How To Use TikTok As A Small Business

Social media is a part of every business owner’s marketing strategy (or at least it should be). But things change constantly with new platforms being created and algorithms being put in place.

But one social channel is often overlooked by many small business owners: TikTok.

Let’s take a look at what you can do to use TikTok as a part of your digital marketing strategy to elevate your small business.

1. Know Your Target Audience

TikTok is known to be most popular with Gen Z (anyone born between 1997 and 2012). But you might be surprised to learn that this social media platform has gained traction with a wide variety of demographics.

Understanding who your target audience is will help you in developing your TikTok marketing strategy.

2. See What Your Competition Is Doing

More than likely, your competition is already on TikTok. This is an opportunity to learn about what’s working. This alleviates you from spending time and energy creating content for testing.

You can easily avoid posting certain things you see are underperforming on your competitor’s page and get inspiration on what’s excelling.

3. Set Clear And Realistic Goals

You can’t create a successful strategy if you don’t have a clear goal in mind. They should be measurable and realistic. Consider what you want the purpose of your TikTok account to be.

• Do you want to increase brand awareness?
• Are you hoping to gain more email subscribers?
• Do you want to increase revenue?

Get as specific as you can with your goals and always take time to reevaluate them. Looking at the metrics of your posts can help you determine whether or not your account is helping you achieve them. Then, you can alter your content based on how well they’re performing towards your end goal.

4. Create A Content Calendar

Now it’s time to get creative. Start planning out your content calendar for your marketing strategy. It will allow you to take all of the ideas you’ve brainstormed and put them in one organized place.

Once you know what content you want to create, you can take a day or two to make your videos. You can then save the content in your drafts or schedule them through a third-party platform.

5. Curate Content That’s Valuable To Viewers

According to a recent TikTok statistic, there are nearly 500 million active consumers on the platform. That means of the 1 billion users, nearly half of them are making purchasing decisions based on the content they see or buying directly from the platform.

This is why curating content that’s valuable to your audience is more important now than ever.

TikTok is all about gaining views in hopes that one of your videos takes off and goes viral. But you can’t gain that type of status unless you focus on creating quality video content.

What you post should add value to a user to keep them watching. Some ideas could include:

• Helpful tips and tricks
• Motivational content that’s geared towards your target audience
• Show how to use your product
• Behind-the-scenes footage on the job

6. Use The Right Hashtags

Social media platforms are constantly updating to improve the user experience. TikTok previously had a “discover” section that allowed its users to see what hashtags were currently trending.

But with the latest update, it’s now a little more tricky to find them.

Now, you’ll need to use the search function to find what’s trending. This is important because it can help your content reach the right people.

Posting content without a hashtag means your content won’t be discoverable when someone is searching for relevant information. Plus, the algorithm won’t be able to share it with users in what’s called the “for you page.”

Always make sure to use hashtags that are pertinent to the content you’re sharing. It’s recommended to use anywhere from three to five per post.

Conclusion

It’s important to remember that social media platforms like TikTok are designed to cultivate community. People want a place they can return to for inspiration, education, or entertainment.

Try to find ways to implement these three categories into your content strategy when using TikTok for your business. And most importantly, don’t forget to use hashtags so your posts get seen!