Should my brand be using TikTok?

TikTok is the fastest growing social media network available to brands wanting to build their profile online. But which brands will benefit from TikTok the most? And how can you use TikTok to grow your conversions?

TikTok has, arguably, proven itself to be the fastest-growing social media network, and there’s no sign of the platform slowing down. TikTok is set to be the third-largest social media network in 2022, following huge growth from the two previous years. What started out as a way to avoid lockdown boredom for some people, has soon led to a new wave of influencers, along with new ways to raise brand awareness and growth.

As with any growing platform, this presents brands with new opportunities to reach audiences, and a new avenue to explore in developing their branding and advertising strategy.

How can brands do well on TikTok?

In five words - be relevant and post often.

It all starts with a strong organic presence. Start tapping into trends by hopping on the trend wagon and posting daily so you can entertain users and get them engaged. This platform is unlike any other social media platform, and with that, it makes it such a unique experience to users and gives brands a real opportunity to grow themselves.

TikTok is the only platform that is currently built for sound on, and that’s one of the most important parts to it – not only can you rely on the visual element, but sound also has to be of high importance within your content.

How to grow your brand on TikTok

Work with the micro-influencers that have now arisen from this platform. It’s a great way to take advantage of this unique selling point that no other platform really offers in the same way. By using the TikTok Creator Marketplace, you can search for the influencer that is right for your brand. The influencer can then create content from their account, which will tag your brand. This will increase brand awareness and overall engagement as users are resonating with a “familiar” face, and feeling a sense of trust as they’re watching someone they like and relate to promote a product.

When should you use paid TikTok ads?

Once your organic performance is growing strong, it’s recommended to bring in the paid element and start looking into boosting organic posts to reach more users at a cost. You can choose from multiple objectives but you should start with soft KPIs first to increase growth – like engagements and followers. Boosting organic posts showcases native content to users within their feed, which is most likely to resonate with them and so engagements will increase from this.

It's also a good time to benefit from repurposing this content, and testing how it will work across platforms such as IG Stories and IG Reels. 87% of Gen Z TikTok users agree that Instagram’s Reels are the same as TikTok, already opening up a whole other platform to double up your content on. In fact, evidence suggests that Meta are rewarding users who post reels, as they want to promote this content front and centre on the app. Other brands are tapping into this trend, as it’s ready-made content that showcases to Instagram users that your brand is also on TikTok – as they may not know this.

After you’ve monitored the performance of these soft KPIs and are confident with how to manage your brand’s paid TikTok activity, now is the time to ensure you have the developer pixel in place on-site, so that you can report on harder KPIs, like landing page views and conversions. TikTok recommends you have the pixel set up and then wait until there are at least 1,000 events pulling through following from your engagement based activity. Once you’re at this point, then you can start concentrating on running traffic and conversion-based campaigns – especially if you’re an e-commerce brand. This is when you can start easily assessing how TikTok performs as a revenue-driving channel for your brand.

If you have a feed, then TikTok now also allows you to upload a manual feed so that brands can utilise shopping ads – which is a new feature within the platform. This puts your products directly in front of your audience and allows for a more streamlined user journey in terms of the path to purchase.

Who should you target on TikTok?

When deciding on who to target on TikTok, it depends on what stage of the funnel you’re at. If you’re looking at more upper-funnel activity then you should go more broad-based in your targeting, and then get more tailored to fit your niche through the different objectives as you move down the funnel. TikTok is like other platforms whereby brands can use 1^st party data, website retargeting (if the pixel is in place), and bespoke targeting options to make sure you can show your ads to an audience that fits your brand’s demographic to a tee. The most recent addition to this mix is the use of hashtag targeting – similar to the likes of Twitter, which helps you target broad interest groups that might otherwise fall outside of your demographic targeting.

As TikTok is an ever-evolving platform, brands should trial different targeting options to see what works best for them. Test and learn is the best approach to get the greatest marketing strategy in place, as we’re yet to see any one-size-fits all approaches to the platform!

What’s next for brands on TikTok?

Once you’re happy with how your TikTok activity is going, press the replay button! TikTok isn’t going anywhere and for brands to succeed on this platform, they need to be proactive and keep a growth mindset as the platform evolves. Keep on top of trends, keep posting your content, and keep working with micro-influencers to reach new users. To ensure your brand stays embedded in TikTok, keep trying new things to get people talking about your brand, grow the excitement and entertain users.

As mentioned, you can re-use content on the likes of IG Stories and IG Reels – both organically and paid – but you could also showcase your most viral TikToks on the likes of Twitter, growing a conversation there.

Where do I start?

So, now we know why embracing TikTok as a brand is important, and how to grow on the platform, let’s cover the basics – how you can even get started!

1. Firstly, get on TikTok. Learn about what other brands are doing and see what’s trending in your space.
2. Keep an eye on competitors – and if you can’t see competitors on there yet then leverage this and take advantage of being the first to grow your product here.
3. Next, start TikTok’ing. It’s all about trial and error, see what users engage most with from what you post.
4. Take learnings from this and then start boosting your better TikToks through paid in order to grow your presence. Tailor targeting and learn what works along the way.
5. Now’s the time you start your e-commerce journey – get everything set up in place in terms of the pixel and watch the events come in. When you’re at the right place, start your full-funnel activity and see where this takes you.
6. Grow relationships with micro-influencers along the way, as they’ll help promote your brand whilst creating strong content for you to utilise not only on TikTok but on other platforms too.

Lastly, and more importantly, have fun! Make the most out of this exciting platform and its unique selling points.

Want to find out how launching your brand on TikTok will improve your revenue and reach new users? Get in touch to speak to one of our experts!