We believe that there are three effective ways that you can market your brand on TikTok:

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1. You create your own branded channel and upload relevant videos for your niche

2. You can identify and work with influencers on TikTok to increase your reach on the platform

3. You can advertise on TikTok (we will cover this in the next chapter).

 

A lot of marketers on TikTok use a combination of these things to grow their followers and increase their reach. In this chapter we will discuss the 8 most successful marketing strategies that many brands use:

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1. Hashtag Challenges

The TikTok community loves a challenge. A lot of users love to accept challenges on the platform and create videos and upload them in response to the challenge. If you want to create a challenge on TikTok (and you should) then you need to create an exciting and relevant hashtag. It needs to be memorable and easy for users to find.

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We have already mentioned in this guide how popular the Jimmy Fallon #tumbleweedchallenge was. OK he had the benefit of using the power of the Tonight Show to spread the word about his challenge.

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But if you take this out of the equation, it was still a good challenge because there were more than 8,000 videos created and more than 10 million engagements. All he asked TikTok users to do was to drop to the ground and then roll like a tumbleweed when they heard a particular piece of music.

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To create a successful challenge you need to think about how a TikTok user can interact with your brand in a fun way. Maybe they hold one of your products and then do something fun with it? You also need to think about the difficulty and the creativity of the challenge.

We would always recommend that you add a degree of difficulty into the challenge. The Jimmy Fallon tumbleweed challenge was difficult because the dropping down to the floor and rolling like a tumbleweed had to be done in public. Those that took up this challenge were really proud that they overcame their shyness and did it.

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It is always a good idea to allow the user some flexibility in any challenge that you create. Provide the TikTok users with guidelines but don’t tell them exactly what they have to do. You will get better results if you allow users the chance to put their own spin on things.

The jeans company GUESS did this very well. Jeans are a really personal item so they encouraged users to show off how they liked to wear them. This gave the users the freedom to use filters and other special effects from within TikTok.

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Google also had a successful TikTok challenge for the Google Assistant. When you think about it there is almost an infinite number of things that a person could ask the Google Assistant. So Google invited users to ask any question that they wanted of the Google Assistant which made the challenge creative and very popular.

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2. Use Duets

A lot of marketers miss the trick with Duets. You can utilize a hashtag campaign with a Duet that is unique and attracts a great deal of engagement. Well known DJ Khaled is now an official TikTok partner. He created a very popular hashtag #catchtheseblessings by creating Duets where he is looking at himself and praising individuals.

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So users are able to use the Duet function to record themselves beside DJ Khaled so that they can react to what he is saying in his video. So we encourage you to think about ways in which you can interact with your audience using the Duet feature in TikTok. Here are some ideas:

• Sing to one another

• Hold a conversation

• High five each other

• Finish each other’s sentences

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There are so many possibilities with this so get your thinking cap on because TikTok really likes the Duet feature and uses it a lot. Get this right and you will get a ton of engagement for your brand.

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3. Use Influencers

As you would expect there are a number of influencers on TikTok as there are with all of the other social media platforms. The difference is that because TikTok is fairly new there are not as many as there are on Instagram for example so identifying them should be easier for you.

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Even though the TikTok platform is new, there are still influencers on there that have millions of followers. They can really help you to push your marketing campaign to their audience.

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When you are choosing an influencer you must consider the authenticity they have and use the right type of content. Big brands such as Google have used influencers to spread the word about their campaigns to good effect.

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There have been a number of successful influencer marketing cases using hashtag challenges for example. It all boils down to selecting the right influencer and allowing them to have input. Let them create the best content around your campaign because they know their audience much better than you do.

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So you could ask an influencer to wear a piece of clothing that you sell or using one of your products. The influencer needs to be comfortable doing this. If they don’t like the clothing or the products that you sell it will never work well. TikTok is a young people’s platform so don’t expect influencers to promote campaigns for products designed for older people.

 

4. Use Scarcity

Scarcity is always a good marketing tactic and this certainly applies to TikTok. You want to encourage engagement and participation and having a time constraint will push users to get involved. If you don’t use some form of scarcity then people will put off their participation and probably never end up getting around to it.

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So if you want to create a challenge put a time limit on it. When a TikTok user knows that they only have a few days to participate it will force them to make a decision. GUESS Jeans gave users 7 days to participate in their challenge which was very effective as their participation numbers were high.