2020 was the year that TikTok took over the way we use social media. Like it or not, new social media platforms capture the tone of culture, and offer new, more unique ways to interact with friends, family and the wider global community.

With more than 1.5 billion downloads and more than 500 million active monthly users, TikTok is definitely a big contender in the social media…  game. To ensure that your business is equipped to make the most of…  TikTok Business capabilities, keep reading…

What is TikTok?

TikTok is a short video creation application that allows users to sing, dance, act, or mime to audio clips or pre-recorded songs. To learn the TikTok basics, visit our other blog post here.

Where did TikTok come from?

In 2016, Chinese app developer ByteDance created a rival app to Musical.ly called Douyin. Eventually, Douyin was renamed and rebranded to TikTok for better international appeal. In 2017, ByteDance obtained Muscial.ly for a fee of $800 million. In 2018, ByteDance merged Musical.ly and TikTok under the one name of TikTok.

With this unified brand, the app began to increase in popularity extremely quickly, with the largest demographic of TikTok users between the ages of 16-24. But if you think TikTok is just a fad for Generation Z, think again.

Benefits of TikTok For Business?

In the last 12 months, brands have begun creating accounts on the platform to better engage with younger consumer demographics. However, you can actually find an extremely broad demographic on TikTok including average consumers, recent mums, politicians, grandparents, comedians, influencers, artists and more!

A great way to think about TikTok for Business is by comparing it to Instagram Stories. They may not necessarily push sales but are important to show the personality and culture of the business.

An easy idea for your first TikTok Business video is to introduce yourself and your business to the platform. By revealing your brand’s true personality, users will feel connected to you and relate to you, which builds trust. Additionally, by simply sharing fun and creative facts about your team helps people to become familiar with you.

Another way to market your business on TikTok is to partner with influencers. The rapid rise of TikTok influencers shows that platform users value the content that they are creating.…  It’s very typical to see popular creators with followers in the millions, with tens, if not hundreds of thousands of likes on each post.

How to advertise on TikTok?

TikTok is becoming increasingly attractive to businesses. For the most part, it is unexplored territory when it comes to marketing, as the app has only just begun rolling out paid advertising last year.

In 2019, TikTok began rolling out advertisements on the platform, and it’s proven to be a big success for the company. TikTok is currently supporting three types of advertisements. These include Brand Takeover Ads, In-Feed Native Video Ads and Branded Hashtag Challenges.

Brand Takeover Ads

Brand takeovers Ads appear full screen upon opening the app. They direct potential customers to a webpage or TikTok account. Not only can they be targeted, they’re instantly engaging and can’t be missed. To measure your success for a brand takeover, look at impressions and click-through rate (CTR).

… In-Feed Native Video Ads

In-Feed native content acts similarly to Snapchat or Instagram story ads. These ads are auto-playing full-screen ads that show up between videos of user-generated content. They are skippable and must be 9-15 seconds in length. You can measure the campaign’s success through tracking clicks, impressions, click-through rate (CTR), video views and engagement.

Branded Hashtag Challenges

Branded Hashtag Challenges are generated by brands or businesses associated with a promoted hashtag. This is where businesses create a hashtag and an end goal or price for participants. Branded Hashtag Challenges help advertisers to achieve reach on their channel, but it can also assist in driving conversions.

Some brands have even created their own original songs and audios for TikToks. If an influencer were to use…  your brand sound, it would create instant virality. Other users such as the mid-tier creators and average users will likely follow, flooding the ‘For You Page’ with that same sound and trend, giving you a growing brand impression.

Should I Join?

… TikTok’s emergence as a mainstream social media staple presents a unique opportunity for early adopter brands. The app is not nearly as saturated as Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter.

Users that can combine entertaining or informative content in a 15 or 60 second video clip have the potential to see almost immediate results. Furthermore, it helps businesses take the first step into marketing to Gen Z, which we all know is an extremely difficult demographic to engage.

Sounds Great, What Now?

To start your own TikTok Business Account, visit this handy guide to get started.

To engage our experienced team in providing TikTok setup and posting services, send us an email at info@thecreativecollective.com.au or give us a call on +61 2 4048 0548.

If you would like to explore TikTok training options, our sister company, The Training Collective, will happily discuss this with you. Please email: learn@thetrainingcollective.com.au

Or, visit our TikTok account for some inspiration!