How do you promote your shop on TikTok and reach new audiences?
E-commerce
30 August 2023
TikTok is an app that is growing at lightning speed, both in terms of its capabilities and its active community. The current number of users has already exceeded more than one billion, which took other giants such as Facebook or YouTube nearly nine years - the Chinese project generated this result in just five. However, it is well known that success also consists of good timing. TikTok is a platform that allows for remarkable marketing development, and when used well, it enables you to grow your own business at a satisfactory pace and direction. How to make money with TikTok?
Promotion on TikTok - what is it?
TikTok is an app that rules itself. The algorithms that tailor content to the user work at a breakneck pace, and the platform itself is extremely effective at keeping the viewer's attention, whether through its design or the way content is viewed via scrolling.
The content available on TikTok is short videos usually between 15 and 60 seconds in length, in line with current trends.
What trends can be encountered on TikTok? These are promoted patterns according to which content published on the app is created. Among the popular and gaining display trends in 2023 are:
- recommending products and services (following the principle of show, not sell);
- activities in the area of self-care;
- promotion based on content created for communities gathered under specific hashtags (e.g. #TechTok, #CleanTok, #TiredMom).
These are some guidelines to follow when creating your content. TikTok focuses on engaging content that will entertain the audience, provide knowledge and be free of clickbait - measures that are designed to influence the quality of the content published and the relationship between the community and the TikToker, i.e. the person who publishes his or her material on the platform.
In addition to trends in the content of recordings, there are also a number of schemes according to which the above information can be presented. Some of the most popular are:
- dance arrangements;
- dramas and etudes;
- laundry;
- tzw. transitions;
- tutorials and guides.
What then does promotion on TikTok look like? There are many paths, and the most effective may be a combination of several solutions. Firstly, having a company profile on TikTok itself can be a great promotional activity, which can be used to showcase the brand and what it does and how it does it. Content will appeal to audiences because of, among other things, its alignment with previously viewed footage or described hashtags.
To break out among the mass of content is largely dependent on randomness, so it is a path for the patient. The aim of publishing content is to share something that becomes viral - material that is intriguing, attracts a large audience and quickly becomes popular. By doing so, you can increase your regular audience, which is where most of the content you share will reach.
In addition, TikTok offers activities aimed directly at business (TikTok for Business) and professional advertising of specific content, created with the help of dedicated marketing tools. This is shown in the form of sponsored content from the profile or specially created advertising spots displayed during scrolling.
Why is it important to conduct marketing activities on TikTok?
One of the advantages of TikTok marketing is that in the social commerce industry, still not all companies are taking advantage of the sales opportunities the platform offers - it's worth being there, as there may not be any competition there.
Successful marketing on TikTok relies on a good knowledge of one's own audience. If the products on offer are mainly aimed at the 40+ group, a campaign on TikTok, which is mainly frequented by 18-25 year-olds, could be a total misunderstanding.
However, if the content created is relevant to the audience on the platform, it is worth your attention to promote. The way the platform works allows you to keep a close eye on what is trending, what solutions are being used and also what your competitors are using (if they are promoting on TikTok). It's a way to improve your own content and recognise what is most popular at any given time.
If a particular service or product you can offer reaches a young audience, there is no better medium than TikTok. In 2021, according to a study by SWPS, more than 60% of app users declared that they spend an average of one hour a day on the app. Given the length of the material and the way it is presented, this allows for a huge amount of content to be absorbed, and for original content to appear on the phones of many consumers.
Additionally, promoting on TikTok is an opportunity to engage with influencers who are already popular on the app. Not only can such an endeavour increase views and audience, but you can also add referral marketing activities, which will further benefit interest in your products and services.
Preparing a well-designed campaign that includes collaboration is an opportunity to get your message across to a community of almost 13 million people. A brand does not have to appear everywhere, but it should be noticeable where its audience is.
Shop on TikTok - how to promote it?
One of the features on TikTok is the possibility to run your shop using social media (TikTok Shopping). This business is just referred to as social commerce and gives you the opportunity to make purchases wholly or partly via the social app.
In the case of the Chinese platform, it works as follows: a creator can record a TikToki and tag his or her individual products on the video. Once the user clicks on the tagging, he or she can go directly to purchase the product in question.
The solution is extremely convenient for consumers, as in order to purchase an interesting product, they do not have to go beyond the platform where they spotted it. In turn, entrepreneurs have an additional tool to reach their customers more effectively with their offer - thanks to the shortened path from noticing the service to the consumer decision and its implementation.
TikTok does not provide official information on what to focus on to promote your shop on this platform. Success depends on a number of variables, but a few principles related to the presentation of products in e-commerce can effectively support this action:
- The prepared product catalogue will correspond to the shop window, so it is worth ensuring that it attracts customers, is interesting and easy to read. An important factor is the consistency (e.g. colours used) and quality in which the products are presented. This is the element through which the brand becomes recognisable. When entering the catalogue, the customer should know what kind of company he or she is dealing with and what to expect from its offer;
- Each product should be well titled so that the customer, when navigating through the categories, can quickly see what the offer is about. Remember that length is important - the limit is 34 characters. Additional information can be included in the description, directly on the product card;
- In your videos and posts shared online, it is a good idea to inform users of the existence of a company's TikTok Shopping tab.
Collaborating with influencers - when is it worth it?
How do you make a name for yourself on TikTok? Collaborating with influencers can be particularly fruitful when the person selected for collaboration fits in some way with the nature of the product being advertised, e.g. in terms of the age group of the audience or being a user of the product.
Promoting products does not always have to be an end in itself, especially when a brand's services reach a wide range of people from different industries, age groups and hobbies. InPost is a good example - parcel delivery is something that almost everyone uses, regardless of their particular characteristics.
Observing the company's tiktok activities, one can see that they are largely based on the creation of quality content, linked to the parcel profile of the services. The aim, however, is not to focus directly on advertising, but to build a community.
The content is entertaining, often with jokes about sending or receiving parcels, while information about InPost's operations, such as newly emerging delivery options, parcel collection, updates on the app or its features and facilities, are woven into the content.
Promoting a shop on TikTok - what costs should I be prepared for?
Interestingly, a brand does not need to have a profile on the platform at all to start advertising. This is good news for companies that are sceptical about the possibilities opened up by TikTok in social media.
On the other hand, actively maintaining an account with effective reach and which will, for example, be an extension of the shop, requires considerable creativity, commitment, regularity and ingenuity. In many situations, it may turn out that the absence of a profile will be more beneficial to the company's image than unsuccessful attempts to chase current trends.
TikTok comes to the rescue and offers such companies in-feed adverts that appear in the stream between the creators' material in the 'For You' tab of the app.
There are a number of solutions to choose from to encourage users to navigate to, for example, a shop or the website of the advertised service. The campaign can be targeted for a number of factors (e.g. gender, age brackets, interests, location, devices).
The services offered by TikTok are chargeable, although for such a fresh system the options for their use are plentiful. Depending on their needs, customers can tailor the type of strategy to the results they want to achieve.
As with other platforms, it is possible to customise how the advertising budget will be spent. The options available are the so-called lifetime and daily option.
Among the formats available on the Polish market are:
- brand takeover - spots are displayed as soon as the app is opened;
- brand lenses - advertising is done by creating and uploading your filter;
- infeed native content - full-screen adverts displayed in the stream under the 'For you' tab;
- Hashtag challenge - promotion takes place by creating a hashtag under which a community can form; in addition, a designated prize will mobilise action and generate so-called website traffic.
If you want to run an active advertising campaign, you have to take into account the costs that such activities will entail.
How to optimise a campaign on TikTok - TikTok Ads Manager
In order for paid online advertising via TikTok to be effective, it is worth using tools that will influence the quality of the chosen strategy. These include the TikTok Ads Manager, which is used to manage advertising material. Among other things, it allows targeting, the creation of posts or the generation of insight reports.
In order to use the capabilities of TikTok Ads Manager, it is necessary to create a business account, define the campaign (name and budget) and its purpose. This determines how, when and where the promotional material will go. Next, you will need to select the placement of your adverts in partner applications.
The next step is targeting the campaign, i.e. selecting the audience by, for example, age, interests or preferred devices. At the very end, there is the budget planning, i.e. how much of the campaign money is allocated to specific promotional activities.
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