10 Strategies for Marketing on TikTok

When talking about social media platforms, there are many we could mention — each with a segment of audiences who prefer it. But if we focus on TikTok specifically, the most notable thing that sets it apart is the rapid popularity it has won and a user count that has exceeded a billion in a record period — and this platform has yet to show any signs of slowing down or stopping. That naturally made it a field for companies to market their products and spread their brand.

Naturally, with all this activity on TikTok, the competition is fierce, and grabbing the user’s attention isn’t easy — a sea of different content types is in front of them. So effective marketing on this platform and standing out among competitors requires a solid marketing plan, not random posting.

In this article we’ll discuss some strategies that can be applied to get the desired engagement from marketing efforts on TikTok.

10 Strategies for Rapid Growth on TikTok

Here are some practices you should follow to see real results from successful marketing and gain user interest and engagement on TikTok:

First: Knowing the Target Audience

This rule is fundamental for any marketing effort across channels. It’s done by gathering information about the target audience, including their ages, interests, hobbies, and challenges, and building what’s known as a customer persona model — essentially a description of the ideal customer being targeted with the marketing materials.

You can’t produce content that leaves a strong impression and grabs the viewer’s attention without knowing what stirs their interest, doing extensive research on what they want to watch, the nature of their activity, and their behavior pattern on the platform — and the type of videos they linger on before swiping up and moving to the next video. That way, content and a marketing message can be prepared that leaves an impression on the viewer and convinces them to buy from the company’s brand.

Second: Setting a Solid Content Plan

The popular content on TikTok is short videos ranging from 30 seconds to three minutes. The general character of these videos is creative, interactive, entertaining content produced by ordinary people to share moments from their daily lives, building global cultures and communities between viewers and content creators.

The optimal use of TikTok’s algorithm to get the desired reach and engagement levels comes from properly understanding the nature of the popular content on this platform, setting a content plan that grows awareness of the brand and delivers the company’s message while preserving the fit with TikTok’s overall vibe, and encouraging followers to engage and produce content related to the company’s brand — then reposting that content on the company’s official accounts.

Third: Participating in Challenges and Trends

TikTok is one of the places where trends appear the most, spreading to other platforms and grabbing the attention of millions around the world — including dances, pranks, challenges, food recipes, and more. These trends represent an opportunity for companies to participate in them and grow their visibility and reach to audiences.

It’s essential to stay active on this platform and up to date with everything new and trending to discover recent trends — especially those that fit the company’s industry and stir its target audience’s interest — and to participate in these trends to benefit from their temporary popularity, while adding the company’s signature touch.

Fourth: Collaborating With Influencers and Content Creators

Collaboration on TikTok is an excellent way to engage with other users and produce distinctive, entertaining content. You do this by two or more users working together — either producing content by each user separately then merging them later, or working together in real life.

This collaboration has many benefits for all participating parties — expanding reach to a wider audience, building relationships with other content creators, helping build credibility, and gaining more followers and engagement on videos.

To get the best results from collaborating with influencers, you should look for content creators in the same industry the company operates in — that way an audience with aligned interests is targeted, close to the ideal customer model.

Fifth: Using Hashtags

Using the hashtag (#) is an important practice for every social media platform. It’s essentially keywords that help users find videos with common features.

TikTok’s algorithm is one of the best out there, and it ranks content for the user based on their interests and activity on the platform. So using the right hashtags matching the company’s industry and content helps it naturally reach the home page of the required audience segment that’s most interested in what the company offers.

Among the things advised against is using the same hashtags again and again on videos — that makes the company’s account liable to be flagged as spam by the algorithm and negatively affects the content’s reach. So it’s better to test several hashtags on different types of content and find the hashtags that yield better results.

Sixth: Tracking KPIs

Tracking performance metrics is essential for any marketing effort across channels, and on TikTok this service is available within its tool bundle — by pressing the options button, then Creator Tools, then Analytics. These measures provide plenty of information about reach, followers, likes, views, growth, and more.

These metrics must be monitored on a regular, periodic basis to identify the content forms getting the highest engagement rate. User behavior patterns on TikTok change quickly and constantly, and must be followed regularly to make adjustments to the marketing strategy wherever needed.

Seventh: Monitoring Competitors and Learning From Their Experiences

Monitoring competitors is one of the essential practices in digital marketing. Just as companies must monitor competitors’ products and services and their market performance, they must also monitor competitors on TikTok and study what makes their videos trend, and learn from their successful and failed experiences alike.

Finding competitors is done by searching the market for companies that offer similar products and services, and also searching relevant hashtags, and going into their official accounts and finding the videos with the highest engagement — then identifying the factors that make these videos trend so they can be applied in the company’s marketing campaign, and also identifying practices that negatively affect competitors so they can be avoided in the future.

Eighth: Balancing Organic and Paid Content

Organic content is an excellent, free way to grow brand awareness through reach and engagement with users using videos and live broadcasts that the platform ranks on their home page. Paid content is videos posted by influencers to promote a company’s products and services.

The secret lies in finding a balance between these two types. A company that relies too heavily on paid content doesn’t get the desired reaction from followers. Organic content builds credibility and trust with users and lowers marketing costs — but the influence influencers have over their followers, the reach a company can gain, and the sales growth from working with them can’t be ignored either.

Based on all that, it can be said that the successful company is the one that finds the effective middle between the organic and paid content forms.

Ninth: Engaging With Followers

Engaging with followers starts with preparing content that matches their interests and building a community of people brought together by shared interests on this platform — engaging with these followers by replying to their comments and messages, taking their ratings and suggestions, and reposting content produced by them on the company’s official accounts.

All these practices make the follower feel the company appreciates them and increase the engagement rate with its content.

Tenth: Consistent Posting

Consistent posting on TikTok increases the likelihood of the algorithm noticing the company’s account and ranking its content for users organically on their home page — and thus growing brand awareness, expanding reach to more users, and building long-term relationships with them.

Millions of videos are uploaded to TikTok daily, and a company that doesn’t organize a consistent posting schedule will be forgotten by followers amid all this digital noise, and engagement rates with its content will drop. So regular posting is very important for the company’s name and brand to stay in followers’ minds and at the top of their home page.