for TikTok success
Get a strategy and get started! Take the time to think about what you want to achieve with TikTok, how often you are able to post, how you are going to interact, and what sort of content you can produce. Then take a deep breath and post your first video! Remember that social media is about the long term – you’ll need to build an audience and ‘going viral’ is a rare event. And if you need to, enlist the support of a social media assistant who can help you upload and manage engagement so that you can use TikTok consistently and successfully.
If this guide has made you think that it’s time to check out what TikTok can do for you, and you think you might need some social media marketing assistance, why not call us on 0800 994 9016 or use our contact form in the menu above to find out more?