How to be successful on TikTok

Sahail Ashraf posted on 24 August 2021

TikTok is a great place for brands to be. But it isn’t somewhere you can ‘fly blind’. Take a look at our tips that will help your brand become successful on the platform.

TikTok is, first and foremost, meant to be a fun place. This means that success on the platform rests largely on how ‘fun’ you are. This may cause some brands to think that they can’t be successful on the platform, simply because their product or service is not fun in any way. However, like all social media platforms, TikTok can be managed successfully and actually quite easily. We looked at a few ways in which you can make it work.

Target audience

One of the biggest mistakes a brand can make is marketing to the wrong people. It happens, and the end result means a waste of money and effort. This is why it is so important that brands find out who their target audience are.

Once they know the answer, brands can then go looking for the audience on TikTok. Essentially, the target audience is that demographic that is interested (or is likely to be interested) in the brand’s product or service. Then, the brand can be rest assured their efforts are not going to be futile.

Value

Brands have to create value on TikTok. It’s not enough to try and post funny videos or jump on the latest trends (although trends do have a place). It’s more important that you create immense value for your audience, so they keep coming back for more of what you offer.

Instructional videos are worthwhile. Or even just videos that simply give instructions for using your product.

Timing

Perhaps even more than other platforms, TikTok is all about timing. Your audience is not on it 25 hours a day, and you need to adjust your marketing actions accordingly. This means spending some time working out when your audience is active on the platform, and then using that knowledge to identify posting opportunities.

Of course, you are probably active on a few platforms, so using a good scheduler or metrics tool should help you organise all your content so that it hits the right audiences at the right time.

Engagement

TikTok is a very social platform, perhaps more so than others. If you want to gain some traction on it, it is well worth your while to make sure that you start to put in place some engagement processes. Basically, the more you make an effort to engage with other creators, the more you will start to see some progress.

Use features like Duet to really get to know other creators and start down the road to engagement. As long as you don’t appear too ‘salesy’ you should find that creators will eventually start to warm to what you are doing and engagement will happen.

There is logic to this. If your audience doesn’t see you engaging on the platform, you will essentially appear fake anyway. Get involved, and get the most out of it.

For You

You will need to get your content onto the For You page if you are going to make a real go of building up a brand on TikTok. However, as you can imagine, it isn’t just a question of sending out videos and hoping people will like them.

Your first aim is to make sure you follow all of the tips above. It is really important to do this, because once you have the above strategy in place, you can start to build up a level of quality that people will be happy to follow and engage with.

Once you are at the point where people are starting to engage, then it is then simply a question of:

Focusing on quality.
Ensuring that your videos are short enough to prevent viewers getting bored.
Including music in your videos that you know your audience will like.
Concentrating on trends as much as possible. Watch out for hashtags that people are into, and if they resonate with your audience, then you have a good opportunity.

While there is absolutely no way of knowing what TikTok’s algorithm is all about, and how to get onto that For You stream, you will increase your chances significantly if you do the above.

TikTok is, above all, about having fun. Focus on giving your audience the best experience possible and you should soon find that it is a place your brand belongs in.

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