A growing social media app such as TikTok has drawn more than its fair share of users. Being the most downloaded app in 2020 means it has officially reached global fame. It’s become the perfect place for marketers looking for a fresh platform to advertise on.
The Basics of TikTok
Initially, users were only able to upload videos up to 15 seconds in length. That has since extended to 30 seconds, with a potentially longer upload length coming soon.
TikTok originated in China and was released by the company Bytedance with a Chinese sister app called Douyin. Previously known as Musical.ly, the TikTok logo was created by fusing Douyin and Musical.ly’s logos. The app was heavily based on music due to its previous version. However, TikTok is designed to reach a broader range of users, leading it to what it is today.
Some of TikTok’s most popular features include Duet, Stitch, and React. These allow users to directly integrate other creators’ videos into their own. Duet is what it sounds like—a duet or karaoke-style musical video where two creators sing alongside one another. Stitch takes a video or portion of a video and integrates it with another creator’s content. React puts one creator’s video up while another creator records themselves reacting to it.
Marketing on TikTok
- Create an Account
This is possibly the easiest step in marketing on TikTok—simply creating the account. It’s generally painless, easy, and there’s an option to upgrade an account to TikTok Pro.
- Pick a Niche or Topic
Part of marketing involves creating a brand, particularly around a niche or topic. This gives creators a guideline to stick to while providing their potential audience with the types of videos they enjoy watching. Of course, it’s a guideline, and creators can (and should) experiment.
- Make the Content
The hard part of marketing on TikTok is making the content for an audience. There are many elements to consider: lighting, camera angle, video length, aesthetic/visual appearance, relevance, and recording quality. Every video on the platform has one or two specific things in common. These are attractive visuals and have good sound quality.
- The Audio and Music Should Be Relevant
Through TikTok’s transition from Musical.ly to its current form, it has retained its musical roots. Nearly every video uploaded to TikTok has either some kind of spoken audio (i.e., someone speaking, noises or sounds, etc.) or goes along with a song. Most importantly, the audio should be relevant to the content and the creator.
- Hashtags Can Do Wonders
Marketing is the most beneficial when the word is spread. Hashtags are a great way to do this on the platform. TikTok’s #ForYou, #FYP, and #ForYouPage tags have the most views. These will likely help videos reach the most users; however, it may not turn them into followers or customers. Hashtags that are too general get caught up in the millions of daily uploads. Choosing both general and relevant but specific hashtags, on the other hand, helps get videos to the right audience. Marketing as a whole is all about finding the right people to find what they didn’t know they were looking for, after all.
