The planet is in the catastrophic circumstance of the COVID-19 pandemic but marketers search for new digital channels to build sales funnel. TikTok is definitely one of the newest and also coolest means of marketing your brand.

If you have not started using TikTok, I’ll tell you how you should start to get higher ROI rates in marketing.

Top social media platforms

First, it’s good to be familiar with top social media platforms to know how different TikTok is and why it can be the future platform.

Here is the list of most popular social networking sites/apps considering the number of of monthly active users:

1.     Facebook – 2.23 billion

2.     YouTube – 1.9 billion

3.     WhatsApp – 1.5 billion

4.     Messenger – 1.3 billion

5.     WeChat – 1.06 billion

6.     Instagram – 1 billion

7.     TikTok – 800 million

Of course, it isn’t only about the size of the social media sites. It’s also whether the social media site is a right fit for your business and you. Does it fit your brand image? Is your target audience using that social media site? How many social media sites can you manage at once?

The rise of TikTok

TikTok is a video-sharing app primarily loved by Gen Z and mainly gained fame for lip-syncing video clips, trending dance videos, and many novel challenges.

It’s owned by ByteDance which is a tech company based in China. It was initially launched in 2016 and since then it has been phenomenally successful by reaching more than a whopping 800 million active users.

Its growth was completed in 2017 with ByteDance buying a social app, Music.ly, that allows users to share short videos.

Very soon, it became the most downloaded app in the world. All social fans started to create accounts on TikTok, especially marketers to get ahead of the competition.

It seems that the platform is just at the beginning of its growth curve and every day a new creative feature is emerging on it. Many famous multimedia-based like Instagram and YouTube are feeling TikTok’s fast growth because it’s not impossible for it to get ahead of them.

Video specs on TikTok

Fortunately, TikTok’s video requirements are entirely compatible with almost all standard smartphones. 

Here is a summary of its video specs:

• Maximum file size for videos: up to 287.6 MB for iOS users and 72 MB for Android users.
• Maximum video length: 15 seconds.
• Dimensions: 1080 x 1920 
• Margins: 150px on top and bottom, and 64px margin on each side
• Aspect ratio: 9:16
• Video file type: MP4 or MOV 
• Video encoded: H.264

Although vertical videos are recommended in the platform, horizontal videos are also allowed.

Why marketing on TikTok?

As we said, TikTok is on the exponential rise and this is exactly why it’s good for marketing, especially for local businesses.

In fact, you can build your brand identity on TikTok way easier compared to Instagram which has been already full of similar niche content.

It’s actually relatively untouched and many of its users have not followed a lot of accounts yet. As a result, marketers who’ve shifted towards TikTok earlier have been more successful in brand awareness

Socialtradia says that the sooner you start building a niche community on a specific platform, the less investment you need. In other words, the ROI in marketing on TikTok is now much higher compared with other top social networking apps/sites.

Apart from being new, TikTok has another difference with Instagram or YouTube. It allows you to be seen even without a single follower. This is particularly useful for small businesses that have not already a lot of online followers.

Also, TikTok has tried to include a lot of beneficial aspects that other platforms have provided. For example, with a single link in the bio you can easily drive traffic to your website or sales pages. 

And finally, TikTok provides you with various advertisement options to market your brand which makes it a necessity in your marketing strategy.

5 Tips to increase your TikTok marketing’s ROI

TikTok is one of the user-friendliest social networks, although marketing and boosting sales is a bit different. You need to define a specific marketing strategy and match your TikTok’s presence with it.

Here are several useful tips to reach significant success in TikTok marketing:

1.  Try to be fun

As we mentioned earlier, entertainment is the most impactful factor you need on TikTok. You can’t find any trendy content on TikTok which is not funny.

Remember that fun and entertainment are the only reasons users have chosen TikTok over numerous other platforms. So if you want to catch a lot of eyes on TikTok, try to create funny video clips to provide users with entertaining content.

The important thing is that you don’t necessarily need to hire a professional filmmaker. You can generate friendly videos of your own and get masses of impressions if you can be creative and funny.

I know that it would be sometimes hard for you to constantly create entertainment. But you can also take advantage of user-generated content from your previous customers or even share trendy content that are previously published.

2.  Use influencer marketing

Whatever you try to be creative and funny, you still can’t expect maximum exposure on TikTok. Influencer marketing which had already risen on other platforms, especially on Instagram, might be the key to maximizing your efficiency.

Remember that a brand can’t gain the attention of all potential customers merely by its own generated content.

Always, you need an endorsement from customers or influential persons to win the trust of your audience. Partnership with these influential people is great for your business growth on TikTok.

But remember that TikTok’s users might be a bit different or even adverse to other social users. They are willing to hear just about what they love and won’t accept any kind of advice from adults or other role models.

In sum, you need to break some traditional rules that are being obeyed on other networks.

3.  Don’t forget in-feed advertisements

In-feed content advertisements which are available on TikTok are copied version of story ads on Instagram and Snapchat.

In-feed ads are short advertising videos that will be shown between other videos when users are watching them.

This technique is also popular on YouTube and can take the attention of many users but they’re allowed to skip it.

Make sure that you’re not bothering audiences when creating these ads because TikTok users are much more sensitive than other networks’ users.

4.  Leverage the power of hashtag challenges

Just like Instagram and Twitter, hashtags play a vital role in the visibility of your content on TikTok. In fact, users utilize hashtags to find their desired content or to get maximum exposure when posting a video.

Hashtag challenges are a different feature TikTok is offering to its users especially marketers who are willing to promote their brands.

Hashtag challenges are a key element of this platform inspiring users to create their own trend, content take-ups, and participating in wider shifts.

But you, as a marketer, can also use hashtag challenges more than just an engaging tool. You can make the most out of it for branding on TikTok.

Once TikTok users see your challenge, they may opt to move to the challenge page. Each page provides detailed guidance about what users will be doing if they wish to participate.

All the videos which take part in the challenge will be shown under the same hashtag. You can find that sort of thing on the trending page of TikTok.

You need to boost your hashtag challenges if you want them to be more viral. By creating a sponsored hashtag challenge you can promote it on TikTok.

In fact, your hashtag challenge will be shown on the main discover feed when you use a sponsored challenge. As a result, more users will find your challenge and this is a great benefit for marketers.

5.  Take advantage of brand takeovers

Another special offer for marketers on TikTok is brand takeovers. A brand takeover is a full-screen commercial that will appear on all users' feed when they first open the app.

Brand takeovers can be GIFs in 3-5 seconds, videos in 3 seconds, or even photos. The ad has the ability to be linked to your landing page or your hashtag challenge and is a great chance to promote your brand.

The important point about this type of advertising is that they will be shown for a single day but for all TikTok users at once.

Final thoughts

This was just a summary of one of the fastest-growing networks on the planet. If you want to be successful in marketing, you’ll need to practice more to be familiar with this new platform. Remember that thorough competition research can work miracles and save you time and money.