How to use TikTok for Business in 5 Easy Steps

Let’s face it. We live in a digital world. And with the pandemic, we found just how digital our lives can be. We were forced to learn how to connect virtually with our friends and family that we normally see face to face. We’ve all found new social media functions and virtual meeting platforms and made them central to our communication methods. With so many of us relying heavily on these social platforms, there is a great opportunity for businesses to mimic the trends of society so that they can meet customers where they’re at. With this being said, there is a new social platform that you probably have been wondering about. 

TikTok is a social platform where people share short videos with fun effects and filters. This has made TikTok the fastest growing social media platform with over 600 million active monthly users. With a captive audience that big you need to know how to use TikTok for business. This means TikTok is an amazing tool to bring awareness to your business, and that is why you need to create a TikTok marketing strategy.  

If you’re a digital marketer looking to penetrate the TikTok scene and take advantage of millions of prospective customers, here are 5 easy steps that you can implement to make your business grow on TikTok.  

1. Create a TikTok Page for Your Business.       

Start by opening an account and scrolling around for a bit. Be careful, you can spend many hours just scrolling through short videos. But who needs sleep? TikTok is all about creating and following trends and telling stories. You can get a good idea of the latest trends by watching the “For You Page.” This page is where thousands of businesses have taken off. For more statistics about TikTok check out this article. 

2. Define Your Style.

Once you have your account, you can start playing around with the different effects, filters, and styles for videos. The best performing videos grab the viewer’s attention fast — like less-than-a-second fast — and keep their attention. Most TikToks are 15 seconds, 60 seconds being the longest. If you produce a longer video, you need to make sure that it is worth the minute that the viewer will take to watch it. In order for the video to perform well, it needs to be entertaining and engaging the entire time. Fifteen seconds may seem short, but you can do a lot in that time. The key is that you strategically plan how to use TikTok for business.

3. Use Text to Complement the Video.  

By adding text to your videos, you are able to explain more of what the video is about. It is a great way to give context to what’s happening in the video. People read at a slower pace than they are able to watch, so you can use this as an advantage to get people to rewatch your video — especially if you have useful or funny content — which leads us to the next tip!

4. Create Useful Content. 

Your content needs to serve a purpose. It needs to evoke emotion from the viewer. When you are creating your videos, keep your end goal in mind. How do you want your viewer to react at the end of the video?  

The cool thing about TikTok is that literally anything can go viral and create a lot of conversation. Your videos don’t need to be perfectly edited and produced by a professional — in fact, the less you look like a professional, the better. If a video doesn’t perform well, that’s okay! You don’t need your first (or even your tenth) video to go viral. Just keep trying different things until you figure out what works best for your business. It’s important to remember that there is no set formula to make a video go viral.

5. Determine Your Target Audience.

Defining what audience you want to reach is key. Once you figure out who you want to target, you can tailor the content of your videos to appeal to your audience. As much as we want to reach and please everyone, we are not a jar of Nutella. Narrowing your audience down can seem like a bad move but it’s not — knowing what might offend your target audience and what they find funny is important. 

To learn more about creating and using target audiences, check this article out.

Now you can take what you’ve learned and make a TikTok marketing strategy.

If you enjoyed learning how to use TikTok for business and how to target specific audiences, you might enjoy being a digital marketer! Digital marketers spend a lot of time on social media and get paid to do it! 

At Grace College, digital marketing students learn how to strategically use social media as a powerful marketing tool and get hands-on experience with real companies before they graduate.

Learn more about Grace College’s Digital Marketing major.