In the last few years, TikTok has gone from being a platform for teens to lip-sync and dance to creating short-form videos to a powerful commerce and brand tool. It went from a weapon of mass distractive entertainment for viral challenges and memeable content into a place where brands can have a genuine, pertinent connection to younger consumers.
Optimize Your TikTok Business Profile
The first thing to do to unlock the commerce potential of TikTok is to have a good business profile. To do that, simply go under the ‘me’ tab in your TikTok account, where you can convert your profile to a business one. So you will be able to check the analytics of the followers and the performance of your content.
If you’re looking to accelerate your reach even further, consider pairing your efforts with a TikTok growth service. These services can help amplify your presence, build a loyal audience faster, and ensure your shoppable content gets seen by more potential customers.
Finally, pepper in some shoppable elements like an email or phone number to enable direct contact. The verified badge that comes with a business profile lends credibility, too. You’re laying the groundwork to seamlessly drive customers from TikTok views to sales.
Hook Viewers with Shoppable Video Content
TikTok is all about attention-grabbing content, so you’ll need to master the art of creative and engaging video. The good news is you don’t need fancy equipment or editing skills. TikTok creators have built massive followings on everything from smartphone clips to straight-up webcam recordings.
You can experiment with popular TikTok formats like tutorials, behind-the-scenes footage, skits, and more. The key is keeping it bite-sized and entertaining while organically weaving in your product.
And be sure to utilize TikTok’s built-in ecommerce capabilities, like shoppable product links you can attach to your videos. Collaborate with creators to deliver authentic co-marketing campaigns. Your content should inspire viewers to shop your products, not feel like an extended ad.
Hashtag Your Way to Discoverability
TikTok’s massive user base means your organic content can take off if it catches the algorithm’s favor. Making it easily discoverable through strategic hashtagging is key here.
Look up popular hashtags in your product niche and any viral trends related to your brand. Use a mix of broadly popular tags and niche ones tailored to your target audience.
You can include relevant hashtags in your on-video captions as well as the standalone comment you can pin under each video. Getting on the coveted “For You” page via a trending hashtag can introduce your brand to a huge new audience.
Leverage In-App Shopping Features
To fully unlock TikTok’s commerce potential, you need to utilize the platform’s built-in shopping capabilities. As you grow your audience with compelling content, you can convert viewers into customers without them ever having to leave the app.
Any TikTok business account can now apply to become a TikTok merchant and access these robust ecommerce tools. You can add shopping tabs and product catalogs so fans can browse and buy from your store directly on your TikTok profile.
Viewers can even shop product listings in your TikTok LIVE videos. And easy-to-use video ads let you promote best-selling items or limited-time promotions.
Partner with Top Creators
The influencer marketing sphere on TikTok is still growing and shaping itself. While massive stars like Charli D’Amelio and Addison Rae Easterling dominate in terms of follower count, micro and niche influencers can deliver great returns too.
Find out who matches your brand in values, niche, and audience for creators. Get them to naturally include your product as a gift in an unboxing video or even as part of a style clip or tutorial. Therefore, make sure to do this via an official partnership agreement by setting out clear expectations beforehand.
TikTok influences its campaigns in such a way that a powerful influencer marketing campaign can significantly increase brand awareness and direct sales. To partner with the right creator would mean you get to leverage their highly engaged follower network.
Analyze Performance with Metrics
As with any social media marketing initiative, analytics should inform your TikTok commerce strategy. Luckily, the platform makes it easy to dig into a wealth of metrics on content and ads.
Keep tabs on common measures like impressions, reach, engagement rate, clicks, conversions, and more for all your videos. See which products perform best when featured. Monitor how traffic to your website or sales spikes after posting certain content.
Analytics metrics should be filed for use in your iteration on your approach. Consistently, you win and bend your losses. Inherently, continually optimizing your branded presence and shoppable content will always help you get the most out of your investment in TikTok.
Conclusion
Today, TikTok is more popular and more important than tech giants like Facebook and Instagram were for brands seeking to reach younger demographics by 2021. If you are an ambitious business looking to tap into the highly engaged user base, then you need to develop a good commerce strategy for the platform.
Key is creative and entertaining short-form video content that weaves in your products organically. To be successful on TikTok, you will first have to convert to a business profile, use built-in shopping tools, do strategic influencer collaborations, and monitor performance metrics.
