Marketing can sound pretty serious, and TikTok is known for its fun, playful content. Combine the two, and you’ve got something pretty powerful. Here’s how to use TikTok marketing to boost your small business!

If you’re not familiar with TikTok, you’ve either deliberately avoided it, or you’ve been residing quietly beneath a large rock for the last few years. The social media platform champions the short form video format, and has recently well and truly blown up.

From dances to musical covers, TikTok has been responsible for setting some very unforeseen trends and crazes. In March, a remix of a sea shanty recorded by a Scottish postman made it to the top of the UK charts for two weeks, all thanks to TikTok.

As you can see, the app holds some pretty significant sway when it comes to influencing people. It is for exactly this reason that utilising TikTok as a marketing tool is a must for any small business. TikTok marketing, much like marketing through Instagram, is highly customisable, so it can work for most brands. Check out these tips for using TikTok to boost your business.

Hashtag Challenges

The nature of TikTok is fun and playful, so be prepared to appear less serious and more up for a laugh. We’ve all heard of hashtags. That neat little feature that originated on Twitter, which now acts as a social weather vane. Across all social media platforms, hashtags are important in grouping your content with other relevant content, and in helping boost your reach and grow your audience.

Hashtag challenges are a phenomenon exclusive to TikTok. Normally, they are dances, or actions related to specific music that are trending globally. Users will create their own video in response, of course using the hashtag when sharing their content, and be thrown into the mix with everyone else taking part.

Some notable examples of this include the “yeeyee juice” hashtag, which saw users pretend to drink this liquid which transforms them into a cowboy whilst listening to Old Town Road by TikTok success story, Lil Nas X. This helped the track sit at number one in the Billboard chart for 17 weeks. Another big hashtag hit was the Dreams challenge, which centred around a user who skateboarded to work, whilst drinking cranberry juice and listening to the Fleetwood Mac song. This saw the 1977 track in the charts again, only displaying further the impact TikTok has over the music industry and also people’s behaviour.

Getting involved in the latest hashtag challenges and trends will let people see your fun side, but also potentially expose your business to a huge audience.

Clever Targeting

The largest demographic of TikTok users is the 16-24 year old group. But, don’t fall into the trap of thinking that the app is solely for Gen Z. Usage of the short form video platform has skyrocketed recently, and the user base has expanded to span a range of ages.

With this in mind, you should try and create content that you think your own key demographic would enjoy and engage with. If you’re looking to draw in a wider audience – for example, a younger crowd – you should do some research into what they respond well to. Which leads on to the next point…

Be Nosey

Performing a competitive analysis or audit if you’re getting technical, but simply “being nosey” is a fantastic way to figure out what content will work for you and your target audience.

As a small business, you have probably taken a look around to see who your competitors are and what you’re up against. Taking inspiration from them is no bad thing. If they’re a competitor in your field then it must mean they’re doing something right.

Try to find a handful of competitors or relevant businesses on the app and check out their content. See what has worked well for them, and what maybe didn’t land quite like they’d hoped it would. You can use this information to form your next moves on the app and shape the content you share.

TikTok is led by users and creators, and plays host to all kinds of social media influencers. Because of this, you should also make a note of what influencers who could be relevant to your business are getting up to.

Add Music

By now, you are probably seeing the massive link between successful, popular TikTok videos and the use of music. When you upload content on TikTok, you absolutely should include catchy music that will hook people, stopping their scroll in its tracks.

You can add music to your videos by using the TikTok audio library. Much like the Instagram music library, you can choose from thousands of popular tracks from artists. Featuring music in your videos is free, as you don’t need to pay royalties.

Adding music to the background of videos is important for a number of reasons. It helps viewers connect emotionally to the visual content, causing them to feel something. This, in turn, aids how memorable a video is. The addition of music also creates a professional look, plus it simply adds to the entertainment value.

Livestreaming is a prevalent feature on most platforms, particularly Instagram Live and Twitch. TikTok also offers the option of users broadcasting a live video, and music should not be missed out here. However, you won’t be able to use any old music. Your livestream could be stopped if you use music that you have not licensed.

Synchedin offers a huge library of royalty free music that is free to play in the background of livestreams. Avoid any copyright issues but still make an impact, and get people thinking about your small business!