The Ultimate Guide to TikTok Marketing: Kick-Start Your Campaign With Ease

TikTok is a social media platform growing at a head-spinning pace—it has 1 billion monthly active users and was the most downloaded non-game app in the first six months of 2021, mounting to 83 million installs during the first half of 2021 alone. It has been predicted it will reach 750 million monthly users in 2022. TikTok started in 2016 as a platform for sharing lip-synching and dancing videos, but it has also become a fully-fledged marketing tool used by businesses—more and more businesses, including startups and renowned companies, are turning to TikTok marketing.In September 2021, the car of a TikToker Nathan Apodaca broke down on his way to work. He decided to chill, hop on his skateboard instead, and make a TikTok video while taking sips of Ocean Spray cran-raspberry juice straight from the bottle and singing the lyrics of Fleetwood Mac’s signature tune Dreams. It brought both Nathan and Ocean Spray millions of views.While such stories are mind-blowing, they’re also too random, and you can’t wait for them to happen if you want your brand to reach new heights on TikTok. Fruitful TikTok campaigns require strategy, and even though there is no one-size-fits-all approach, you can set yourself up for success by using several tried-and-true marketing tricks.

Is TikTok a Good Marketing Tool?

Source: GeraltFor sure! One of the brands that prove this is Chipotle, gaining more than 1.3 million followers and 20.7 million likes thanks to their #GuacDance TikTok challenge in 2019 just by inviting guacamole fans to show off dance moves and mark National Guacamole Day.New and established brands alike can't get enough of TikTok, as using such a popular platform does wonders for the overall public perception of your brand. The modern customer finds it appealing when a brand is forward-thinking and up-to-date with the latest digital trends. This can improve the perception of your brand, especially among Gen Z and Millennials, since they appreciate authenticity and are well-aware of the cheap marketing tricks of traditional marketing methods.

How To Use TikTok for Marketing—Tactics To Adopt

Source: Annie SprattNathan Apodaca’s zen show-off might have brought more followers to Ocean Spray, but no business will wait for something like that to happen.TikTok is designed to promote interaction and a sense of community, and brands successful on this platform know how to use that—for instance, via popular TikTok challenges that encourage user-generated content, which can connect you to your target audience in a flash. Still, before you start with some serious content production for TikTok, you need to think carefully about your target audience’s interests and the purpose of your content. When you define those and spend some time researching what works on TikTok for brands in your industry, you will have a solid base to build on. That’s when you can shift your focus towards creating great content that will make the right kind of buzz about your brand or even go viral. Here’s what to focus on:

• Posting creative content
• Using good hashtags
• Reviewing your TikTok Analytics page on a regular basis
• Posting at the right time
• Trying out influencer marketing
• Being up-to-date on TikTok marketing trends

Making Creative TikTok Marketing Content

Since the number of TikTok users and creators keeps rising every minute, it’s clear that posting content that will get noticed on TikTok is a never-ending challenge. Even first-class social media strategists can face a creative roadblock.Then, how do you create viral posts that turn into real revenue in the end? By taking on different approaches when needed. Here are the examples of content you could switch between:

• Making tutorials—How-to videos, up to three minutes long, are among the most popular types of content on TikTok. Some brands focus on such videos more than others, and one such example is Fenty Beauty with its makeup tutorials. This way, you can emphasize your brand’s value and your products and connect to your audience in an authentic way. Take a look at reviews and frequently asked questions related to your business on Google, and come up with a “how-to” topic accordingly
• Telling stories—TikTok’s audience is eager to see some heartfelt content. You can use the #StoryTime hashtag (which has 65 billion views) to increase your visibility
• Sharing your opinions—You don’t want to dehumanize your brand; if there’s room for it, feature your products while sharing personal opinions on some of the trending topics

Step Up Your Hashtag Game

Source: YivraHashtags are essential to making your content visible and getting on the For You page on TikTok. They’re primarily used to help the audience interested in particular topics easily find the posts they want. Here are some of the general rules for smart hashtag use:

• Don’t try too hard to be creative and unusual—Remember that unique hashtags may not have enough visibility and therefore won’t serve the intended purpose
• Less is more, so never use too many hashtags—The recommended quantity of hashtags per post is 4 or 5 because the TikTok algorithm will not understand what your content is about if you use too many of them
• Avoid using terms that are too general—That way, your content might get buried in unrelated posts
• Do not place hashtags where they don’t make sense—You want the viewers to click on your post and see the kind of content they expect
• Use hashtags for your own research of what your competitors’ strategies look like—Checking out what videos use the same hashtags will help you identify those you didn’t know about, and it also might serve as a source of inspiration for your future content
• Think of starting a hashtag challenge—Dare viewers to copy you by posting their take on your content and including your branded hashtag

Use a Business Account and See How You Perform

If you’re promoting your brand on TikTok, you are encouraged to get a TikTok Business Account. While regular users now can track the performance of their content via the Creator tools option, TikTok for Business accounts come with additional tools that are tailor-made for the needs of professional marketers promoting brands in different industries.

Source: TikTokTo switch to a Business account from a regular account, follow these steps:

1. Open your profile page by tapping Profile in the bottom right corner of your home page
2. Tap the hamburger menu in the top right corner to access the Settings and privacy options
3. Select Manage Account
4. Hit Switch to Business Account
5. Choose the category that best describes your brand—Beauty, Electronics, Food & Beverage, Media & Entertainment, or other
6. Tap on Next

When you change your account classification, you can access the Analytics page from Creator tools or Business suite in the Settings and privacy section.

Post at the Right Time

Source: Lukas BlazekMarketers that lack TikTok experience might think that the more you post, the better the results you’ll get. That’s not always the case in reality, especially because such reasoning leads to posting at random times.Based on Influencer Marketing Hub's 2021 analysis, these are the best times to post on TikTok for the Eastern Standard Time in the U.S.:Best Times To Post on TikTok (EST)Monday6:00 a.m.10:00 a.m.10:00 p.m.Tuesday2:00 a.m.4:00 a.m.9:00 a.m.Wednesday7:00 a.m.8:00 a.m.11:00 p.m.Thursday9:00 a.m.12:00 a.m.7:00 p.m.Friday5:00 a.m.1:00 p.m.3:00 p.m.Saturday11:00 a.m.7:00 p.m.8:00 p.m.Sunday7:00 a.m.8:00 a.m.4:00 p.m.The best posting times and an optimal posting frequency depend on a variety of factors, such as your followers' demographics and the locations they come from. These factors have a direct impact on all sorts of figures related to your profile performance. By accessing TikTok Analytics, you’ll have a basic understanding of what works for your strategy and what you might be doing wrong, but coming up with proper corrections to your approach is not that simple. Consider hiring professional help for this purpose if you need to figure out how to use those insights to fill in your TikTok strategy gaps.

Try Influencer Marketing

According to recent data, almost 86% of businesses collaborate with influencers to expand their brand awareness. TikTok influencers are creators with a large number of followers who choose the right posting tactics and eventually end up on the TikTok Creator Fund. The most popular creators on TikTok are Charli D’Amelio, a TikToker whose dance videos got her 134.4 million followers, and Addison Rae Easterling, who started with lip-synching videos in 2019, gained 86.3 million followers, and carved out a booming career in acting and singing. Influencer marketing is one of the most popular tactics to promote a brand since it’s highly likely to attract the right audience quickly. Businesses sometimes find it particularly difficult to draw the attention of TikTok’s primary audience—Gen Z—since they dislike the traditional marketing methods. Working with an influencer instead will make your message reach younger demographics easier. Choosing the right influencer who can grow your brand awareness and ensure high engagement is vital. You have to make sure that their social media presence is aligned with your values and business objectives and that their following and your target audience overlap significantly. For example, if you work in the cosmetics industry, it won’t make sense to partner with an influencer posting educational videos about real estate.

Participate in TikTok Marketing Trends

TikTok’s expansion during the previous years has been sensational. Even brands who are more into traditional marketing channels can’t resist the hype as TikTok proved to be a fertile ground for business promotion. Here are the marketing trends to follow to maximize your profile’s potential:

• Use the TikTok Q&A feature—This approach can inspire you whenever you lack new content ideas. You can just ask your followers what they would like to learn about your brand; but first, make sure to turn on this feature in Settings and privacy > Creator tools > Q&A
• Post teasers about a new product or campaign—Provide a sneak peek into your new project but leave a cliffhanger for the audience to generate more buzz
• Educate the audience on your products—This approach works for any industry. For instance, you can help the viewership learn more about your products they didn’t have a chance to use—as Starface does—or take the example of Tamika E, who posts educational videos on real estate, buying terms, and much more
• Use memes—Memes have become a digital marketing staple as they have mind-blowing viral capabilities. Numerous brands on TikTok use memes to connect to their audience in an effective and humorous way
• Make Duets— TikTok’s Duet feature enables you to re-invent the already existing content of another user by recording your video alongside theirs. Profiles with less recognition tend to use this feature to comment on viral videos since this approach is likely to get them more views

Maximize Your Exposure on TikTok With the Help of a Social Media Agency

Each social media platform used for marketing requires a different approach. After some research, you might get a decent understanding of what is essential for a TikTok marketing campaign, but applying what you’ve read isn’t as simple as it seems. Many brands fail to understand that social media strategy requires extensive research, expertise, experience, and planning. This is why relying on small in-house teams solely doesn’t provide expected results. To develop a successful content or advertising strategy on TikTok, you need a team with a diverse skill set. A top-tier social media strategy requires analysts, content creators, social media strategists, creative directors, video directors, designers, and more. Campaigns that ran smoothly on other social media channels in the past aren't likely to turn out as equally good on TikTok. What you need is a team of tech-savvy experts, well-informed about TikTok marketing trends, with a thorough understanding of your brand and business objectives and the ability to think outside the box.

Kubbco Experts Can Piece Your TikTok Marketing Puzzle Together

Kubbco is an agency that provides a wide range of social media marketing services. The versatility of our team members’ experience and in-depth knowledge of the socials and their algorithms is what leads our decisions on what strategy will work for the business needs of our clients. Being up-to-date with marketing trends at all times, we’re able to differentiate between a short-lived trend and a novelty that is here to stay and use them both to improve the TikTok presence of our clients. We create social media strategies that count on and incorporate different trend changes because we monitor all relevant metrics and perform adjustments whenever the campaign requires it.

What To Expect When Working With Kubbco

We’ll customize your TikTok strategy based on who your primary audience is, what your brand values demand, and what your long-term goals are. We approach each client from a different perspective, but here’s what we strive for each time:

1. Designing a unique social media strategy tailored to your business and elevating it to the next level by analyzing your brand, your market, and your competitors
2. Managing your social media accounts and growing your brand awareness—we’ll direct your resources the right way by monitoring your profile metrics to determine what strategy is productive
3. Creating content that will engage your audience—our multi-skilled team produces everything that can be featured on social, from photos and videos to written content, podcasts, and microsites
4. Building social media campaigns by means of paid advertisement to capture the attention of your potential customers

NATURLI’ Foods, OLAPLEX, and essence cosmetics Witnessed Their Follower Counts Surge to a Record High

NATURLI’ is a plant-based, dairy-free food brand based in Denmark. Their goal is to revive the balance between nature and man by replacing meat and dairy products with tasty alternatives. They teamed up with Kubbco to refine their presence on TikTok, and here are the results we achieved together in 23 weeks by using both organic and paid approaches:Total Views6.2 millionInteractions179,000Followers Gained 5,200Out of 120 videos that were uploaded over the course of 23 weeks, 20 went viral and gained over 100,000 views each.

Source: TikTokIn just five weeks, we brought OLAPLEX 5.1 million views, 224,000 interactions, and over 22,000 new followers. Out of 28 videos, two got viral, and six gained over 100,000 views.The essence cosmetics case perfectly exemplifies our long-term results on a larger sample of videos. Out of 556 videos we created throughout the campaign that lasted two years and two months, 12 gained over 1 million views, and 144 amassed over 100,000 views.If you would like your brand to succeed on this (or any other) social media platform and grow your TikTok presence with trending content, reach out to our team of experts. Apart from helping our clients get TikTok famous, we gladly share actionable tips, useful advice, and the latest social media news. Sign up for our newsletter and start receiving practical suggestions on how to improve your TikTok presence.

Featured image: Alexander Shatov