What is TikTok marketing?

TikTok marketing is the practice of using TikTok to promote a brand, product, or service. This can include different tactics like influencer marketing, creating viral organic content, and leveraging user-generated content to boost engagement and authenticity.

TikTok marketing can help businesses:

• Increase brand awareness
• Build engaged communities
• Sell products and services
• Get feedback from customers and audiences
• Provide customer service
• Advertise products and services to target audiences

What is TikTok influencer marketing?

TikTok influencer marketing involves businesses partnering with creators to promote their brand. Companies will connect with influencers and agree upon a business arrangement in which payment (or goods or services of value) is exchanged for content. For example, a kitchen brand might pay a foodie influencer to post a TikTok promoting their blender.

Influencer marketing can be more subtle, too,

What is TikTok affiliate marketing?

While the influencer marketing world can be a bit like the wild west (there’s no real rules beyond marketing content as sponsored, affiliate marketing is an official, platform-sanctioned marketing strategy for businesses.

First: what is affiliate marketing? In affiliate marketing, creators promote products and then earn commission off of sales. You’ve seen it before: when an influencer says something like “Use the code Alyssa20 to get 20% off these shoes,” that’s affiliate marketing. The brand can tell how many sales the influencer made by looking at how many times the coupon code was used, and that influencer is compensated accordingly.

TikTok’s affiliate marketing can help connect you with creators and will keep track of all of the sales made for you—in fact, the platform will even pay the creator for you.

TikTok offers three different affiliate marketing options:

1. The Shop Plan. Tiktok’s simplest affiliate marketing plan: you set a flat commission rate for all of your products. For example, creators get 5% of sales they make on any product.
2. The Open Plan. In this plan, the business can set different commission rates for different products (and it’s open to all creators)
3. The Targeted Plan. This option allows you to invite specific creators to promote specific products.

Want to learn more about affiliate marketing? Here’s four tips to get you started. 

A step-by-step guide to getting started

First thing’s first: to do any marketing on TikTok, you’ll need a TikTok Business account (don’t worry, it’s free).

Tiktok business accounts include features like an email button, access to the business creative hub and commercial music library, options to add calls to action, auto-replies for DMs and more.

If you already have a personal TikTok account, it’s easy (and again, free) to switch it to a business account.

First, go to your profile and tap the menu button—that’s the three horizontal lines in the top right corner.

Then, hit Settings and privacy.

From there, select Account.

Next, tap Switch to Business Account.

Ta-da! Welcome to your shiny new TikTok business account. When you first switch, the social media platform will take you through some of the features of a business account to help get you started.

How to create a TikTok marketing strategy

Now that you have a business account, it’s time to get down to… well, you know.

Get to know the platform

Yes, it’s part of the work, we swear!

Spending some time getting sucked in by TikTok videos (beginners, start here) is essential to understanding the platform. You can’t create engaging content for TikTok if you aren’t up-to-date on what’s engaging.

Explore the different features available on the TikTok app, and note what challenges, editing styles and sounds are trending.

Read up on the TikTok algorithm, too. Understanding how TikTok ranks and displays videos in the For You tab can inform your content, hashtag and engagement strategy.

Get the full lowdown on how the algorithm works here. You can also brush up on all things TikTok by taking courses in the TikTok Business Learning Center.

Research your audience

Here’s a question to ask before you get in too deep: is your audience even on TikTok? Since the app has over a billion global active users, the answer is probably yes (unless you’re eyeing business in India, because that country has banned the app since 2020). Still, it’s important to research your target audience to make sure that TikTok is right for you.

Before you start creating content, learn about TikTok demographics and identify those who might be interested in following you.

Tiktok has a rep for being popular with teens, but the platform’s user stats may surprise you: about 32% of TikTok’s global active users are between the ages of 25 and 34. But it is true that TikTok’s younger users are loyalists — 76% of American social media users between the ages of 18 and 24 use the app. In fact, one Google exec even admitted that 40% of GenZers are more likely to use TikTok than Google when looking for a place to go for lunch.

Once you’ve zeroed in on a potential audience, research what types of content they like and engage with. Then start to brainstorm content ideas for your brand.

Perform a competitive audit

Not everything’s a competition… but marketing on TikTok sure is. Are your competitors on TikTok? If they are, you could be missing out on the action. If they aren’t, TikTok may be a way to gain a competitive advantage.

Whether or not your competitors are on the platform, find at least three to five similar brands or organizations and see what they’re up to. If it’s helpful, use the S.W.O.T. framework to identify each competitor’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.

Because TikTok is a creator-led platform, don’t rule out including influencers in this exercise. Find personalities that specialize in your area of expertise.

Learn more in our complete guide to running a competitive analysis on social media (free template included).

Set goals that align with your business objectives

You can create TikToks just for fun, but it’s better to have goals in mind that can be tied to your overall business objectives.

Whether you plan to reach a new audience, improve brand image, promote awareness for a product or develop stronger customer relationships through engagement, it’s important to back your efforts with a rationale.

Like most social platforms, TikTok provides analytics for Business accounts.

To access your TikTok analytics, go to your profile and select the menu button (the three horizontal lines in the top right).

Then, select Creator Tools.

A snapshot of your analytics will open automatically. To see a more in-depth review of your metrics, select View all.

Unsure how to interpret the numbers? Read our complete guide to TikTok Analytics.

Post regularly

Quality over quantity, of course… but on TikTok, quantity also matters. TikTok recommends posting one to four times per day. We can hear your sigh of defeat from here—don’t stress. For most social media managers, TikTok’s recommendation just isn’t reasonable: start with 3 to 5 videos per week.

Making a content calendar—and sticking to it—is key to a successful social media strategy. Your TikTok content calendar will look similar to a real-life calendar, but instead of “Dinner with Dad” and “Dog’s Half-Birthday” you’ll plan things like “Go Live” or “Post Sale Announcement.” There’s plenty of tools out there to get you started.

Schedule your posts for maximum views

TikTok's algorithmnprioritizes newer content, so it’s always best to post your TikToks when the majority of your audience is using the app. That magic time varies across industries, of course, but based on Media Kings experiments, the best overall time to is Thursdays at 7:00PM.

You do you, though—

Pay attention to your analytics

Analytics aren’t just the perfect starting point for marketing on TikTok: they’re also an easy way to gauge whether or not your strategies are working. Check in at least once a month and see if you’re reaching your goals (and treat yourself, of course).

Create space to experiment

There’s no such thing as a formula for going viral on TikTok (but you can follow our tried tips to increase your odds.)

Leave space in your TikTok presence to be creative, have fun, and go with the flow. Even political parties are embracing TikTok trends and not taking themselves too seriously. (Is this good for the world? It’s legitimately hard to say).

If something flops, learn from it and move on to the next experiment. If your brand ends up accidentally trending like Josh wine, make the most of it and keep “letting the memes flow.”

Be in on the joke. Don’t plan to be taken too seriously on TikTok.

Inspiring TikTok marketing examples

Start with a hook

We love a good hook. A social media hook grabs a viewer’s attention and convinces them that the content is worth experiencing. When that hook comes from a source that the audience trusts, even better.

 Why this works

• The video starts with a hook that will immediately captivate the target audience
• The brand partnered with an influencer that’s seen as an expert in their field, which helps to boost the brand’s credibility
• The video shows the product in action instead of just talking about how great it is (show, don’t tell!)

Encourage comments

The more engagement a TikTok receives, the better it will fare when it comes to the algorithm’s ranking. Metrics like comments, likes and saves will determine how good TikTok thinks your short-form videos are, so the more you can encourage them, the better.

 

@smarties

is yellow PLANTAIN or BANANA? 🌴🕶️☀️

♬ tropical reggae BGM no melody - yo suzuki(akisai)

Reply to comments with another TikTok

Comments play a major role in TikTok’s algorithm—the more comments a post gets, the higher that video will rank. And TikTok makes it quite easy for you to show commenters that you’re listening: just reply to a comment with a video.

 A link tree will show TikTok users the way to your Youtube channel, e-commerce store, blog or just about any other external site. It’s a clever way to turn one link into a ton of opportunities.