Social media is a key industry in the 21st century and has an ever-growing global reach with billions of users, which only increases year on year. With the social media becoming a more competitive industry than in its initial stages there are now a number main competitors, from Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest and now TikTok. In the past few years, it’s widely known that Facebook’s engagement has been on a slight decline, whilst young users and engagement on TikTok have been increasingly rapidly, and it is the fastest growing social media platform we have seen, reaching 1 billion users in 2021. Thus it is now imperative that all ecommerce businesses and brands utilise TikTok marketing to maximise their outreach, sales and ultimately their growth.
What is TikTok Marketing?
I simple terms, TikTok Marketing is the process of using your content on TikTok to promote your eCommerce brand’s products. Utilising this as a new marketing avenue, you are only going to increase the eyes on your business’s products and expand your brand’s online presence. This is done through creating short-form video content for your business’s products, which engages with your target audience and enlighten them of any sales or updates your business is running.
While social media marketing entails a unified strategy across all the main social media platforms, like Facebook incorporating Instagram etc, TikTok marketing solely focuses on TikTok.
When it comes to marketing your eCommerce business ok TikTok, your brand will need to have both similar marketing and convey a similar message to your customers on your other marketing platforms. However, content on TikTok needs to be much different than content posted on the other standard social media channels, although you can publish your TikTok created content on other channels to ensure maximum visibility.
How to Create a TikTok Business Account for your eCommerce Brand
Prior to creating a business account, it is key to know the differences between a TikTok business account a creator account. There are 5 main differences, and with a business account your business will
- Have access to business tools, such as ads and analytics
- Get the ability to create an eCommerce storefront
- Have limited access to sound clips
- Have the ability to utilise 3rd party tools which can help aid and manage TikTok content
- Business accounts have the ability to add their website link to their profile
Step 1: Download the TikTok app and create a new account
Step 2: Go to Settings and Privacy and tap Manage account and then Switch to a business account
Step 3: Then chose the Category that best correlates with your eCommerce brands industry
Once you have your business profile, you can then initiate refining and enhancing your brand’s account to appeal to your target audience.
How to Build and Improve your TikTok Marketing Strategy
1. Create and Brand your Account
Once the business account is created the next move is to align your accounts branding with your other social media platforms.
To brand your eCommerce business’s profile, go to edit profile and fill out the below categories.
Additional options consist of setting-up automatic messages when TikTok users direct message your business. This can be done if you go to the business suite and then select auto message.
You will only be able to add your eCommerce business’s website URL to your TikTok profile once your brand hits 1000 followers.
2. Outline your TikTok audience
In order to for your account to flourish on any social media platform, along with TikTok, you have to know what demographic and audience you need to target with your content. If you don’t create the correct content for your audience then you may have a good outreach and engagement, but it won’t translate into sales, which does nothing for your eCommerce businesses growth.
However, the audience on TikTok does tend to be much younger compared to Facebook and Instagram, with 25% of all users being between 10-19, but 63% of users are aged 20-49 and the usage of 50+ year olds drop off considerably. To target your ideal audience, you will need to go beyond just targeting age groups, and will need to do more research into exactly what your customer persona is, through looking at gender, locations and interests.
3. Create Quality Content
Having quality content and captivating videos is obviously key for engagement and ultimately sales when it comes to marketing your eCommerce business and products. Making good videos isn’t easy, and a lot of research is needed, which entails looking at what competitors and other brands are doing and producing, along with seeing what sort of videos are getting high levels of engagement and try and emulate these with your own content strategy. A simple way to do this, would be to look at TikTok’s discover page to see what videos, hashtags, sound bites and accounts are trending.
With regards to creating TikTok content, you will have to test various types of video in order to see what type content receives the highest levels engagement. Anything from filming your product being created to being used to simple funny engaging videos or anything creative to separate you from the noise on social media.
However, like most social media marketing the key is to post consistently, in order to make any dent in the social media mayhem. Ideally start by posting at least twice a week, although it recommended to post at least twice a day.
4. Utilise Adverts in Your TikTok Marketing Strategy
In order to increase the reach of your content to a wider audience, the best way to do this is through using paid TikTok ads. Just like Facebook and Instagram the cost of this is based on bids, which varies depending on the time of year. You create your ideal target audience and create a good piece of content and specify your daily budget in order to promote it.
5. Make use of TikTok Influencer Marketing
It is key for any eCommerce marketing strategy to include influencers, and today there are millions of content creators and influencers which can be industry specific to help market your products. This works through the influencers creating, engaging video content that ideally conveys your brands message and products, which your brand can share on their social media channels.
TikTok influencer marketing in composed of a few different factors:
- Gifting and Sending your Products to Influencers
This method is great for brands with low budgets, with large amounts of stock. This step involves reaching out to many influencers in your industry as you see fit and ask if you can send them a free complimentary product. This may not guarantee a post on their channel, if you reach out and get in touch with enough influencers, you may be able to get some sort of spotlight, of an unboxing or merchandise video.
- Co-operate with Influencers on Videos
Working with a creator on content or a series of videos, that highlight your brand exclusively. However, these will be more costly, but you can always partner with smaller micro-influencers with a smaller outreach, until you have a larger marketing budget.
- Partner on Influencers your Products
Partnering with influencers with a large outreach, like celebrities, to help market and push your product lines is a great way to get a the most eyes on your products. This can be done without a large one-off fee through partnering, which would allow the influencer to get a cut of each product sold using their discount ‘code’. This is an ideal strategy for marketing, as you will only pay them for what they sell. However, unless you have a proven track record of sales, it may be harder to get some influencers on board. To ensure this has maximum effect, you will have to make sure you only work with influencers who are specific to your business’s target audience.
- Monitor the Analytics & Metrics to Track performance
In order to run the most efficient campaign, it is key to check your analytics. You will be able to get access to the analytics through your business account and be able to see which videos are receiving the most engagement. The metrics which will be most useful to your business, are number of views on your videos, growth rate, trending videos and average watch time.
If you are an eCommerce business or brand and are looking for fulfilment services please get in touch with UK Fulfilment, and receive a free quote here.
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