The Official Lightswitch Guide to Understanding TikTok for your Business
Tips and tricks to help your business get the most out of TikTok
TikTok mainly consists of video and photo carousels, giving your business a unique opportunity to create posts for your niche.
If you're wondering how to start promoting your business via TikTok, whether that be organically or through paid media - you've come to the right place! We're breaking down best practices for TikTok Feed, Ads, Reels, and Stories.
TikTok Feed
The TikTok feed is separated into two sections: accounts you follow, and the “for you” page, which includes content from people you follow, promoted content, and content recommended by TikTok.
Summary: The TikTok FYP (for you page) is great for businesses that want to diversify their feed, quickly introduce themselves to their current and new audience, and have the opportunity to be discovered by those not currently following your account.
The Basics
- Can be videos or photos, most popular for videos
- Recommended 9:16 aspect ratio (default portrait size for most smartphones)
- TikTok Stories are only available for 24 hours, Feed posts are available until you delete them
Recommendations
- Include captions on video
- Use trends as storytelling templates
- Use TikTok’s insights page to see statistics about how effective TikTok is for various industries, demographics, + more
Who uses TikTok
- There are over 1 Billion TikTok users
- 70% of TikTok users are between 18 - 34 (Oberlo)
- Nearly 90% of TikTok users are under 50 years old (Business Wire)
Businesses Who Successfully Use TikTok
- Restaurants
- Home Services
- Subscription services
- Music & Performing Arts
- Direct to Consumer products
- Apparel
- Financial services
- Healthcare services
- Educational content
How to use TikTok most effectively
- Include a hook for your video, visually or using audio (According to TikTok, 90% of ad recall impact is captured within the first six seconds)
- Only hop on trends that you can realistically relate to your business/products – do not do a trend only because it’s popular
- Millennial users on TikTok are 2.3 times more likely to create a post and tag a brand than other platform users
- Leverage CTA cards – they lead to a 45% lift in recall and a 19% increase in liability
- Do hashtag research and experimentation to target a niche audience – having a large follower count doesn’t necessarily give a huge algorithmic advantage (Hootsuite)
TikTok Ads
Paid Targeting Capabilities
- Languages
- Interests
- Gender
- Geography
- Age brackets
- Demographics
- Education Levels
- Political leaning
- Homeownership
- etc
- Behaviors
- Previously purchased similar products
- Anniversary soon
- etc
