How To Use TikTok To Promote Your Business—A Comprehensive Guide

Over recent years, TikTok has grown exponentially and now has over a billion active users and the highest number of app downloads since it was launched. These record-breaking numbers mean that more and more businesses are trying to figure out how to use TikTok to promote their brands and make money. While successful content creators and influencers are rewarded directly for their content through TikTok’s Creator Fund program, brands make money on TikTok by using it as a marketing tool to expand their reach and, consequently, increase their sales.From setting up a business account to promoting your posts, this article will introduce you to the world of TikTok marketing and show you how to use TikTok to promote your business.

Why Is TikTok an Excellent Marketing Tool for Businesses?

Source: Solen FeyissaAs a fast-paced and entirely video-based platform, TikTok allows you to build relationships with your audience easily. You can use videos to trigger reactions and drive conversations quicker than you would using images or text. Apart from that, TikTok is also beneficial to brands for the following reasons:

• TikTok’s huge, young audience is mostly composed of today’s main consumer groups (GenZers and millennials)—This allows brands to attract the attention of those who buy the most and build long-lasting relationships with the young
• Audiences on TikTok are more likely to engage with your content—Research shows that U.S. users spend about 68 minutes per day in the app, and most of that time is spent watching content posted by others. This means that many users will view your content and interact with it, boosting your reach and growing your brand as a result
• TikTok has a large pool of influencers—Businesses can easily find influencers within their niche and budget and work with them to increase brand exposure
• This platform can work for any industry—As long as your content fits the general TikTok guidelines (is light-hearted, entertaining, and engaging), users are highly likely to view and engage with your posts regardless of the niche you’re in

Get a TikTok Business Account

When you first join TikTok, your account is automatically set up as a personal account. You can switch to a business account for free and enjoy additional features:

• Commercial audio library with over 500,000 royalty-free tracks
• Paid ads manager with real-time performance tracking
• The Analytics tool to spot trends and monitor content performance in real-time
• Business Content Guide
• Video Showcase for exploring trending content posted by other brands

Regular users can switch to a business account in four quick steps:

1. Tap the three lines in the upper right corner of your screen on your profile page to open Settings and privacy
2. Click on Manage account
3. Tap Switch to Business Account
4. Pick a category that best describes your brand and hit Next

After setting up the account, you can later add details about your business, for example, your website and email address.

How To Exploit TikTok’s Potential: Tips for Promoting Your Business Using TikTok

For a business to succeed on TikTok, it takes more than uploading entertaining and engaging content. You require a multifaceted, in-depth strategy that explores everything from how the app works to how paid advertisements can be used to promote your business. You need to:

1. Get familiar with the platform
2. Optimize your TikTok profile
3. Create appealing content
4. Find an ideal time to post
5. Be mindful of video duration
6. Prompt your audience to interact with you
7. Collaborate with influencers and content creators
8. Pay to advertise your content

Get Familiar With the Platform

To create content that appeals to users, you should learn how to use TikTok’s numerous user-friendlytools and features. After you download the app, play around with the editing tools, filters, and effects to learn how to make a TikTok.You should also spend time on the For You page to find out what is trending within your niche and analyze what trending posts have in common. Similarly, you should scroll through the Discover page to identify the most viral hashtags, songs, videos, and effects that users are engaging with at that time. These pages will help you understand how TikTok’s algorithm works so you can create content that reaches large audiences and that has the potential to go viral.

Optimize Your TikTok Profile

Source: Aaron WeissYour TikTok profile is the equivalent of a physical storefront—it’s the digital face of your company on this platform, and users will use it to find out more about your business. To enhance their profiles, businesses can use the following tips, which cover the three most important elements of a TikTok profile:

1. Use a good profile photo—Your profile photo should be appealing and accurately represent your brand. Ideally, you should upload the same profile photo used on your other social media accounts to stay true to the brand identity and to make it clear that your TikTok account represents the same brand as your website, Instagram, Facebook, and any other platform
2. Keep your bio short and light-hearted—The app provides up to 80 characters to work with, meaning your bio should be short and precise. You can incorporate some creativity by using puns, wordplay, and other creative elements. You can also use emojis as they save on character count and add personality to your page
3. Pick your URL wisely—You can only add one URL to your profile, so make sure it aligns with your strategy. Based on your goals, the link you end up using can direct TikTok audiences to your landing page, e-commerce site, other social accounts, or a particular blog post

Create Appealing Content That Will Attract a Wider Audience

Source: Julian GentilezzaThere’s no secret recipe for making successful TikTok videos, but there are guidelines you can follow to create content that users will want to watch:

• Make sure your video is of high quality—The better the sound and video quality, the more enjoyable your content will be to watch. You don’t need pricey equipment. Get the basics right, and you’ll be good to go. Use good lighting and ensure objects are framed at the center of the screen. For better audio, you can record voiceovers or use the most popular sound effects and songs from TikTok’s Commercial Audio Library
• Use hashtags—Hashtags will help the TikTok algorithm understand what kind of topics you cover. The algorithm will then push your video to audiences who are interested in similar content. Your posts will also be easily discoverable when users search for the specific tags or phrases used in your captions
• Make your videos more accessible—Do this by using text in your content and adding captions to your videos. Text pulls focus, and your target audience will be more likely to watch the video to the end. Auto-generated captions make your video accessible to people with hearing loss and users in noisy environments or places where noise is forbidden
• Participate in trending challenges—Challenges are huge on TikTok, and you can start them or participate in the most popular ones. They’re an easy way to get in front of a massive audience, go viral, and receive a lot of user-generated content

Find an Ideal Time To Post

If you want your brand to become famous on this platform, you need to determine the ideal time for uploading. There’s no specific time that works for all brands and users, but you should aim to post when the user activity is consistently high. Analyzing your audience’s activity will also help you determine how much content you need to produce.For businesses, two main factors affect the optimal posting times:

1. Your target audience’s age—Teenagers may watch videos more during the day as they have more free time. Similarly, employed grownups may watch more videos in the evening since they have more free time during those hours
2. Location of your audience—If your audience is spread all over the world, you would need to mind the time zone differences. For each targeted region, post at the busiest times for that part of the world or country

You can establish your optimal posting schedule by checking the Analytics tool—the Followers tab in particular because it contains the following data that will help you understand your viewership better:

• Distribution of your followers by gender
• Top territories your followers come from
• Hours and days when your followers are most active on TikTok
• Content that your followers enjoy the most

Be Mindful of Video Duration

Source: Angela CompagnoneWhen TikTok was first launched, a huge part of its success came from insisting on the short video format that capped at 15 seconds. The maximum video duration was later increased to 60 seconds, and now you can post videos of up to three minutes.Still, brands are encouraged to predominantly use short videos to improve the average watch time. With the human concentration span at an all-time low, shorter videos generally do better since users watch them to completion. According to InVideo, here’s how video length relates to watch time: Video LengthAverage Watch Time15 seconds and below90%15–30 seconds60%–70%Above 30 seconds50%–60%TikTok’s algorithm favors videos with higher average watch time—better rates mean better odds to be featured on the For You page, increasing your chances of making it big on TikTok.For content that requires longer formats, such as how-to videos and educational posts, you can break the video up into a series of shorter clips followed by a strong call to action (CTA), such as “Like this video for part 2.” This way, you’ll improve engagement and reach, and you may experience a rise in your follower count as well. After creating a series, you can add the videos to a playlist to help your followers find related content faster on your profile.

Prompt Your Audience To Interact with You

Like other socials, TikTok provides a platform for users who not only create content but also interact with one another. When creating a post, you can nudge users to interact with your content in the following ways:

• Respond to comments—When you do this, users who don’t often interact with you are encouraged to comment since they can see that you read their opinions and questions. A user is also more likely to comment again after you respond to their comment the first time
• Use CTAs—A CTA is a direct way of asking users to interact with you. You can ask your audience to comment, like, or share your post for a small reward at the end. For example, you can ask viewers to comment for a shout out or follow for more tutorials
• Leverage TikTok’s collaborative features—Stitch and Duet are tools specifically designed to prompt interactions. Through Stitch, users can react to your video by cutting a part of it and adding the clip to their reaction post. In Duets, your video and the user’s reaction/response are played side by side, which is great for all kinds of TikTok challenges

When your audience uses Stitch or Duet to react to your content, the original video is credited automatically, which means more exposure for your brand.

Collaborate With Influencers and Content Creators

Source: Taan HuynInfluencer marketing is one of the most effective ways for promoting your business on TikTok. The platform has a large pool of influencers to choose from, depending on your budget. Options range from small-scale nano-influencers to world-famous creators like Addison Rae Easterling and Charli D’Amelio. The prices of collaborations with content creators usually depend on how big their following is:Influencer TypeNumber of FollowersPrice per PostNano-influencer 1–10,000 followers$5–$25Micro-influencer 10,000–50,000 followers$25–$125Mid-tier influencer 50,000–500,000 followers$125–$1,250Macro-influencer 500,000–1,000,000 followers$1,250–$2,500Mega-influencer 1,000,000+ followers$2,500+Finding the right influencers and content creators for your campaign on TikTok should be easy. You can check out your options by searching for specific keywords, hashtags, and trends within your industry on the Discover page or on TikTok's Creator Marketplace.

Pay To Advertise Your Content

If your efforts to draw traffic and engagement organically prove unsuccessful, you can use paid advertisements to expand your reach. While you can use regular paid ads, you can also promote your posted videos using the in-app feature for video promotion called Spark Ads.Currently, TikTok categorizes paid ads into standard ads and content ads. There are three types of standard ads, including:

1. Brand takeovers—Pop up as short full-screen clips (three to five seconds) or images when a user opens the app. They are a great tool to boost brand awareness and promote new products
2. Top-view ads—Appear as the first videos on the For You page and grab attention instantly. Make sure the video you use stands out and is engaging right from the start so the target audience watches it all the way through
3. In-feed ads—Show up in the FYP feed between other organic posts. They are the least intrusive ad type, great for increasing traffic, and they usually last for 15 seconds (even though the limit is 60 seconds)

You can also pay for the following content ads:

1. Branded hashtag challenges—Appear on the Discover banner. They’re used to invite target audiences to participate in your branded challenge by creating user-generated content and incorporating your brand’s hashtags that expand your reach or drive conversions
2. Branded effects—Show up in the Effects tab that users can explore when editing their videos. Branded effects can be stickers, 2D, 3D, or AR effects. You can promote these effects individually or integrate them into your branded hashtag campaigns that will inspire even more user engagement

Let Social Media Experts Help You Out

When it comes to promoting a business on TikTok, you need a solid strategy that covers every aspect of TikTok marketing—such a comprehensive approach takes a lot of time and other resources.Many companies today have in-house social media teams to oversee all social media activities for the brand. With overwhelming content calendars, an in-house team may find it difficult to create and implement successful TikTok campaigns. They may also encounter additional difficulties if they don’t have previous experience with this platform, which requires a specialized approach and more expertise than you may think at first.A solution to consider in such cases is hiring a professional social media agency. By using the services of an agency, your business will perform better for the following reasons:

• You will benefit from the knowledge and experience of experts who are specialized in TikTok marketing
• Agencies can create content more efficiently since they have entire teams dedicated to content production
• Established agencies have already helped different brands to grow their TikTok accounts
• You can count on paid ad specialists who will ensure your ad campaigns match your budget

Promote Your Business on TikTok With Kubbco

Kubbco is an official TikTok partner with years of experience developing and executing winning TikTok strategies for businesses in different industries. We have a team of professionals that includes writers, graphic designers, video editors, social media analysts, and content strategists—all committed to taking businesses to the next level on TikTok.When you reach out, tell us what you want to achieve on TikTok, and we’ll handle the rest. We can:

• Ideate an all-encompassing strategy for increasing your presence on this platform
• Produce high-quality TikToks and observe how audiences react to every post
• Get in touch with influencers for sponsored posts
• Drive growth via organic campaigns and paid advertising
• Monitor the performance of published content using advanced tools and make necessary adjustments to the campaign based on the insights

If you want to learn more about how we approach TikTok campaigns and receive free tips and guides on marketing for social media, subscribe to our newsletter.

We’ve Already Helped Numerous Brands Reach New Heights on TikTok

Building high-performing TikTok campaigns isn’t something new for us. We’ve worked with brands in different industries and achieved results that speak for themselves:

• Matas—In eight weeks, we were able to grow this brand’s account by 13,500 followers after posting 25 videos in the same time span
• OLAPLEX—This popular haircare brand gathered 5.1 million views across 28 videos. Two of those videos went viral, and the follower count increased by 22,000
• essence cosmetics—We worked with this client for two years and two months and grew their account by 386,000 followers. With 556 videos, we gained 73 million views and 7.1 million interactions and had 12 videos go viral

If you want similar or better results when promoting your brand on TikTok, contact our team of experts for more information.