TikTok has become the behemoth of social media apps that grew in popularity during the start of the pandemic. As of 2020, the app has boasted 2.6 billion downloads, over 100 million active users in North America, and over 1 billion active monthly users. TikTok operates as a dedicated space for content creators, small businesses, influencers, and large brands to express their individuality and drive brand awareness of their products. Your TikTok marketing strategies are more important now than ever.
Get Ready to Go Viral
The appeal of TikTok lies in the short-form videos that all have the chance to go viral. The discovery algorithm makes all content readily accessible and searchable based on generic keywords. Industries like beauty, fashion, home interior, and food are just a few of the top-performing categories on the app with some of the top-performing videos belonging to small businesses. If you’re ready to dive into the TikTok realm, these marketing strategies are an excellent way to get started!
What is TikTok Marketing?
TikTok marketing focuses on how you can use the social media app to promote a brand, product, or service. This includes tactics like advertising, influencer marketing, and organic content. Unlike the other apps that focus on showcasing your content to your network of followers/friends and vice versa, TikTok shows you content creators and businesses you do not know.
This gives your brand exposure to a new audience and to adapt your marketing strategy to match the audience consuming your content. Take the eco-friendly vegan candle brand, Natural Annie Essentials who went viral after following a popular trend to remix Harry Styles’ “Watermelon Sugar” and SEB’s “Seaside” and got over 29k likes. Her combination of using a popular trend to introduce herself to the TikTok audience led to unprecedented growth for her business.
Types of TikTok Marketing
Consider the type of TikTok marketing ideas to grow your brand and promote your products. Are you a candle business looking to showcase your new scent range? Perhaps you’re a skincare brand planning to tap into the #skincare hashtag currently amassing 65 billion views. TikTok marketing typical focuses on:
- Influencer Marketing: This builds on celebrity, influencer, and online personalities to help promote your products by leveraging their popularity to share your business with their dedicated followers.
- Creating Your Own TikTok Videos: Organic traffic never goes out of style. Creating your own content allows you to capitalize on popular challenges, showcase your products as part of a customer’s daily life, or participate in trendy voiceovers.
- TikTok Advertising: Similar to other social platforms, TikTok features an advertising platform that allows you to put paid spending behind dedicated content in order to increase visibility.
It doesn’t matter which TikTok marketing strategy you take. There are wonderful options and considerations to think about with each approach.
Creating a TikTok Marketing Strategy
The hallmark of any good strategy starts with a few key factors such as:
- Defining your audience
- Competitor analysis
- Sourcing hashtags
These factors don’t have to be redefined for TikTok, what you use for other social platforms still applies here.
Your audience doesn’t change on a new platform. It expands by factoring in the Gen-Z user who likes quick, casual, short video content with brands that are eco-friendly and socially conscious. If you’re a beauty brand, your hashtags will include trending hashtags from the TikTok discover page or by studying competitors.
Makeup and skincare brands like E.l.f. Cosmetics and CeraVe saw exponential growth by tapping into “Beauty TikTok” and showcasing playful and creative tutorial videos that began to draw attention from influencers.
Influencer Marketing
Influencers are more accessible than ever thanks to TikTok which has given a global platform to rising stars like Addison Rae and Charli D’Amelio. Finding the right influencer for your business improves visibility and draws organic or paid traffic to your products. If you’re looking to remove the guesswork from influencer marketing, connect with influencers by:
- Using the TikTok creator marketplace
- Finding the right influencer for your target audience
- Developing a PR package for reaching out
Beauty remains the most popular TikTok category. Beauty brands often work with influencers to feature their products in tutorial videos that teach people how to use them.
TikTok Ideas For Your Beauty Products
Honing your TikTok marketing skills is leveraged when you get creative and upsell your products to a wider audience. Today’s TikTok consumer wants to know the “why” and “how” of your product. This gives you the freedom to show your product portfolio from the type of bottles you choose to the ingredients used in your cosmetics or skincare.
The key to creating magnetic content is doing the research ahead of time. Understand the types of viral challenges, product shots, transformations, and beauty hacks creators are leveraging to entertain and educate their audience.
Here are a few ideas for creating TikTok content that your viewers will love:
- Partner with diverse influencers and content creators that reflect your brand values.
- Showcase your brand values by using sustainable packaging methods like glass to educate consumers about your company’s missions and goals.
- Tap into trends to join social conversations and engage in fun challenges.
- Use effects, filters, and music to tell a product story from ideation to packaging.
- Give a behind-the-scenes look at your everyday business life with a tour of your warehouse or office.
- Don’t be afraid to let loose and get playful – TikTok is not the social platform to take yourself too seriously.
TikTok Marketing In Review
TikTok is infectious and is a great way to promote your products and services in a clever, unique, and creative video form that resonates with a global audience. Unlike other social platforms, TikTok makes marketing products and connecting with customers accessible, easy, and fun. Engaging content makes TikTok the premier place to promote products in 2022.
Interested in learning more about other social media marketing strategies? Check out our blog on Facebook and Instagram marketing.
