How TikTok Is Helping Small Businesses Boom With Social Media Marketing

As a social media marketing medium, TikTok is proving to be quite successful for small businesses, The video-sharing platform [TikTok] has been credited with bringing back the short-form video and a social media culture which is less focused on carefully curated aspirational content, but rather bite-sized pieces of entertainment which are taken from day-to-day life.

It’s clear that using TikTok can help small businesses to reach a much larger platform, with millions of potential customers who can bring a lot of business to otherwise hard-to-discover products. While it’s simple to download the TikTok app and begin creating and – as well as posting – content, having a plan and taking a deliberate approach to what you post is essential if you’re to use it as a successful marketing medium – as it is with any social media platform.

Your Brand Story Is Fundamental To Connecting With The TikTok Community

With more than 75% of consumers planning to support small businesses as much as they can, it’s the best time for brands to connect with consumers. And TikTok is the perfect place to do so as the platform’s users are already in a shopping mindset. For many TikTok users, the main reason they come to TikTok is to discover new things — such as your brand and your products. They’re ready to buy and are hungry for inspiration:

• 74% of users say that TikTok inspired them to find out more about a product or brand,
• 66% of users say that TikTok helped them decide what to buy, and
• 67% of users say that TikTok inspired them to shop even when they weren’t planning to do so.

Small and Large Businesses are Taking Advantage TikTok

Proving itself to be more than merely a silly app for teens, TikTok has popped onto the radar of businesses across the globe as an effective tool in social media marketing. However, what aspects of TikTok can brands learn from and use for their online presence? There are a number of takeaways:

Patterns In Social Media Marketing Do Exist

When a platform is new, it’s considered to be less competitive. This means that it’s easier to reach a higher percentage of the audience, adverts are cheaper, and the potential reach is high. This is as when platforms are young, it’s all about entertaining the masses. As businesses see that the platform is starting to take off, they all jump in so that they can get in on a piece of the action. From there, the algorithm undergoes changes and ads become far more expensive.

At the moment, TikTok is still in this early stage and is fairly unsaturated with ads and businesses. This makes it the perfect time to begin using the platform for brand awareness and social media marketing efforts.

TikTok Generates A Shift In The Way We Interact With Video Content On The Internet

At the moment, more than 85% of videos on Facebook are viewed without sound being turned on. However, TikToks are heavily reliant on the usage of sound and music in order to understand the humour or message behind them. The sound is the meme and then the meme is the message.

While it’s quite a bit too early to tell, it’s probable that the younger TikTok audiences will be more motivated to utilise sounds on other social media platforms. With this firmly in mind, always design content to be enjoyed with sound off, however, to delight users who engage with your video with the sound on.

Finding Your Niche Is Key

The TikTok algorithm works in quite mysterious ways. It’s been known to deliver content which feels all too relatable to be a coincidence. Data privacy concerns set aside, it’s very important to keep in mind that every user is part of a specific niche (or five).

Discovering this niche (even if your brand itself is the niche) – and then sticking to it – will help land your content in the hands of your most engaged audience. If you plan on creating content yourself or want to use a TikTok influencer in order to help your brand thrive, the possibilities are endless when it comes to growing on TikTok.

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