Over recent years – particularly during the lockdown period – social media became an increasingly effective tool for small businesses. Many people, however, often wonder, “is TikTok good for business?”. TikTok was introduced during this time, and quickly became one of the most popular social media platforms with its unique short-form video feature.
TikTok continues to grow and develop and is now not only used for fun, but to educate and promote to a large audience. However, harnessing the power of social media – especially TikTok – can be a difficult task.
It’s also easy to develop assumptions about TikTok that it wouldn’t be relevant for your business, but as the audience grows and becomes more diverse, so too does its content and ability to help small businesses reach new potential customers.
Why use TikTok?
TikTok is a great platform for small businesses to use as part of their marketing strategy.
It offers a unique opportunity to reach a large and diverse audience. The platform is home to a wide range of users, from different backgrounds and ages, making it perfect for businesses of many sizes to tap into.
It also allows businesses to create engaging video content that can be easily shared and interacted with, helping to spread the word about the business. With its easy-to-use features and ability to target users, TikTok is a great tool to help small businesses increase their visibility and reach more potential customers.
The audience is skewed towards the younger demographic but there is an increasing spread of ages.
What makes TikTok different?
TikTok is a unique form of social media that has influenced other popular platforms, like Instagram, YouTube and Facebook, to introduce short-form content after its incredible success.
Through focusing on short-form video content, TikTok is able to maintain the attention span of online users, who often don’t have the time or patience to read or watch long content.
With video being the most effective type of content when it comes to capturing attention, other social media platforms have always had a video option, but never emphasised videos less than 30 seconds as TikTok does.
TikTok also has a number of video editing tools and interactive filters and features that other social media platforms don’t use. It was only after TikTok introduced a subtitles feature to make their videos accessible for all users that Instagram and Facebook integrated the feature.
The TikTok algorithm is also very different to other social media platforms with hashtags and keywords not being a huge determining factor. Rather, TikTok learns your interests and common account visits, and displays a personalised ‘For You Page’ with content and creators you generally enjoy.
It’s also incredibly easy to share content you like with others within the platform, through text message or whatsapp, and you can share to other social media platforms. There is also an option to ‘duet’ videos and collaborate with others on projects.
All of these features create a unique, highly engaging social media platform that you should be taking advantage of!
What to post on TikTok
The possibilities when it comes to content creation on TikTok is endless, however here are some easy but popular ideas to help you get started. It doesn’t matter what your industry or sector is, short-form video content could well have a place in your marketing strategy.
Behind the scenes
Show your audience what goes on behind the doors of your business by letting people know who you are and what your role is. Take them on tours of your office, show your product creation process or hold interviews with your staff.
You would be amazed at how the technical process of manufacturing, production, printing and the like really captures people’s attention!
Educational videos
Use Tiktok as a platform to share your top tips and tricks for your industry. Give people advice on how to do something and provide information on how your services work. This all helps to build brand credibility without the risk of losing customers due to hard selling.
YouTube used to be the home for these types of instructional videos but with overly long videos filling up the space, the short, snappy and to the point ones offer a higher chance of engagement.
Entertainment
Don’t forget that TikTok quickly became popular because of funny lip-syncing and dance videos! These are very much still around and there are always new dance trends, prank trends and audio trends.
It doesn’t hurt to post a more light-hearted video every now and then – most of the time it’s plumbers doing the Cha Cha Slide that go viral! It gives you, your business and brand some personality to stand out from the crowd so long as it’s done authentically.
Other things to remember
TikTok values original content rather than reposts, and provides lots of fantastic tools to help you create good videos. It also prefers accounts that post frequently – the more popular content creators on TikTok post between 5-10 times a day. That’s probably a bit much for a small business to manage!
But plan to post frequently for a dedicated period of time and track the results. You can always up-scale your activity if its working you and your audience.
TikTok isn’t a sales platform; what you should be aiming to do is create content that leads to people clicking through to your profile. We suggest adding a LinkTree or something similar to your TikTok bio so people can easily find your website, other social media platforms and specific downloads or products that you might mention within your videos rather than having to trawl through your website.
Start your TikTok journey today!
What are you waiting for? Download the TikTok app today and start producing great content for your new audience! If you need a hand, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with our fantastic social media marketing team.
