How to Promote a Brand on TikTok: Methods and Tips

This article will show you how you can advertise brands and products on TikTok, what types of advertising are there and which brands are doing best.

Contents

1. TikTok features
2. TikTok users: Who are they?
3. TikTok ad formats
4. How to be properly promoted on TikTok
5. How famous brands are promoting on TikTok
6. Final thoughts

TikTok’s features

The main functional feature of TikTok is a built-in video editor for shooting and editing videos, adding unique effects and musical fragments from a huge base of social media.

In this way, users can realize their creative potential, creating copyrighted content and competing to get into the recommendations. The most successful videos instantly go viral, and nameless bloggers can become top-ranked celebrities overnight.

TikTok users: Who are they?

TikTok was launched in September 2016. In 2020, the app had 800 million active users, most of them from China, India and the United States. TikTok is now among the top 10 social media sites and has surpassed such titans as Snapchat, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Twitter.

41% of the audience are users aged 16 to 24, while the rest of the age groups show minimal activity. Data on the number of men and women differ, but the average ratio is 60% women and 40% men.

The data suggests TikTok is best suited for brands with a younger target audience in mind: from accessory and gadget sellers to manufacturers of clothes for teenagers.

Here’s some more important data about TikTok’s audience:

• 90% of users log into TikTok daily
• One-third of all app downloads come from residents of India
• The average user spends 52 minutes a day there
• The application is available in 155 countries and 75 languages
• Users view more than 1 million videos every day

TikTok ad formats

The advertising market on TikTok is still in its infancy, meaning there’s minimal competition,= and clear rules are not yet defined. However, the classification of ad formats already exists. Let's consider the main types.

1. Brand takeover

This is a popup image that appears when the user logs into the application. A picture is shown for up to 3 seconds, while a GIF or video is shown for up to 3 to 15. The advertising resembles the banners you see on many sites. Static images should be avoided, as users are more responsive to dynamics. Using ready-made templates and other tools, you can add animated elements to your photo and make it more attractive. Content for this ad format should not exceed 2 MB in size.

2. TopView

This is a commercial, 5 to 60 seconds long. It turns on automatically when the user opens the application. Content is labeled with the “Sponsored” mark.

3. In-feed native video

In-feed native videos can last up to 15 seconds. It broadcasts while the user watches the video in the application.

This is the most natural advertising option. For example, videos in Instagram Stories are shown the same way. Advertising videos are natively integrated into the recommendation feed, so they are interesting to the target audience, not salesy and often useful. Users are allowed to like advertising videos, share them, subscribe to brand profiles, use music tracks from advertisements in their videos and follow the offered links.

The ad creators for the KFC restaurant chain used the format very well. The short video employs a simple idea: The advertiser uses a fan meme in which users try to cook KFC specialties at home. This is accompanied by the song “All by Myself” and the caption “We missed you too.” The video ends with a picture of the chain's specialties and a link to the order service with home delivery. The ad got about 2 million views with a 10% engagement rate.

4. Hashtag challenge

Hashtags on TikTok are popular and very effective. They’re one of the main tools for categorizing and promoting posts.

The Hashtag Challenge format is usually launched by brands and influencers or celebrities. They announce the start of the challenge and invite users to shoot their own videos according to the established rules, marking them with the necessary hashtags. Certain music may be involved.

The hashtag challenge has an official page where all custom videos are saved. The organizers usually choose and award several winners. The lucky ones get the brand's products or can meet the celebrity who launched the challenge. However, the main selling point, of course, is the popularity of this type of social media and the growth of views.

With this advertising format, you can significantly increase the target audience, gain subscribers (including attracting celebrity fans) and promote the brand.

Here is another example from a major brand. Converse launched a challenge in collaboration with popular English bloggers. They decorated their sneakers and invited their fans to do the same. The prize was a ticket to one of the brand's events.

Thousands of videos with the hashtag appeared very quickly. The sneakers were painted, spray-painted and even embroidered. In less than a week, the brand gained 24 million views, significantly increasing its reach and popularity among the target audience.

5. Branded effects

This is the most unobtrusive advertisement. Its essence is the creation of branded stickers, effects and filters, which are provided to users for free. As a result, the brand gets more mentions.

6. Influencer ads

Classic influencer marketing is in demand on all platforms. Advertiser representatives can select bloggers with a relevant audience and discuss the terms of cooperation with them. The video obtained as a result of the collaboration should look natural and “not advertised.” Success depends on choosing the right influencer.

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZS99pyYT/

How to be properly promoted on TikTok

First, you need to set up your account. You’ll need the following:

• Simple, short, and memorable nickname
• Original avatar based on the brand logo (you can create it in a couple of minutes with the Logaster online generator)
• Creative profile description

After that, you’ll proceed to the most important thing – creating high-quality and relevant content. Short (up to 15 to 20 seconds), entertaining or educational videos are in demand.

This is an entertaining social network, but brand promotion should be taken seriously. When developing a strategy:

1. Determine why your company needs promotion on TikTok (to increase sales, increase traffic, increase company awareness, etc.)
2. Get the most accurate portrait of the client and description of your target audience
3. Analyze the time periods when your subscribers are most active
4. Monitor your audience’s interests and desires and create content that matches them
5. Use different ad formats to achieve your goals

This is already enough to systematically increase subscribers and get into the social network’s recommendations. You can improve the process by using additional promotion methods:

• Invite brand followers from other social networks to TikTok
• Invite your website users using email marketing
• Collaborate with partners, creating and publishing cooperative and guest videos;
• Analyze trends and try to match them
• Properly select and use trending hashtags for videos.

How famous brands are promoting on TikTok

NBA

This is one of the first brands that registered on the social network. It has a huge audience of almost 12 million subscribers. The content is diverse, from pranks to motivating videos:

https://www.tiktok.com/@nba/video/7020464411819166981

Nike

This famous sports brand launched a dance challenge in Milan together with athletes and top bloggers. The goal was to attract girls to active sports. The campaign drew 46,000 responses, 150,000 mentions on social networks, 100 million views, and 540,000 likes. Here is a general report on the project:

https://vimeo.com/332637483

Boohoo

The youth clothing brand earns millions of views with interesting challenges and outfits.

https://www.tiktok.com/@boohoo/video/7018593875077975302

Final thoughts

TikTok is a powerful social network that provides essential opportunities for self-expression and creativity. To maximize its effectiveness, analyze whether there are currently representatives of your brand’s target audience – potential or future – on the platform and start working with them right now.