Marketers’ Guide to TikTok. Part II

We previously discussed the important role of TikTok in today’s Marketing world, and now it’s time to get to business by exploring different ways of advertising on the very popular app:

How to find hashtags for your brand’s TikTok posts
There are three top ways to find TikTok hashtags that will boost your reach – use some tried-and-true general hashtags that have surged in popularity and are meant to help get as many eyes as possible on your posts. Try these ones below from Influencer Marketing Hub.

Look at trending hashtags
Navigate over to the Discover page, where you’ll find a list of currently trending hashtags. Scroll through the hashtags to see if any fit your business and industry, or see if they indicate general challenges that you could put your spin on.

Get inspirations from influencers
Look at the hashtags influencers in your vertical use. After you’ve completed the steps above to find niche influencers for your industry, borrow the hashtags they use and test their success on your own posts.

Use general popular hashtags
Use some tried-and-true general hashtags that have surged in popularity and are meant to help get as many eyes as possible on your posts. Try these ones below from Influencer Marketing Hub.

#tiktok
#foryoupage
#fyp
#foryou
#viral
#love
#funny
#memes
#follow
#bestvideo
#tiktok4fun
#tiktok4fun
#thisis4u
#loveyoutiktok

Use TikTok Ads
If you don’t have the time to come up with creative ideas, execute videos, and then slowly cultivate their reach through organic engagement, don’t sweat it⁠—TikTok has an advertising platform that will expand the reach for you if you set aside some budget.

TikTok Ad Formats
TikTok offers a variety of ways your ad can appear in the feed, depending on the creative assets you’re visualizing or what makes sense for your campaign. TikTok says these formats “include but not limited to horizontal, vertical, or square videos and images.” To create these ads, they also offer a couple of creation toolsets, should you choose to use them:

“Video Creation Kit” provides you with a variety of video templates and allows you to create videos by using your existing images, without needing to be a pro editor.
“Automated Creative Optimization” helps you automate the process of creating, delivering, and optimizing your ads.
These ads can appear in four places:

– In-feed
– Detail Page
– Post-roll
– Story
– TikTok Ad Targeting
When managing your TikTok Ads, you can target your audience by gender, location, age, interests, and what TikTok calls “other unique variables.”

For more advanced users who may have practice using these same popular strategies on other paid social initiatives, you can create “Custom Audiences” and “Lookalike Audiences” to reach more people similar to your existing customers. If you have a self-serve account, you can use TikTok’s chart to see which geographic ad targeting options are available to you based on the location of the owner account.

TikTok Ad Performance Measurement
TikTok Ads measurement tools let you monitor your ads performance by using a few different devices meant to help you track actionable KPIs:

Use the TikTok pixel to monitor your ad performance and measure your marketing results by tracking users’ behaviors on your website. TikTok partners with third-party tracking companies to track ad conversions, users’ in-app behavior, impressions, and click attribution data. As you can probably tell, these ad specifications indicate that TikTok ads are meant to blend into the average customer experience as much as possible. If you want users to linger on your ad (or even better, click through and convert), you’re not off the hook for creating something entertaining that doesn’t disrupt their social experience. The brand, Guess jeans kept this in mind when launching their TikTok advertising campaign, leaning into both the musical and “trending challenge” aspects of the platform by creating their own challenge hashtag and generating an influx of consumer-generated content.

They used the idea of “transforming your looks” with the slogan “Transform your outfit from a mess to best-dressed! All you need is denim!” accompanied by Bebe Rexh’s “I’m a Mess” and the hashtag #InMyDenim. The campaign was wildly successful, and you can read more about the KPIs they hit in the case study on TikTok’s website.

Ultimately, in making the decision between organic and paid TikTok content, you will have to decide if you’re paying with your time or your money. There are pros and cons to each, so it will depend on your budget and how you want to interact with your audience.

Bottom Line for TikTok Marketing
And there you have it: How to market on TikTok in 2021. Use this guide to decide on if you should pursue TikTok marketing, whether it should be organic or paid, and how you want to kick off your first campaign.

Remember, it has a very specific demographic, so tread lightly, keep it fun, and make it shareable for that audience.

Source: Anna Dievendorf / fanbooster

Read More