What began as a platform for silly and entertaining short videos has quickly become one of the most downloaded social media platforms of the year. TikTok’s emergence as the newest trend in social media earned it over 1.5 billion downloads in online stores, making it the perfect place for early adopter brands to reach out to potential clients and promote their products.

TikTok brands itself as the leading destination for short-form mobile video. The largest demographic of TikTok users are people who belong in Generation Z or those between the ages of 16 and 24.

For this reason, many brands tend to overlook the platform. But experts say businesses may benefit from creating an account and advertising on the social media app. We created a simple guideline to help you determine whether TikTok can help your business prosper.

Does my business need TikTok?

Businesses who are looking into creating a TikTok account should subscribe to the ‘pro’ version. This subscription will give you an insight into how well your content is doing. But before you start planning out short videos to promote your brand, ask yourself these questions:

• What are you hoping to achieve on the platform?
• Who is your target audience?
• How can you incorporate short-form videos into your marketing strategy?
• What are you promoting?
• How can people relate to your content?

How can I reach my audiences and promote my business on TikTok?

Using TikTok to promote businesses is a relatively new marketing strategy. Paid promotions and ads on the platform are still in the process of being rolled out across the globe. Here’s how you can take advantage of the platform and start raising your profit.

Plan engaging content

TikTok is all about fun and visually appealing and engaging content. Most trending videos on the platform involve hit songs from different countries. Creating your own content is a very inexpensive way to promote your brand, especially because you can film your short-form videos using a smartphone.

While silly videos might be popular on the platform, do not try to create anything too outrageous for your business’ style and image. Keep things simple and easy to understand. A light-hearted video that shows off your products will have a higher chance of going viral than a poorly outlined meme.

Use hashtags

Hashtags in TikTok function the same way they do on Instagram. Users can search using the hashtag to find the content they want to watch, which means you should spend time researching what many users are looking for.

Location-specific businesses can take advantage of local hashtags to allow people living in your area to see your content and build awareness of the products and services you are promoting.

Launching a hashtag challenge encourages TikTok users to create content and add your branded hashtag to it, effectively promoting your business.

Guess, a well-known fashion brand, launched the #InMyDenim challenge in 2018. Every time TikTok users opened the app, they would be directed to the hashtag challenge and urged to participate by filming themselves wearing Guess’ then-newly released denim line.

Collaborate with TikTok influencers

TikTok influencers can help you widen your reach on the social media platform. Generation Z typically does not watch commercials that look like traditional ads—collaborating with the people whose content they tune in to can help you establish a connection with that generation of users.

In March 2020, Rihanna’s makeup empire, Fenti Beauty, collaborated with TikTok comedian Adam Martinez (AKA AdamRayOkay, AKA Rosa) to release a clip that earned over 34.2 thousand shares and 1.2 million likes.

To find the right influence for your brand, you can use online tools that let you search bios on the social media platform. You can also look for mentions of other brands.