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Real People, Real Results: Why authenticity trumps AI on TikTok, Instagram, and beyond
If you think TikTok is nothing more than a place for teenagers to gather and share cute dance videos, you should think again. In the last two years, TikTok has become one of the top social media platforms for building brand awareness, attracting new customers, and selling products. In fact, 67% of TikTok users say the platform’s content drives them to shop even when they did not plan to shop.
While using TikTok for business can help boost sales and brand visibility, you will only get these results if you use the platform correctly. Keep reading to discover the best tips for how to use TikTok for brands.
Yes, TikTok is excellent for brands, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Brands that use Facebook for advertising do so because the platform has over a billion users. The large number of users spread across the globe gives businesses the opportunity to reach more people with their ads and generate more leads.
TikTok began offering the same benefit in 2021 when it became the first non-Facebook app to reach three billion downloads. Since the number of TikTok users keeps growing, brands can look forward to using the platform to reach even more people across 150 countries, including the U.S.
Also, TikTok is currently the most engaging social media platform, outperforming top players like Pinterest, Instagram, and YouTube. The platform’s high level of engagement means promotional TikTok content has a higher chance of converting viewers into leads and potential customers.
The large number of TikTokers is not the only reason businesses now gravitate towards using TikTok for marketing. In 2020, the platform launched TikTok for Business, which offers various advertising solutions that simplify marketing on TikTok.
Some of the biggest offerings that make TikTok for Business the perfect marketing solution for brands include:
If you need more convincing before trying advertising on TikTok, here are some advantages of using TikTok for brands:
TikTok has a highly sophisticated algorithm that ensures users receive a consistent stream of content that matches their preferences. The same algorithm enables brands to reach audiences most likely to engage with their content and convert. Since the algorithm is constantly learning, marketers can achieve super precise audience targeting over time, leading to amplified audience engagement and conversion rates.
TikTok has over a billion active users worldwide. 47.4% of these users are under 30, and the platform has more female than male users. If your target audience falls within this demographic, TikTok is the perfect platform for promoting your brand and products. Even if your target audience isn’t mostly 20 to 29-year-old females, TikTok is still a fertile ground for reaching millions of other prospects within and outside the U.S.
According to Optinmonster, 72% of customers prefer learning about a product or service via video, and 84% of shoppers claim they bought a product because they watched a video. These stats prove that most consumers prefer visual content. Since TikTok primarily offers video content, using the platform for marketing can help you create a highly visual brand that customers want to engage with and patronize.
Using TikTok for marketing offers a relatively level playing field because all it takes is a single video to become an overnight viral sensation. Going viral on other platforms, like Facebook and YouTube, is much more difficult, especially if you have only a handful of followers or subscribers.
Most TikTok users want entertaining content that is quirky, funny, or captivating for some other reason. You can create such content and slide in your brand or product promotion, leading to a winning video that pleases viewers and generates brand visibility. TikTok simplifies making such videos with the help of AR effects, hashtag challenges, and audio overlays.
The more creative your video is, the more it will stand out from the crowd and increase your chances of going viral. It’s the perfect arena for innovative and fast-thinking brands that know how to get the attention of their target audience.
TikTok does not limit brands to promoting products. The platform has partnered with Shopify to allow in-app shopping. Thanks to this option, customers can buy advertised products directly on TikTok, eliminating the risk of shoppers procrastinating or losing interest in a purchase if they have to leave the app to shop.
TikTok also offers a retail process with an infinite loop, meaning customers can post reviews about purchased products. Review videos can generate more awareness for the product, leading to more sales. In 2021, TikTok was the highest-grossing social media app, and in-app purchases accounted for over 50% of total revenue.
Most brands have discovered the marketing power of TikTok, but not every brand has mastered using the platform to their advantage. Below are some brands that have boosted their popularity, customer base, and sales with the help of viral videos, hashtags, challenges, and other TikTok tactics:
Elf is the brand that first gave businesses a taste of what they could accomplish with TikTok. In 2019, the cosmetics company launched the branded Eyes Lips Face (ELF) song and a matching dance challenge. The challenge went viral, garnering billions of views and leading to more users performing the challenge. Since each challenge video used the #eyeslipsface hashtag, it boosted Elf’s brand awareness and attracted new customers.
The NBA is already famous, but the organization took its fame to new heights by posting TikTok videos that showed never before seen aspects of the basketball world. Unlike other NBA social media channels, the NBA TikTok page showcases the lighter side of the game by showing players dancing, working out to music, hanging out with fans, or just goofing around.
The lightheartedness of NBA’s TikTok helps the brand connect with more fans, including those who aren’t necessarily hardcore basketball lovers.
Dunkin' partnered with TikTok influencer, Charli D'Amelio, to win over the millions of fans she already had on the platform. The collaboration led to Charli D'Amelio-inspired menu items and more customers for Dunkin’. In fact, Dunkin’ witnessed a 20% increase in cold brew coffee sales and a 57% spike in app downloads after the collaboration.
People crave tutorial videos, and Fenty Beauty takes advantage of this fact with makeup tutorials on TikTok. The brand’s tutorial videos have millions of views and contain recommendations and feedback that inspire beauty lovers to buy the products used in the tutorials. Fenty Beauty also increases its reach by partnering with TikTok creators that can connect them with even more potential customers.
35% of TikTok users discover new products to buy through creators, and 65% love it when creators post about products and brands. If you have trouble coming up with fresh content ideas for TikTok, you can let professional TikTok creators handle it for you. These creators typically have thousands or millions of TikTok followers, and partnering with them will give you access to those followers.
The top TikTok creators have mastered creating content and tailoring them to achieve maximum viewership. You can use their expertise to your advantage to get the best returns on investment from your TikTok marketing.
The TikTok Creator Marketplace offers a large pool of talented creators to choose from, and you can pick one or several that fit your marketing goals and brand voice. Follow these steps to pick the best creator for your TikTok marketing campaign:
Once you find a creator with a look, style, and voice that will resonate with your target audience, contact them and share your brief to see if they are open to working with you. If the creator accepts your brief, you can begin working with them to create a content strategy that will get you your desired results. Alternatively, save time and avoid stress by using Cohley to find the perfect content creators and take care of content creation and management.
Using TikTok for brands isn’t as complicated as rocket science, but it does require knowing the right steps and following them. Otherwise, you could spend thousands of dollars creating TikTok videos that do not engage your target audience or generate traffic. Here are some proven tips for using TikTok to promote your brand and get people excited about your products.
Building a brand with TikTok requires posting content frequently – one to four times a day. Your content has to stand out from the crowd by being creative, funny, or insightful. Otherwise, viewers may feel you have nothing special to offer and ignore your posts.
Also, learn how to use hashtags and take advantage of trends. Posting timely content requires jumping on relevant trends during peak popularity. If you join a challenge during the tail end of its popularity, viewers will likely not care because they’ve moved on to the next hot thing.
Posting content that cashes in on trends will increase the likelihood of the TikTok algorithm recommending your posts to more people. The algorithm will do so because it knows viewers want more of such content. The same thing will happen if you use the right hashtags.
93% of the best performing TikTok videos use audio, and 88% of users say music is critical to the TikTok experience. Since TikTok simplifies adding music to your videos to make them more appealing and engaging, you have no reason to skip spicing up your videos with trending songs.
Another way you can spice up your videos and make them more engaging is by adding effects. You can use one of TikTok’s many effects or create your own effects, such as face filters and lenses. Besides making your videos stand out from the crowd, creating and using your own effects will allow you to incorporate your brand identity into your videos.
Even better, if viewers like your effects and start using them, it will spread your branding to other users across the platform. You also have the option to take your brand promotion further by partnering with TikTok to create 2D and 3D branded lenses. While making these lenses can be expensive, it can lead to impressive brand exposure because the lens will appear in the Trending tab on TikTok for ten days.
The TikTok Duet feature allows you to create a split-screen video with yourself on one side and the video of another user on the other side. On the other hand, the Stitch feature allows you to add up to five seconds of content from another user’s video to your video. Both features are excellent for sharing user-generated content like customer reviews, reactions, or unboxing videos.
Such videos can help you increase brand awareness and boost consumer confidence in your products. Also, since online reviews influence the buying decisions of 93% of consumers, such videos can boost your traffic, customer acquisition, and sales.
Alternatively, use the Duet and Stitch edit tools to boost brand visibility and audience engagement in a fun way. For instance, you could participate in challenges or create your own challenges that involve the Duet or Stitch feature. The challenge does not have to promote your product, but your brand name or logo should feature prominently in the challenge.
Posting fun TikTok videos is excellent for organically increasing brand visibility, traffic, and sales. However, not every content will go viral. If you want a surefire way to get thousands of views quickly, we recommend pushing your content with TikTok ads.
Several TikTok ad options are available for different budgets and marketing goals. For instance, Brand Takeover ads cost more but are effective for generating millions of impressions that could become traffic and sales. Spark ads can boost organic content already posted by your account.
If you have a smaller budget, you can opt for In-Feed ads. They are more budget-friendly, but viewers can skip the ad. Since TikTok charges per impression, you will still have to pay for skipped ads. Fortunately, you can avoid wasted ad spending by making your In-Feed ads as engaging as possible and targeting ads at people who are most likely to convert.
Collaborating with TikTok creators can help you reach more viewers and boost your view-through rates by 193%. The top creators have thousands of followers and experience creating content that gets attention and views.
Besides providing top-tier content, these creators can serve as influencers that promote your brand and make you more appealing to your target audience. Working with creators also lessens your workload because they will handle content creation on your behalf. Lastly, letting creators handle your content creation can be highly beneficial if your TikTok marketing involves posting several times a day.
You can find hundreds of thousands of creators to work with via the TikTok Creator Marketplace. However, sorting through an army of creators to find the best one for your marketing goals can be tedious and time-consuming. Make your life much easier by using creator management software like Cohley.
Cohley gives you access to thousands of pre-vetted creators, meaning you can only choose from top-tier creators. Your Cohley Customer Success Manager will help you develop a creative brief, which you can use to filter creators and pick the ones that match your audience and preferred content style. The content provided by Cohley creators will be 100% yours, meaning you can use them for not just TikTok marketing.
Now that you know about using TikTok for brands, why are you waiting? Get in touch with the Cohley team today to learn more about how we can help you connect with first-class creators that provide viral content for supercharging brand visibility, traffic, and sales.