TikTok’s Background and Purposes
TikTok is one of the most popular social media apps in today’s age. Ever wonder why it has become so popular and accustomed for millions of social media users?
The story of TikTok, formerly known as Musica.ly, began in 2016 when Chinese company Bytedance launched an app that allowed users to create and share videos, which was soon introduced worldwide. TikTok was created for users to express themselves with the ability to recreate, discover, and share short videos. There are infinite categories of different topics demonstrated on the app from cooking tutorials to comedy sketches. It provides a welcoming environment for anyone seeking to take part in the experience. Influencers and businesses have taken advantage of the advertising aspect of using TikTok to promote products and services to a wide audience.
Target Segment of TikTok
89% of TikTok users are between the ages of 10 and 49, which is a wide range for marketers to target on the app. Females account for 57%, while males account for 43% of users.
How Marketers can use TikTok
TikTok offers a great opportunity for marketers to reach younger audiences across the world; since several social media memes start on TikTok, brands can jump on the new trend to improve their credibility on the site. The app’s algorithm is beneficial to marketers because accounts with very little followers can end up raking in millions of views per video overnight. This sets TikTok apart from its competitors such as Twitter and Instagram. TikTok allows free uprgrades to a business account; follow these steps to creating an account.
- Once on the TikTok app, tap the three dots in the upper right corner then hit Manage Account.
- Tap Switch to Pro Account and choose between Business or Creator.
- Pick the category that best demonstrates your brand and click Next.
- Add a website and email address to your profile. After this step, the account will be up and running.
Before making posts on TikTok, the target segment of the brand needs to be determined. This will ensure the proper measures needed to reach as many users as possible. To define an audience, marketers should view consumers’ character traits, such as location, age, gender, interests, their career or industry, income level, relationship status, motivations to buy, buying concerns, and any other traits deemed necessary to create the branded channel.
Three ways to Grow your Branded Channel:
- Collaborate with Influencers
- Start a Hashtag Challenge
- Run TikTok Promote/Advertising
As the number of social media influencers have increased more than ever, they have a powerful impact on the community. If an influencer is highly respected, the followers are more likely to engage in their content; established influencers also know their way around social media apps, so they can help manage certain aspects that you need. A collaboration with these influencers can have a significantly positive impact on the campaign.
Starting a hashtag challenge provides the opportunity of creating a trend or meme over the app. Millions of users can join the challenge and create their own videos for the campaign, thus boosting the authenticity and support of the brand.
Running TikTok promote will help you manage quality of content and see how effective your approach is.
How in-app Promotion Works
On the TikTok app, there is a Promote tool used to increase the chance of gaining followers, get more users to discover your videos, and guide more traffic to your website.
To start, tap the video you want to promote. it will then have you select a goal for promoting the video such as more video views, more website visits, or more followers. After selecting the goal, choose which audience you want to reach; it can either be automatic or customized. However, if you choose automatic, TikTok will select your audience for you. Once the audience is selected, set the budget and duration you want for the promotion. TikTok allows you to spend as little as $3 per day and up to $1,000 per day. The last step is to add a payment method; tap Start Promotion when complete.
The video will appear as an ad for the time it is promoted. The Promote tool allows marketers to track information and performance metrics of the campaign.
This is an example of information that is tracked through the app. It shows the number of video views over a period of time; for current updates, there is the option to look at the last 7 or 28 days depending on how much content is posted. The number of followers gained and number of likes, comments, and shares are displayed. It also shows the traffic source types either from the ‘For You’ page, followers, or viewing the account’s profile.
The tool is beneficial because it provides a deeper look into the performance of the campaign. By using the Promote tool to your advantage, you will be see how successful your campaign currently is and look for ways to make it even better through the app.
The video below explains more about the process of TikTok Promote for anyone interested in taking their brand/company to the next level.
Social Media Marketing in Business 
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