A brand’s presence on the “trendy” channel TikTok just because it’s all the rage right now is not the way to go. Instead, TikTok should serve as an extension of your content strategy, in line with your brand’s core values, primary offers, and other platforms. May I sign up for your newsletter? Do you have a profile on any other social media sites? A plan for using paid media? Just as you would make sure your brand and messages are consistent across all these platforms, you should do the same with TikTok so that your audience can engage with you and benefit from the content you share in yet another way.
Make your long-term objectives very clear and quantifiable
You should have a clear goal in mind for your TikTok presence, whether it’s to build a strong organic presence or to run a conversion-driven performance campaign, and you should be able to explain how that goal ties into your overall brand goals.
Have you set out to find the sweet spot between product and market? How can we raise the profile of our brand and stimulate consumer memory? Cultivate a neighbourhood? Influence the number of sales you get? Aligning TikTok as an additional channel in your marketing strategy and understanding how it works in tandem with the rest of the channel mix is crucial if you want to see measurable results.
Be familiar with the environment you will be operating in
No matter the platform, research is the first step in any successful content strategy. You need to know the lay of the land, the major actors, and the cultural norms in which you will be working before you can succeed there.
It’s not necessary that these be direct rivals; rather, look for accounts that share your interests in terms of content style, brand voice, and TikTok positioning. Consider: which companies or creators have successfully curated a strong social media profile and engaged with their unique communities, inside their own industry or vertical?
Pay special attention to aspects including editing style, presentation, and the usage of trends, native TikTok video editing features, and formats as you perform your study.
Define your brand’s foundations with laser focus
It’s time to come back to brand fundamentals after surveying the landscape and learning what’s working for the competition. At this point, you should zero in on your own brand to determine its central selling points and distinguishing features. You may recall that we discussed the overarching (common) ideals around which your brand’s community should be based. This is where knowing your brand’s values and the specific benefits you give your target audience can come in handy.
To test out different niches on TikTok, you should divide your material into “buckets” based on your pillars
Once your brand’s foundations have been established, it’s time to begin organising them into content “buckets,” or broad categories from which to pull ideas for videos. Step 2’s findings about your brand’s values, offerings, and points of differentiation will inform the content categories you create in Step 3.
Try out new methods of distribution and video formats based on the most successful content “buckets”
So, what have you done up to this point? You’ve done the legwork to determine who your competitors are, how they stack up against your brand, and how to best position yourself in the market, and now you’re ready to develop a content strategy to further strengthen your brand. The next stage is to fine-tune your experiments by testing many permutations of films within the successful content “buckets.”
Do you still have the notes from your market research on the competition? What did you write down about successful uses of trends, editorial approaches, and content distribution? Specifically, this is where these considerations come into play: Now that you know where your content fits, you can try out new approaches to each “bucket,” or category, of material in an effort to find the most effective formats for your company.
TikTok paid advertising should only be considered after you’ve produced high-quality, organically-performing video content
To this day, in the greater digital marketing ecosystem, organic efforts and paid initiatives have been treated as two whole different disciplines. The branding strategy prioritised a natural social presence, whereas the performance strategy favoured sponsored media.
In light of the current industry trend towards more genuine, user-generated content, TikTok has seriously undermined the separation of the two. Companies need to consider a robust organic presence crucial to the success of their sponsored TikTok marketing plan (more on that later).
Examine the results of both organic and paid strategies
You’ve arrived. You’ve determined where your material will go in advance, you’re uploading videos on a regular basis, and you may have even launched a paid campaign on the platform. Your TikTok marketing plan is officially underway. It’s crucial to learn how to analyse your results (whether paid or organic) now so you can gain useful information.
Organically, there are a few measures that allow you to measure your success on TikTok. Followers, video plays, likes (total and individual), comments, shares, bookmarks, and watch time are all tracked.
Experiment, learn, rinse & repeat
There you have it! Congratulations, you have created an experimentation flywheel that will allow you to improve your brand positioning (tone, voice, identity, values) through macro-experiments, create a distinct and recognisable delivery style through micro-experiments, and launch paid campaigns with a greater return on investment. Using this method, you can break into a previously untapped market, foster organic growth in your community, and enhance the effectiveness of your material indefinitely.
Considerations Concluding
TikTok is increasingly becoming an area of potential for companies to develop a new touchpoint to reach new audiences, build communities, and drive conversions; it is no more only a platform for teens, dancing, and lipsyncing. If you don’t establish a robust presence on this platform today, you’ll be left behind tomorrow, and you’ll be passing up on valuable opportunities.
