Oh, TikTok.
Whether you’re a devoted TikToker or brand-new to the scene, we’re here to help you get the most out of the platform.
Growing your TikTok account and boosting your business requires more than just catchy songs, clever filters, and an insatiable appetite to dance. You need TikTok marketing know-how—and we’re here to help you find it.
This guide to TikTok marketing strategies will answer your burning questions: when to post on TikTok, how often to post on TikTok, how to work with TikTok influencers, and more.
Ready to skyrocket your TikTok growth? Let’s get started. First, let’s understand a little bit more about the TikTok platform and how it can help your business. Then, we’ll get into our favorite TikTok marketing strategies.
What Is TikTok, and Why You Should Care
It’s OK—we won’t make you ask. TikTok is an up-and-coming social media platform that launched (in its present form) in 2018. We say up-and-coming because the platform is in its relative infancy compared to Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, who’ve all been around for well over a decade now.
TikTok lets users create, share, and watch short videos. Unlike other platforms, it’s a video-only app.
Have you used Instagram Reels yet? If so, the platform functions very similarly to that—just as Instagram Stories closely resembles Snapchat’s entire platform.
So, why should an entrepreneur like you spend their time and energy on TikTok? Good question. It turns out there are a ton of TikTok marketing opportunities on the platform that could catapult your business growth.
- Gen Z User Targeting: If your audience is Gen Z, TikTok is the place to be. It’s now even more popular than Instagram among Gen Z users.
- User Engagement: TikTok has the highest engagement of any social media app, with the average user session almost as high as 11 minutes. Hook TikTok users with your content, and there’s a good chance they’ll stick around to watch more.
- In-App Shopping: TikTok is a money-driver when it comes to influencing digital spend. 67% of TikTok users said the app inspired them to shop (even if they weren’t planning on it).
- Brand Connection: 73% of TikTok users feel deeper connections with brands they interact with on the platform. Want to create relationships with your customers? Use TikTok.
14 Punchy TikTok Marketing Strategies
Most TikTok users don’t go to the platform for news, updates, or shopping—they go to laugh, smile, and have a good time. However, that doesn’t mean your business or tech startup doesn’t have a place on TikTok. It just means you need to be a bit more clever with the content you post.
Once you’ve nailed your TikTok content strategy, it’s time to start growing your audience, reach, traffic, and (hopefully) sales. Below, we’ve outlined 13 TikTok marketing strategies to help you make it happen.
You don’t need to try all the strategies (that’d take a while). Instead, we recommend picking a handful, experimenting, and seeing what happens. Like what you see? Replicate your success. Looking for more growth? Try more of these TikTok marketing strategies.
1. Post at the Best Time on TikTok
Want to know when to post on TikTok? Don’t we all. The answer is a bit frustrating, and you probably already see it coming. The best time to post on TikTok is…well, it depends.
Your industry and audience all impact when someone is most likely to open up TikTok and engage with your content. Think about it. A college student will be on the app at different times than a full-time employee or mother of 3 kids.
While there’s no universal best time to post on TikTok, Influencer Marketing Hub did a bit of research to give you a good starting point. Start with the following numbers and tweak them as you analyze your own analytics and audience engagement:
- Monday: 6 AM, 10 AM, 10 PM
- Tuesday: 2 AM, 4 AM, 9 AM
- Wednesday: 7 AM, 8 AM, 11 PM
- Thursday: 9 AM, 12 AM, 7 PM
- Friday: 5 AM, 1 PM, 3 PM
- Saturday: 11 AM, 7 PM, 8 PM
- Sunday: 7 AM, 8 AM, 4 PM
While the timing is noteworthy, what’s more important is the consistency and knowing how often to post on TikTok. More on that next.
2. Get Into a Rhythm and Be Consistent
How often should you post on TikTok? Every day? Twice a day? What about as little as once a week?
Well, there’s no magic number. Some accounts see great engagement from posting multiple times per day, while others can see plenty of TikTok growth by just posting once.
Don’t fixate on a number—focus on consistency. It’s more important that you get on a regular publishing schedule than haphazardly hitting your goal by posting sporadically throughout the week or month.
TikTok recommends posting 1-4 times per day, so we suggest starting there. Watch your analytics. If posting 4 times a day yields you the same growth and engagement as posting 2 times a day, don’t waste time creating the extra content. Keep it simple.
Everything I've Learned Spending $2M on TikTok Ads | Gerardo Perez
3. Work with TikTok Influencers
TikTok influencers have huge audiences, massive reach, and top-notch engagement. Working with one of these stars can often yield better results than a pay-per-click (PPC) advertisem*nt.
But, where do you start? Fortunately, TikTok has made it easy for you to find influencer partners and measure your results.
Head over to the TikTok Creator Marketplace to start sifting through influencers. You’ll be able to see their audience demographics such as age, gender, TikTok usage, and typical devices to learn if they’re the right fit for you before you invest your hard-earned money.
These influencers know what they’re doing, so don’t panic if you don’t have a TikTok content strategy nailed down yet. Give them the product and a little bit of direction, then get out of the way—they’ll make the magic happen.
4. Niche Down to TikTok Microinfluencers
Can’t afford a TikTok influencer like Tyler Brown or Zach King? No problem. A TikTok microinfluencer might be a better fit for your brand anyway. A microinfluencer is a lot like a typical influencer—they are on just a smaller scale.
Microinfluencers tend to have follower counts in the thousands instead of the millions. However, smaller doesn’t mean worse. Their miniature communities often help them interact more intimately with their audience, boosting trust and engagement.
TikTok microinfluencers tend to be more budget-friendly, too. You can always experiment with them for a smaller cost to see how the partnership pans out. If you like what you see, you can either work with more microinfluencers or consider a one-time engagement with a big-time TikTok influencer.
How I Find Influencers That Make Us 250k A Week (FULL TUTORIAL) | Shopify Tips with Gretta Van Riel
5. Master TikTok SEO
TikTok has over 1 billion users posting and sharing content. If you want your videos to get attention, you’ll need to master TikTok search engine optimization (SEO):
- TikTok Hashtags: Use relevant trending hashtags with your post to expose it to a larger audience. Do your research to find long-form hashtags with low competition where your content can actually rank at the top rather than getting buried under thousands of other videos.
- Naming Conventions: Use a profile name that’s easy for users to search for and find. If you post freelance writing tips, include “freelance” and “writing” in your name and about section to increase your discoverability.
- Engagement: SEO begins with creating content that users love. Your goal should be to get new users to watch your content (from beginning to end) and watch more of your videos. If you can achieve that, then the TikTok algorithm will start spinning in your favor and help your content take off.
6. Advertise on TikTok
TikTok has various advertising options to help you reach your goals. Whether you want to drive traffic to your website, find new leads, or grow your audience, the platform has robust advertising capabilities.
Choose a goal, fine-tune your audience, decide your budget, design your ad, and voilà—you’re ready to launch your TikTok ad.
You can use in-feed ads, branded hashtags, top view ads, branded effects, and brand takeovers to reach your target audience. In-feed ads are the most straightforward, and that’s where we recommend you start.
Keep it simple, and follow the format of typical non-ad user posts. Remember, people don’t come to TikTok to learn or shop—they come to laugh and play. If you need ideas, check out the TikTok Business Inspiration page. It’s full of real-life TikTok ads from businesses big and small.
7. Beat the Trends
TikTok is a place where trending videos win, and past content “is like so last week.” However, staying on top of the latest trends and creating content relevant to your brand is far from easy.
Need help spotting the trends before they’ve gone mainstream? We recommend Exploding Topics. Exploding Topics’ purpose is to “surface rapidly growing topics before they take off.” Use this tool to identify trends that are picking up steam and others that are slowing down.
For example, as of March 2022, “TikTok made me buy it” (a fad blaming the platform for a purchase) continues to gain momentum. You could still jump on this bandwagon and capitalize on the trend.
On the other hand, the topic “TikTok recipe” is starting to cool off. It saw its peak interest and engagement back in January of 2021, and you’re probably better off creating other content at this point.
8. Understand Your Target Audience
TikTok has over 1 billion users—you can’t create content that all of them will love. Some look for dog videos, while others want to watch celebrities dance.
Learn about your target market. The more you know about their demographics, psychographics, and interests, the better you’ll be able to create content tailored specifically to them.
Defining your target market will also help you stretch your marketing spend. You don’t have unlimited time or money to create videos, work with influencers, or pay for ads. Better targeting means more efficiency, leading to a higher return on investment (ROI) on TikTok.
9. Monitor Your Analytics
Keep track of how all your content performs. Check in regularly to see why your engagement might be soaring or dropping.
Did a specific video go viral? Dissect it to learn what made it different from the others. Was the content unique, or did you post at a certain high-performing time? Or is it possibly a combination of both.
The sooner you find your formula to success, the more consistently you’ll be able to build content that drives engagement, traffic, and more followers.
Don’t just look for success indicators, though—also, look for what doesn’t work. Analyze your epic fails to see what went wrong. Did the content fall short, or did you post at a terrible time? Could it potentially do better if you reposted it at a different time with new hashtags?
10. Test New Ideas (Read: Have Fun)
TikTok is all about entertaining and having fun—don’t take yourself (or your brand) too seriously. Sing, dance, and reference pop culture. Every brand has space for being a bit more creative. Don’t limit yourself because you’re supposed to be professional.
For example, look at Slack’s brand-new TikTok account. They could be boring and stiff (like most publicly traded companies), but they made their intro video cute and witty.
Experiment with new ideas. Play around with filters, add stickers, and choose some dance-inducing music. It’s all part of being on the TikTok platform.
11. Go Live
Lights, camera, action. Like most social platforms, TikTok has a live-streaming feature. However, you’ll need to be 16 years or older and have 1,000+ followers to unlock this tool.
Live-streaming on TikTok is way different from the platform’s 15-second clips—take advantage of this new creative space. Host Q&As, perform tutorials, and engage with your community in real-time.
Use your TikTok analytics to learn when your audience is most likely to be on the platform. You don’t want to go live when everyone is busy.
12. Engage with Your Community
TikTok is a community. If you want to be followed, follow other accounts. If you want comments and likes, comment and like other videos.
Connect in the comments and listen to your audience’s feedback. We recommend responding to every comment and message (at least while it’s feasible). This engagement will keep users coming back for more, and it creates a connection with your brand that gets users to tell their friends, partner, or mom about it.
Ask your audience what kind of videos they want to see. While it’s fine to go with your gut and produce what feels right, wouldn’t it be nice to hear from your audience about their interests?
Consider using a live stream to learn about your audience, and then use those insights for your upcoming videos. Watch your analytics to see if it resonates with your audience—if it does, you’ve struck gold.
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13. Use Closed Captions (When Possible)
Including text in your videos isn’t just about improving inclusivity and accessibility (though that’s reason enough alone). Adding captions to your TikTok videos increases impressions by 55.7%.
Many people visit TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube and consume content without ever turning on the sound. Cater to this audience with videos tailor-made for them.
Another trending feature is TikTok’s text-to-speech. TikTok will automatically do a voiceover for your displayed text. Some people hate the default voice, but others find it adds to the experience. If you have the capacity and resources, do your own captions with a custom voiceover.
14. Cross-Promote on Other Channels
Post your TikTok videos on other platforms. For example, you can post your TikTok videos to Instagram or YouTube to influence your followers there to go check you out on TikTok. This is a fantastic method if you already have an existing following on other channels.
However, be careful about what you cross-promote on other platforms. Your hilarious dancing video on TikTok might not do so well on LinkedIn.
Grow Your Business with TikTok Ads
TikTok isn’t going away, so don’t miss out on the fastest-growing audience online. Sign up for our free TikTok ads masterclass and discover how to skyrocket more than just your TikTok growth.
Gerardo Perez, founder of “Marketing&” a TikTok digital agency, will show you how to create your first high-converting ad from start to finish, even if you’re a total beginner. Plus, you’ll see why reposting winning Facebook & Instagram ads on TikTok doesn’t work and what Gerardo recommends you should do instead.
