20 Ideas for Growing Your Business on TikTok

TikTok has recently emerged as one of the most dominant social media platforms, and it's important for businesses and marketers to pay attention. TikTok focuses on discovery. It shows users new and diverse content which is perfect for businesses wanting to gain exposure from new, untapped audiences. TikTok's For You and Explore pages are highly likely to expose users to a variety of new content, creators and brands that they are unfamiliar with.

Despite its massive popularity and viral potential, many businesses are still unfamiliar and largely inactive on TikTok. This comes down to a number of factors; lack of awareness, it seems difficult and time consuming, misconceptions around the demographic, and uncertainty around the ROI TikTok advertising will provide.

Businesses like Duolingo, Chipotle, Eos, and countless more are busting these myths wide open by using TikTok to drive app downloads, spearhead successful product launches and connect with massive new customer segments. For some brands like The Marshmellow Co. TikTok has been foundational to their success, as they have amassed millions of followers and connected with tons of new customers on the platform.

The TikTok algorithm provides a unique opportunity for businesses to reach a wider audience and gain more followers, even if they have a small social media presence to begin with.

People are spending increasing amounts of time scrolling through TikTok, so it presents a valuable opportunity for brand exposure, audience reach, and engagement. Plus, TikTok suits a wide range of budgets, and you can easily get started no matter the size of your business.

According to TikTok, '55% of people on TikTok say TikTok helps them discover new products/brands, 68% of users look up reviews of a product/brand on TikTok, and 48% of TikTok users are interested in making a purchase on or from TikTok in the next 3 months'.

With all this in mind, it's clear to see how TikTok can be a great marketing tool.

In this article, our expert tips and tricks will show you how to grow on TikTok, expand your audience, promote your offering and create an effective TikTok marketing strategy.

Changing your TikTok account from a personal account to a business account is a great way to take advantage of the many marketing tools TikTok offers.

The key features of a business account are:

Showcase and sell all your products from inside the app. It's a perfect way to harness your TikTok audience to drive immediate sales.

Unlock deeper analytics than you'll get with a regular account. Find out the average watch time of your videos, what percentage of viewers watched your entire video, where they found your video and more insightful data to help you optimize your TikTok strategy.

Schedule posts and set up automatic messages to automate and scale your marketing strategy on TikTok and save yourself a ton of time.

Drive traffic from TikTok by adding your website link and contact info to your bio to convert engaged viewers into website visitors and potential customers.

Access TikTok's Business Creative Center which provides expert advice on using TikTok for businesses as well as heaps of powerful tools like an advanced video editor, high-quality video templates, interactive ads, superlikes and more!

When you're promoting products or services, you can't use just any licensed song without being in risk of violating copyright laws. Thankfully, TikTok's Commercial Music Library gives you access to hundreds of thousands of songs and soundbites that you can use in your brand videos without obtaining any additional approval or violating copyright law. You can read more about this here.

All of these features make promoting your products and services more much effective and efficient, and all you have to do to make the switch is navigate to your profile settings, select "Manage Account" and tap "Switch to Pro Account" to select the business profile type that aligns with your goals.

Using trending sounds and songs on TikTok is one of the best ways to get your video seen by more users. It is essential to the way TikTok and its algorithm works. When you use a trending song, your video is far more likely to show up on the "For You" pages of users who are interested in that song.

For example, this user made a video with a trending sound as a backing track and got 2.8 million views, compared to their other videos which typically receive only a few thousand:

Finding trending songs is easy, you can check out TikTok's Trend Discovery tool, browse the "Discover" page on TikTok, or use TikTok's search function to find a specific song. Once you have found the trending song you want to use, simply create a video that features the song in some way.

If you are using TikTok to promote a brand, product or service you will need to switch to a business account and use songs and soundbites from TikTok's Commercial Music Library to avoid obtaining any additional approval to use songs or violating copyright law.

This might seem like a nuisance, but the Commercial Music Library contains plenty of great tracks, and it will save you a lot of headaches down the line.

You can explore the Commercial Music Library for yourself to see what sounds they have on offer.

Challenges and trends make up a sizeable amount of the TikToks you'll see posted on a daily basis.

When joining in on a challenge or trend, be sure to think about what would be fun and interesting for your target audience. Don't overcomplicate things — think easy-to-follow, catchy, funny videos. And always remember to stay relevant to your brand.

Musicians are regularly able to get in on the fun on showcase their own musical talent by taking part in musical trends. Occasionally they can even get involved with a trend that uses their own music.

Once you've filmed your video, make sure you boost it by using the right hashtags. This is great because like trending songs, trending hashtags are more likely to be shown on people's FYP.

Try #fyp #viraltiktok #trending or #trendchallenge.

Even if it isn't incredibly relevant to your brand, popular trends like dance challenges can be great way to generate fresh content ideas, expose your TikTok account to new viewers and liven up your TikTok marketing strategy.

This is what GoPro has done with the #GoProAwards, which encourages TikTokers to share their best GoPro footage for a chance to win prizes. This is an incredible way for TikTok to drive engagement, get regular users to post about their brand, and generate a ton of authentic user generated content they can use in their own TikTok marketing strategy.

You can learn more about generating valuable UGC with contests right here.

People love to learn new tips, tricks, and hacks. This is why educational content and tutorials are so popular on TikTok.

Great examples of this are beauty brands who go viral with videos showing off their products. Fenty Beauty has boosted engagement massively by doing this. People are more likely to be convinced to buy your product after seeing a video showing off its benefits and exactly how to use it.

You can create videos about how to use your products or services, or how they can be used to solve a problem viewers might be facing. You can also make insightful videos about your industry and insider tips you've learnt along the way.

Just remember, keep these types of videos useful and informative whilst still being fun and engaging. You need to keep the viewer interested beyond obvious marketing content so they don't just scroll past. Use humor, visuals, sounds, or storytelling to make your videos more interesting to watch. Keep up to date on what tutorials are trending and get involved!

Behind the scenes content on TikTok is very popular. You can make behind the scenes videos in a variety of ways; filming a 'day in the life' video, showing how your products are made, or even giving a funny glimpse into your company culture.

The benefit of behind-the-scenes videos is that they give your audience an insight into the people behind your brand and the ability to connect with them on a deeper level, helping to build trust and credibility.

Plus, they are interesting videos that users love to interact with which will lead to you earning more exposure.

Bonus points if the backing track to your #BTS video is a trending sound!

One of the most important ways to grow your network is by consistently engaging with other users. This means not only replying to comments on your own videos and reacting to direct tags and mentions, but also liking and commenting on other people's posts or duetting and stitching other people's videos.

This means that when people scroll through comments they will notice your profile and hopefully want to engage with you. All of this is essential for increasing brand awareness and utilizing TikTok's audience network.

Wendy's, the American fast-food chain, is famous for their funny responses to comments on their page:

TikTok is designed to be scrolled through quickly, if your video takes too long to get to the point, people tend to lose interest and keep scrolling. This is because unlike other social media platforms where you more actively follow accounts and search for specific content, TikTok is a curation of small videos that the algorithm thinks that you might like.

You aren't necessarily interested in everything that pops up on your FYP, so people are quicker to dismiss videos that aren't immediately engaging.

TikTok's young audience enjoys exciting content and funny videos, and that is really the whole point of it. Keep videos under 30 seconds and save the longer form video content for platforms like YouTube.

People are becoming more conscious of the companies they support and what they consume. It's important that people feel they are making a good decision by supporting your business.

You can do this by creating behind the scenes TikTok videos showing your company values or how you work towards your company mission. You can also use your TikTok content to share stories and examples of how your company has helped bring about a positive impact.

This could include things like showing your company pays fair wages and has ethical working conditions, you source sustainable materials, or you support your local community. You could post content showing where you source your materials from, how your product is made, and who makes it.

There is an increasing popularity in supporting small businesses that help the local community, individual families, and have a more positive impact than huge, impersonal cooperations: just check out #smallbusiness!

Most importantly, post authentic content and be genuine. People are increasingly skeptical of dishonest marketing tactics like greenwashing.

Bear in mind, the company values and mission doesn't need to be over the top and cheesy, often companies can make it too vague, and it becomes a bit meaningless. The video below is a good example of company values, they focus on the freshness and quality of their ingredients which is important to the customer and sets them apart from other brands.

The optimal time to post on TikTok depends on factors like your target audience's location and age group. However, some general guidelines can enhance your chances of reaching more users.

Influencer Marketing Hub has suggested that the best times to post on TikTok in the US are:

• Tuesday, 9:00 AM
• Thursday, 12:00 AM
• Friday, 5:00 AM

These timings reflect average engagement rates for TikTok posts across various industries, but it's crucial to recognize that results will vary across different audiences. More than trying to always post at a specific time, it's important to follow these tips:

• Experiment with different times of the day to identify what works best for you.
• Analyze your audience's activity patterns.
• Post when your target audience is most likely to be using TikTok, such as during their lunch break or commute.
• Avoid posting during peak hours when your content might get lost in the surge of content.
• Utilize TikTok's analytics to monitor your post performance and pinpoint the most suitable times to post for your audience.

And remember, TikTok is saturated with content. It has over 1 billion monthly users, 85 percent of which have posted at least 1 video. To maximize your chance of standing out, brands need to post consistently and post a lot.

TikTok recommends 3x per day which could seem too much or like spam posting, but on TikTok most of your audience is very unlikely to see everything you post. This means unlike Instagram and other platforms, people are less likely to unfollow you for posting too much and crowding their feed because only a few of those videos will show up on a person's FYP at a time.

However, remember to keep your content high quality, don't just post for the sake of it. You can always repost your high-quality content a few days later.

A great way to improve your productivity is by using your TikTok videos and converting them to Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, or Facebook posts. When you upload a TikTok to Instagram, you save yourself from doubling your work by creating separate videos for each platform. They have such a similar format that you can easily use the same video without having to re-edit it.

All you have to do is download the TikTok video to your phone and then upload it to Instagram Reels. It is a great way to increase your audience and save you a lot of time. You can get a ton of great ideas on content that works well on Instagram right here.

Same things apply here, use hashtags and trending sounds.

Take Redbull as an example, they create exciting content and repurpose it on other social media platforms. Remember, though, the key is short form content for TikTok. They don't post 10-minute-long videos, they keep them quick.

If you create longer form content like YouTube videos and video podcasts, you can repurpose the best bits fo TikTok with AI. AI-powered content repurposing tools are revolutionizing the way creators and businesses manage their content libraries. These tools can automatically identify and extract the most engaging moments from your long-form videos, transforming them into short-form clips perfect for social media platforms like TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts.

Vidyo.ai is a leading AI-powered content repurposing tool that helps you maximize the reach and impact of your videos. With Vidyo.ai, you can:

• Automatically generate short-form clips from your long-form videos
• Customize clips with text overlays, captions, and music
• Export clips in various formats for easy sharing on social media

If you have the budget, a rewarding way to market your product is through TikTok influencer marketing. There is a reason that social media influencers are making so much money! They can have a massive audience reach and their viewers look to their videos for product recommendations.

When choosing influencers to partner with, it's important to select those who create content that your target audience will love and trust. If an influencer is constantly posting paid ads, it's a red flag that they're not reliable and so your ROI is likely to be lower.

TikTok users can spot disingenuous influencers from a mile away. When an influencer is constantly posting paid ads, it's clear that they're only in it for the money, not because they genuinely love the product or service they're promoting. This lack of authenticity can discourage potential customers and damage your brand reputation.

In contrast, influencers who create genuine and engaging content that resonates with their audience are more likely to generate positive results for your brand. These influencers are able to build trust with their followers and create a sense of community around your brand. When they recommend a product or service, their followers are more likely to listen and make a purchase.

So, when choosing influencers to partner with, it's important to focus on quality over quantity. Instead of partnering with a large number of influencers, focus on partnering with a small number of high-quality influencers who have a strong following among your target audience. This will help you make the most of TikTok influencer marketing and build more meaningful relationships with your customers.

You can pay for the influencer to talk about your brand, or alternatively, you can send them your products for them to try out. Don't expect the influencer to market your product for free, but if they genuinely enjoy it, they might want to speak about it on their social media platform anyway- it's worth a go!

Your bio is a speedy, free, and essential tool to introduce your audience to your brand. If a user clicks on your profile this is the first thing they'll see, so it shouldn't be overlooked. Try to keep it short and sweet. Think of the most important information about your business that you want user to see and make sure it is in your bio.

You can also add a link to your TikTok bio. You can use this to direct visitors to your website, online store, Linktree, or special campaigns such as a flash sale or a promotional giveaway.

If you're running a special campaign from your bio like a giveaway or discounted offer then make sure you post videos about it to maximize its reach.

Who wouldn't want to win a prize?

Running promotional contests and giveaways is an excellent way to engage your TikTok audience and use exciting prizes to incentivize powerful actions that will help grow your following and drive new business. It's the perfect way to convert your TikTok audience into valuable leads and loyal customers.

Just take a look at this easy campaign template which you can use to grab your audience's attention and drive meaningful actions like email subscriptions, website visits, social media engagement and online referrals:

  Learn More   Use This Template

Running giveaways is usually a massive pain when you need to manually count entries, pick winners and analyze data, but Gleam makes it easy. All you need to do is customize your campaign, link to it from your TikTok bio, and create some TikTok videos promoting the campaign.

It's that easy. Gleam will automatically collect and verify entries, pick random winners and allow you to easily collect and analyze data from your campaign.

Testimonials and reviews are powerful. Think about how many reviews you read before buying a product or choosing a restaurant. They show honest opinions of your products or service and give customers an idea of what to expect and most importantly, if it is worth their money.

A good testimonial should be specific, authentic, and relevant to your target audience.

You can include testimonials on your TikTok by reposting positive customer videos about your products or displaying short reviews on videos where you talk about your services.

You can even generate valuable testimonials yourself by creating branded hashtags and encouraging customers to use them to show off your products. This is a strategy Calvin Klein has had massive success with, using the #MyCalvins campaign to encourage the creation of user generated content and build a strong, authentic social presence.

There are few better ways to educate yourself about the way TikTok works than to become an active user yourself. To truly know what content will work well on the platform, you have to be genuinely aware of what users like yourself would want to see.

Get involved on TikTok and start scrolling to get a feel for what type of videos get suggested to you, the format of the videos, and the content you find engaging and interesting.

TikTok marketing doesn't have an exact formula that guarantees the path to success. A lot of it is trial and error and casting your net far and wide. This means it's worth posting a lot of different types of content to see what works for you, TikTok users, and your target audience. Posting a variety of content increases the likelihood of going viral and just more generally, results in a wider audience reach.

Some fun examples of brands that do this are Starbucks, Disney, and Nike. Starbucks post funny videos, behind the scenes with baristas, and trending or festive new drink combos. Disney posts trailers, clips, and interactive content. Nike posts content of athletes, Q&A's, and new product features. What they all have in common is that they post a variety of content but still keep it relevant to TikTok- they keep it engaging and interactive.

The TikTok Shop allows you to sell products directly through TikTok, which is a great way to drive sales because users don't even have to exit the app to purchase from your store.

By setting up a TikTok shop you can sell the products featured in your videos, setup a shopfront on your profile, or create Livestreams to sell products.

You also can use their analytic features to see how your sales are doing. Remember to advertise your products as video content so it reaches more users, don't just expect people to look at your profile. Keep the content on trend and use all the other tips in the article. Remember, don't overdo it, you shouldn't mention your trying to sell something in every single video you make or it will put customers off!

TikTok Shop is currently only available in the United States, the United Kingdom, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. To become a TikTok Seller, simply sign up at the TikTok Seller Center.

As we know, billions of people use TikTok every day. To stand out in the crowd, you need to have a unique brand voice. It is important to convey the right personality for your brand because it will help you communicate to and reach your target audience. It can help you attract and reach more users because you avoid blending in, your brand is more intriguing and interesting, and that equals more engagement.

A great example of this is Duolingo. They consistently post amusing, educational, and relevant videos, all in different formats. What stays the same is their distinct Duolingo brand voice, and this voice fits in perfectly with TikTok's user demographic.

Just like behind the scenes videos, TikTok Live is a great way for your audience to get to know you on a more personal level. You can benefit from the genuine interactions with customers as a change from scripted and pre-recorded content.

You can try running a live demo of your product or hosting Q&A's talking about your offerings. You can even monetize these by hosting a TikTok Live for a product launch, providing discount codes or hosting giveaways in return for engagement and an increased audience reach. You can also sell your products directly through your TikTok shop on Livestream.

Check out the TikTok LIVE Creator Hub to learn all about how you can go Live on TikTok.

As well as posting organic content, if you have a TikTok business account you can also expand your reach by running some paid TikTok ads. There are a variety of different ad options available through TikTok. Be sure to research your target audience, budget, time frame, and goals in order to choose the best option for you.

Full-screen ad that appears as soon as users open the TikTok app.

In feed ads are video ads that appears in the user's feed, just like a normal TikTok video.

A filter or effect that users can add to their own TikTok videos.

A unique hashtag that users can use in their videos to participate in a challenge or trend.

An ad that promotes an existing TikTok video.

With all these types of powerful TikTok ads at your disposal, all you need to do is choose the right one for you. You can learn more about the different TikTok ads and how to use them here.

We've given you a ton of valuable tips that should set you up for success. When you make your way through these powerful strategies, there are a few guiding principles that you should always keep in mind:

• Consistency is key on TikTok. You need to regularly post content in order to keep your audience engaged and maintain your presence on the platform.
• Be patient and persistent, overnight success is very rare! Keep refining, updating, and perfecting your TikTok marketing strategy to steadily and sustainably grow your TikTok following.
• Interacting with your audience is vital. Responding to messages and comments to show you care about your customers and create a sense community.
• Pay attention to your TikTok analytics to understand what is and isn't working and consistently refine your content.
• Quality over quantity. Creating high-quality, engaging content that resonates with your target audience is more important than churning out a load of low quality, mismatched content. Consistent quality is key for sustainable growth on TikTok.