TikTok for Business: A Beginner’s Guide to Getting Started

Successful marketing is all about connecting with your target audience, and TikTok For Business can be a useful tool for fostering those relationships. However, getting started with a new social media channel can often feel overwhelming.

If you’ve been considering taking the plunge with TikTok marketing, now is an excellent time to do so. The introduction of TikTok For Business brings together some of the most valuable features this platform has for companies of all sizes.

In this post, we’ll give you a quick overview of TikTok For Business and what it has to offer. Then we’ll show you how to take full advantage of TikTok’s tools using five key tips. Let’s get started!

📚 Table of contents:

• An introduction to TikTok for business
• 1. Develop a consistent posting schedule
• 2. Customize your ads to highlight your creativity and personality
• 3. Partner with a TikTok influencer
• 4. Host a TikTok challenge
• 5. Create an unmissable ad that showcases your brand’s value

An introduction to TikTok For Business

TikTok is a social media network that lets users create and share short videos. It’s extremely popular among younger consumers.^[1] It’s also the fastest-growing social media platform, with nearly 700 million monthly active users.^[2]

TikTok videos often use filters and effects, and they tend to focus on creativity and entertainment over polish. While you’ll find content covering a wide variety of subjects, some of the more popular videos include lip-syncing, comedy, and music.

The TikTok For Business platform consists of a variety of tools to help you grow your following and brand on the platform.

When you sign up for a business account, you’ll have access to real-time performance tracking and audience insights to help you tailor your ad campaigns. You’ll also be able to build a profile that includes a link to your website or app.

TikTok For Business provides an array of ad types to take advantage of. Topview ads are displayed upon opening the TikTok app. It’s the first kind of ad a user will see, making it an effective way to get their attention:

A Brand Takeover also includes an ad when a user opens the app, but these are placed on the ‘For You’ pages, which are essentially the main feeds. You can use still images or videos in this type of content.

Additionally, users will only see one Brand Takeover per day, so this is an effective way of cutting through the noise of your competition. However, perhaps not surprisingly, they are quite expensive.

In-Feed ads enable you to share your content like any other TikTok creator. They appear as users scroll through their For You feeds, and can be interacted with through likes, comments, and shares.

True to its name, a Branded Hashtag Challenge invites users to participate in virtual competitions and share their creations. These challenges are highly engaging and have the potential to go viral.

Branded Effects are a fun way to share creative assets. You can build stickers, filters, and other effects that other TikTokers can use to make their own videos.

You can combine your Branded Effects with any other ad type for maximum impact.

TikTok For Business: how to get started (5 key tips)

Now that you have an idea of what you can do with TikTok For Business, let’s look at five best practices for using it.

1. Develop a consistent posting schedule

As with other social media platforms, you’ll want to post regularly to increase your chances of being seen. However, the cadence also needs to be realistic for you or your team.

Keep in mind that your videos don’t have to be overly polished or rehearsed, since TikTok’s users value authenticity. You may even be able to create some of your content for this platform on the fly. While your TikTok content can be more casual than what you might post on Instagram, you’ll still want to have a plan for what and when you post.

You may wish to include TikTok on your social media calendar to help you stay on schedule. TikTok For Business provides metrics that can help you determine the best times to post for your audience.

2. Customize your ads to highlight your creativity and personality

Part of TikTok’s appeal is the opportunity to get really creative with your advertising. It’s the perfect chance to showcase your brand’s personality. You can use Branded Effects, including stickers, filters, and Augmented Reality (AR), to deliver your message in a unique and engaging way. You may even want to try and gamify your ads:

While a lot of TikTok’s ad creation is self-serve, to use Branded Effects you’ll need to get in contact with a sales rep. You may also consider hiring a design firm that specializes in AR to create your assets. TikTok provides a database of Marketing Partners you can explore.

Users can also make their own videos with your branded elements. Encouraging them to use your business’ hashtag is an excellent way to help your videos gain traction and reach new audiences.

3. Partner with a TikTok influencer

Influencer marketing can be extremely effective on TikTok, and it’s especially popular in U.S. markets.^[3] As on other social platforms, an influencer could feature your product or service in a video and provide links in the post’s description.

Choosing the right person is a significant component of your campaign’s success. You don’t need to partner with a celebrity, either; even active users in your niche can help give you a boost. With that being said, you’ll still want to be strategic when choosing someone to work with, and be sure they appeal to your target audience.

When selecting an influencer, remember that TikTok users value authenticity. You’ll want to avoid working with someone based solely on the number of followers they have. It’s best to find people whose style and messaging align with your own, at least in some capacity.

One way to begin your search is in TikTok’s Discover section. To use it, you can type a niche-relevant keyword into the search box:

You’ll get a list of users with accounts and posts relevant to that term or phrase. From there, you can look at individual influencers’ content, and narrow down who might be a good fit.

As an alternative, you might want to explore TikTok’s Creator Marketplace. There, you’ll be able to access in-depth data to help you choose the best possible marketing partner.

4. Host a TikTok challenge

In a TikTok challenge, you can ask people to perform a specific task and share their videos using your branded hashtag. This can be anything from demonstrating how they use your product to dancing to a song you’ve connected with your brand.

Not only can challenges help spread awareness of your brand, but they also encourage User-Generated Content (UGC). You can use this content to bolster your sharing schedule.

There are a few points to keep in mind when preparing to launch a TikTok challenge. First, you’ll want to create the best possible hashtag that you haven’t used before. It’s also smart to choose one that is simple, easy to remember, and relevant to your brand or product.

In addition to ensuring that your hashtag relates to your brand, you’ll want to make sure the challenge itself is relevant. Dances and lip-syncs may garner many views, but if no one connects the challenge to your business, it won’t do you much good.

Instead, try to create a challenge that incorporates your product or service in some way. For example, if you sell cookware, you could ask people to share an instructional video for their favorite recipe using your product. You can even use a challenge to spread awareness for a cause, as with Dettol’s #HandWashChallenge:

You can use TikTok’s Branded Hashtag Challenge feature to get even more eyes on your campaign. Every video that uses it will appear on that hashtag’s page. After posting their own videos, users may browse through to see what other creators have come up with.

5. Create an unmissable ad that showcases your brand’s value

TikTok’s Topview ad format is unique in that the content can be up to 60 seconds long. As you might recall, users see these at the top of their For You feeds, so they’re a powerful way to draw attention to your brand.

Be sure to take full advantage of this opportunity and create an ad that showcases your brand’s value to your audience. You’ll also want to carefully target Topview ads, as they’re likely to annoy those who find the content irrelevant.

You can link your Topview ad to a purpose-built landing page. This is an excellent way to promote special events, sales, or product launches. As this type of placement can be expensive, you may want to consider using it sparingly. It also pairs well with In-Feed ads, as those can reinforce the Topview placement message.

Conclusion

In this post, we introduced you to some of the features TikTok offers and gave you five tips for using it to your advantage:

How are you planning to use TikTok For Business? Let us know in the comments section below!