You Can Walk the Walk, But Can You Tik the Tok?

A Beginner’s Look at TikTok for Marketing

Okay so you’ve been hearing about TikTok for a long time and you’re wondering if it’s time to start an account and begin marketing on it for your business or brand.  We’re curious, too.

We start every social media marketing project talking about the target demographic for the brand.  WHO are you trying to reach?!  That question usually tells us which social media platforms to focus on.

So, who is on TikTok?

• There are 800 million monthly active users.  More than half of those users are from India.  China is the next most popular country for the app, followed by the United States.
• In the US, there are about 125 million users. 14.3 million of those users are adults.
• 41% of TikTok users are 16-24 years old.
• 90% of TikTok users open the app multiple times per day.

This data tells us that if your target demographic is younger, between 16 and 24, TikTok could be a good place for you to start marketing.

So how do you market on TikTok?

Short answer, we don’t know yet. 

Here’s what we’re doing, and what we advise you to start doing as well.

• Create an account: Do you have an account yet?  If not, create one.  It’s time to start researching and creating your footprint on TikTok.  Pro tip: Make sure your account is branded the same as your other social media channels.  Keep your username, or handle, consistent with your other channels. Consider having your profile picture be the same as it is on your other channels as well.
• Connect with friends: When you log in, click the Me icon on the bottom right of the app. Click the +person icon at the top left, then find your Facebook friends and find contacts from your phone.  Connect with anyone you know and start following them and engaging with their content.
• Research trends: TikTok is all about trending content.  There are hashtag trends and hashtag challenges happening constantly and users find the trends/challenges, create their own videos, and post them using the associated hashtag.  You can find these trends by clicking the Discover icon near the bottom left and scrolling through the options presented to you.  You can also use the search bar at the top of the Discover page to search for topics you’re specifically interested in.
• Start posting content: Part of the fun of TikTok is the ability to create and edit videos on the app.  You can capture content within the app, or you can upload multiple video clips and add transitions, effects, etc. to make it look more engaging and polished.  Make sure you create the content intentionally, meaning you find a hashtag or challenge that appeals to you and create the content to fit within that trending content.  Once you’ve edited the video, make sure you include the hashtag you’re wanting to show up for in the post content that goes along with the video.

If you all are interested, we’ll keep reporting on what we find on TikTok.  We’ll show you the content we see working well, the content that seems to be a waste of time, and/or the parts of the app we find to be just plain FUN!