4 Ways To Use TikTok For Startup Marketing

In today’s world, businesses understood that social media is a critical component of their modern marketing strategy. While giant platforms the likes of Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube still dominate the social media space, there’s a new kid in town that’s gaining a lot of popularity today–TikTok. 

This article shares some fun facts about TikTok and how startups can use it for marketing. 

TikTok: What Is It And Why Should You Care?

Formerly known as Musical.ly, TikTok is a video-based social platform. It allows users to get creative with short videos using musical overlay and decorating with visual effects. In the beginning, videos were mainly focused on dancing, lip-syncing, or doing funny voiceovers. Think of it as a short-form YouTube or a video-based Instagram. 

Unlike other social platforms, however, TikTok is less about personal brand building and networking but more about presenting yourself or your brand authentically and capturing creativity. 

So, why should you care about being on TikTok?

What started as a small platform targeted toward tweens and teens, TikTok now offers a significant marketing potential for businesses of all kinds. It is the 6th most popular social platform today. Also, the same statistics show that it was the most downloaded app of 2021, reaching over 650 million downloads. 

TikTok has over a billion active users every month, with eight new users joining every second. In fact, it has become more popular than Instagram among the Gen Z population. However, it’s also making big gains in other age demographics, including those aged between 35 and 54 years old. 

How To Use TikTok For Marketing Your Startup

1. Experiment With Different Content

TikTok is all about creativity and authenticity. With this social platform, you don’t need to spend a lot of money or time on high production photography or videos, making it suitable for startup marketing. 

And you can try out various types of content to engage your audience. Using TikTok’s ‘Discover’ page, you can easily stay up to date with current content trends that you can playfully incorporate into your brand. You can also check content from competitors using various TikTok tools to gain insight on effective content they use to engage their audience. 

Unfortunately, some of your competitors may have a private account that limits your access. Or maybe you don’t want your competitors to know that you’re spying on them. In this case, you can use a TikTok online viewer that allows you to view and watch clips from competitors anonymously. 

• To give you an idea, some of the common content you can use are:
• Creative introduction of your team using fun songs;
• Inspirational stories, for instance, how you started your business;
• A cheeky tour of your workplace; and
• A timelapse video of how your products are made

Don’t be afraid to try out different types of content or how consistent your brand’s tone is. Ultimately, TikTok is an informal social platform, thus, its marketing can be slightly informal too. So, have fun personalizing your content and there’s a high chance that your followers will also genuinely love what you have to offer. 

2. Leverage Influencers On TikTok

Like with other social platforms, there are plenty of influencers on TikTok. And you can use their influence to increase brand awareness and expand your reach. 

However, with TikTok’s popularity, sifting through influencers that fit your budget can be overwhelming. TikTok influencers have varying numbers of followers and influence. In general, the more followers they have, the more expensive they are to collaborate with. 

Also, it’s difficult to determine if a particular influencer will deliver effective results to your brand. Fortunately, TikTok offers the ‘TikTok Creator Marketplace’ that allows you to see metrics associated with a certain influencer. With the provided data, it’s a lot easier to check if an influencer is suitable for your brand. 

3. Tap On User-Generated Content With Hashtags

Creating your own TikTok videos is a good way to improve brand awareness and promote your business on social platforms. However, it still takes some creativity and thought to produce high-quality content that delivers good results. Startups need to plan their content to receive the best return on their investment. 

A good way to supplement your own published content is to tap into user-generated content (UGC). In this case, hashtags play a critical role. Hashtags make it easier for users to discover your content as well as let your loyal followers become brand ambassadors. It allows prospects to learn more about your company using one of the most convincing marketing methods—word of mouth. And all of this for free. 

Let’s say a customer posted a TikTok video wearing your lip tint and used your brand’s hashtag. One of their followers saw the video and became interested in your products. So, by clicking the branded hashtag, they can learn more about your business and eventually lead them to make a purchase—all because of a TikTok video that you did not even produce. 

4. Advertise On TikTok

TikTok, like other social platforms, now allows businesses to pay to have their ads shown to the right users. 

With TikTok ads, you don’t have to spend a lot of time building your audience. You simply need to set up an ad campaign, and you should reach your target audience within 24 hours. 

With TikTok, you have five kinds of ad products:

• Branded hashtags
• In-feed ads
• Top view ads
• Brand takeovers
• Branded effects

Most startups and small businesses find that in-feed or native ads offer the best results. Other ad products are usually more suitable for businesses with a sizable advertising budget. 

Take Away

What started as a simple platform to share and showcase short, silly videos, TikTok has now become one of the biggest social platforms today. As one of the emerging mainstream social platforms, TikTok offers startups and early adopters a chance to enjoy remarkable results from having a presence on the app. Just make sure to follow the above tips to effectively use TikTok for boosting your marketing initiatives.