For anyone who thought the social media space was a settled frontier, TikTok proved them wrong.
Exploding in popularity in the last few years, TikTok has gone from strength to strength. With a youthful and expanding user base, TikTok has become a definitive new home of influencers and social media marketers.
If you’re looking for a piece of the TikTok pie, then here are seven tips for creating an effective TikTok marketing strategy.
1. Build a Fam
TikTok creates the illusion that anything can become an overnight sensation. Sometimes, it’s even true.
Yet the reality, in most cases, is that sensations stem from popularity, and not the other way around. Take time to cultivate your followers with a steady stream of content before you make the big push.
This helps to deal with social media’s biggest barrier: discoverability. Everything rushes by so quickly on TikTok that you need to make an immediate impact or risk being drowned out.
Focus on building your follower base early, even at the expense of your brand message. These followers will act as a stable foundation for your eventual marketing build. Those left wondering how to get more likes on TikTok often neglect this crucial step, and find themselves howling into the void.
2. Turn Up
Consistency and frequency are the keywords you’ll need for success on TikTok.
Frequency is what keeps you relevant—this is your legs kicking below the water to keep your head above the surface, and TikTok is a stormier sea than even most other social media platforms. Posting new content frequently helps to reinforce your presence and keeps followers coming back.
Consistency goes hand in hand with frequency. This is where you establish your voice, publishing pattern, content quality, and all the other markers that will establish your TikTok brand. This invites followers who will come to know what to expect from you.
By fulfilling these two requirements, you’re telling your followers that you’re worth following. More importantly, you’re worth sharing.
3. Hop on the Trend
When you’re building brand awareness through TikTok, don’t be afraid to follow the leader.
For one thing, that’s just how things are done on TikTok. You might expect TikTok to be a bubbling font of individual creativity, but the reality is that TikTok trends develop in waves—one popular video will soon create a legion of imitators, eventually giving way to a new, rising idea. It’s an obvious cycle, once you learn to spot it.
Don’t put yourself above that. By riding the wave of a trend, you can get eyes on your TikTok ready for your next big marketing push. Borrow momentum from trends to establish your follower base and get people sharing your content.
4. Play to the Crowd
TikTok’s demographic skews toward the young, with Millenials at the upper end, after which its popularity drops off a cliff among older audiences.
So bear that in mind when developing your marketing through TikTok. You aren’t going to get far with dense small print and traditional brand values like a distant customer-brand relationship. Younger audiences like relatable, conscientious, and fun brands.
This also means you need to tweak your message to speak in the style of the teenagers and young adults that make up the user base. Quick, punchy messages are the order of the day—this is a generation used to in-your-face streamers and YouTubers. The boring and complicated need not apply.
5. Be the Meme You Want to See
TikTok is an inherently fun place to be, which puts it in direct contrast with Facebook’s aging reputation and Twitter’s political free-for-alls.
That leaves TikTok and Instagram as the social media faces of fun. TikTokers, especially, embrace the frivolity and camp needed to make the most of a short video. This goofy sense of humor allows a video to make a memorable impact even in a few short seconds. Like Vine before it, cartoonish videos often prove to be the most popular and enduring.
So don’t be afraid to turn on the goofy charm when marketing on TikTok. Leave your grown-up, press-releasing company on Facebook or Twitter and embrace the chaos of TikTok.
6. #Relatable
Relatability became the watchword of marketing in the 2010s, and that’s not likely to change any time soon. Even some of the most professional brands out there have loosened their ties to blend in with their customers.
Posting relatable content breaks down the traditional barriers between brand and customer. It allows you to reach out to customers as peers and have them identify with your brand on a personal level.
On a marketing level, this is amazing, as it helps to bypass the traditional skepticism that customers may have for brand-based marketing.
7. TikTok Party
Want to know what’s better than hopping on a trend? Being the trendsetter, of course! And the easiest way to get a new trend rolling is to invite participation.
There’s a reason that YouTubers are famous to the point of parody for urging watchers to “smash that like button!” It’s because it works. Reminding people to participate can be the difference between someone cracking a smile before moving on and them sharing your video. People just need that nudge.
So be sure to give your followers that nudge and watch your video snowball from there.
When you invite people to engage with your trend, you tap into the collaborative part of the brain. Your followers will feel like they’re helping out a friend or party with their peers by joining in your trend—it’s an excellent and organic path to reaching a much wider audience.
TikTok Marketing Strategy Made Easy
Okay, so no TikTok marketing strategy is guaranteed. Let’s face it, social media is a whimsical place. Keep these marketing strategies in mind, though, and you’re in with a better chance of becoming the next big thing—even if it’s only for a day.
Looking for more marketing tips? Make sure to check back often for more hints and tips.
