4 Tips to Keep in Mind with Social Media App TikTok and Is It Right for Your Business

How many more new social media apps will be launched this year? The answer is probably a lot, but one of the trendiest and most downloaded apps as of now has definitely been TikTok. Combination of Instagram stories, Snapchat, Vine, and Music.ly is taking the world by storm and if you haven’t joined the app yet, you are missing out big time! With over 800 million(!) monthly active users, it attracted not just millennials and generation Z, which was the primary audience at the start, but users of all ages and celebrities. It’s fun, it’s authentic, and anyone’s video can blow up over the night. So what is it all about?

I’m sure you’ve already seen some videos online where people either do the dance challenge with the Weeknd’s music playing in the background, or the lip-sync videos. Anyway, TikTok is about recording short fun videos where you can add filters, music, text, or many other effects and it plays on the repetitive loop. The app launched almost 4 years ago and went through a lot of changes since then, but this year it has grown exponentially and in January 2020 it even became the most downloadable app in the world! Corona times and people staying at home was also a huge contributor to its success, and it only boosted its popularity.

Now, even though the app is crazy popular and has a huge amount of active users, it’s definitely not for every type of the business and you need to consider who your target audience is! However, TikTok is great for creating brand awareness, cross-promoting your IG or website, and there is a very high chance of going viral. Let’s talk about some key things to keep in mind when using this social platform.

Perks of Joining Now

TikTok is still a relatively new app and that’s when you can make the most out of it. It’s not as saturated as Facebook or Instagram, so less people are competing over sponsorships or ads, and the algorithm isn’t changing every day like on other social media apps. Compared to Instagram or Pinterest, you have more power over creating content that you put out there with given TikTok tools and features. Also, it doesn’t matter how many followers you have, your videos can go viral anyway. TikTok algorithm counts the interactions on each video instead of the profile itself. After publishing it, it will be posted into ‘For you’ videos and if it has a good initial engagement, it will be exposed to more and more people. So you never know, might become a TikTok star overnight.

Content is a King

Visuals don’t matter here much because TikTok is about creating content that is fun and casual. It has a laid back vibe but you can still be true to your brand and share valuable content through recording lip-sync video, DYI, compilation video, and much more. The options are countless and if you are lacking ideas, just go through ‘Discovery Page’ and you’ll see what’s trending. Be creative, but what works usually the best is using existing filters and challenges, just adjusting them to your brand and the message you want to get across.

Authenticity is the Key Here

TikTok is built on authenticity. You as a brand have the opportunity to show who you really are and share the more fun and creative sides of your business. Create content that you as a brand would put out while aligning with your specific goals. Get out there and let people love you and your brand through the videos. People love behind the scenes videos and seeing faces behind your business.

Usage for Advertisements

There are 4 main types of ad opportunities that can help you expose your brand’s content to more people. In-feed native ads (like Snapchat or IG Story Ads) are a clear call to action ads that you can design with the button ‘download now’ or ‘shop now’ to direct you to another page. They are marked as sponsored on your TikTok ‘For You’ page but you can also skip them.

Brand Takeovers allows you to take over the app for a day and create images, videos, GIFs, etc. with the ability to embed links to landing pages or hashtag challenges within the app. It’s considered one of the most effective forms of TikTok ads. 

Hashtag Challenges are great for collaborating with other brands and giving your videos more exposure through the ‘Discovery page’. You would create content around your hashtag challenge with initial videos to show what it’s about and other people can recreate it in their own way, using the same hashtag. This will give your hashtag challenge boost and the more people do it, the bigger reach it will have. 

The last one is Top View which is up to 60-seconds full-screen video with captivating visuals and sounds. These are the first in-feed posts and they can be linked to an external page.

Conclusion

The sky-rocketing success of social media platform TikTok is hard to overlook and since it’s still considered pretty new, besides the fact it has around 800 million monthly active users, it’s the best time to jump on this train and follow the hottest trend. Considering most of the users are under 30, you should first think about your target audience and whether it’s the right place to be. However, TikTok has definitely been attracting more and more people of all ages since 2020 started and therefore it’s good to consider how you can take advantage of this platform and use it to expose your brand to more people. 

Some key things that describe this platform the best are being authentic, creative, real, and fun. Through recording these short videos, you are showing a different side of your business and people behind the brand. No matter how many followers you have in there, your content goes viral at any time. Although, if you want to help it, TikTok has a few different ways of advertising which can help you with exposure, too! Write some pluses and minuses and consider joining. It’s time to do some cross-promotion while having fun!

Do you use TikTok? If so, what’s your favorite part about it? Let me know in the comments below.