Are you thinking of adding TikTok into your digital marketing channels? Then read on to learn how to best position your retail brand on the app.

Thinking of using TikTok for your retail brand? With over 2 billion users in over 150 countries, if your brand’s customers are under 50 you should be on TikTok right now. According to Statistica, 62 percent of TikTok users are under 30, and 30 percent of users fall between 30 and 50. This means that your potential audience on TikTok may be larger than first expected.

Ways Your Retail Brand Can Make the Most of TikTok

TikTok is growing exponentially, with about 100 million monthly active U.S. users, a number that has increased by nearly 800% percent since January 2018. This means that everyday there is a larger audience for retail brands to get in front of. However, brands cannot post just any content and expect their videos to get exposure. The marketing strategies below will help your retail brand tap into TikTok’s huge brand awareness rewards, with very little investment.

1. Understand the Algorithm

If you are a retail brand looking to market on TikTok, chances are you want to get as many users to interact with your content as possible.

Factors of the TikTok algorithm such as user interactions, the hashtags or music you use, and even location can play a huge part in how many people engage with your content. Above all, the goal of any TikTok campaign should be to be to provide value and enjoyment for your target audience.

By following TikTok marketing strategies like what is included below, your content will be more likely to grab audience attention and even go viral.

2. Format Content For the Platform

By formatting your content for TikTok, you will ensure that viewers will see your videos exactly as you want them to be seen.

The first element to consider is length. Your content should be between 15 and 60 seconds long, and vertically oriented, unlike the TikTok below. Also, it may be worthwhile to explore third party apps to create content with elements that are unavailable in TikTok’s native recorder.

3. Post Relevant Content Often

Publishing content that is current, relevant, and creative is the winning formula for TikTok.

You should try to capture the attention of your audience without coming off like you are making a sales pitch.

Also, it is important to recognize that your brand does not need to participate in every hashtag or wacky trend. Videos that show off your products, customers, or employees will always come across as more authentic than copying viral videos from two months ago.

4. Collaborate with Influencers

One of the keys to success on TikTok is partnering with influencers whose videos will resonate with your target audience.

You can determine whether an influencer is likely to resonate with your audience by understanding the general demographics of their followers, including their age and geographies where they are located.

As with any influencer marketing, this allows brands to get in front of people who are likely to be interested in their products. A great example of this is how the clothing brand Lulus partners with influencers to provide clothing hauls, ‘outfit of the days’, or wardrobe hacks using their products and hashtags.

5. Comment Comment Comment

Comments are more valuable than ever on TikTok. The app emphasizes this with its video reply feature, which allows brands to highlight their existing comments as a new video.

Engaging with other creators’ content should be a priority for brands because it increases the likelihood that your favorite brand or influencer will use your comment as the topic of their next video.

You should also encourage brand loyalty by sharing the comments from fans of your posts!

6. Use Trending Hashtags and Sounds

TikTok has a huge trend culture and the best performing TikToks are often ones that utilize popular hashtags or sounds.

There are several ways to find trending topics you can target through your content. The easiest way is to check out TikTok’s Discovery page, where TikTok shows all the trending hashtags according to your location and popular videos by category.

7. Cross Promote Your Content

Brands who’ve successfully created a presence on TikTok have made sure to cross promote their content on other platforms, such as Instagram. This will drive awareness of your brand’s TikTok accounts, boost performance and promote “surround sound marketing,” meaning your marketing messages will be in different media formats, but work synergistically.

8. Create a Hashtag Challenge

A hashtag challenge is when a brand encourages users to create content based on a certain topic or task, and tag them using a specific hashtag.

Challenges on TikTok are circulated through the use of hashtags because hashtags allow content to be more easily shared and discovered. The popular U.S. clothing brand, Aerie, actually launched its presence on TikTok via the #AerieRealPositivity challenge.

This encouraged users to show things they are grateful for during quarantine, and allowed branded content from famous TikTokers such as Charli D’Amelio to drive traction to the brand. Within a week, the campaign had 1.3 billion views, and Aerie’s TikTok account grew from zero followers to 15,000.

9. Track Your Results

It is essential for brands to use TikTok analytics to guide their content strategy.

TikTok offers an in-app analytics tool available to TikTok Pro accounts, which allows retailers to measure audience and performance insights.

Switching to a TikTok Pro account is as simple as toggling the option on in your Account Settings. Once started, TikTok Pro can inform everything from traffic source types, to audience insights, to the performance of your current content.

10. Invest in TikTok Advertising

TikTok ads have become an integral part of paid advertising budgets for many companies.

There are several ad types to explore such as in-feed ads, topview, or brand takeovers. For example, Adobe Lightroom used in-feed ads to promote their Lightroom app. This ad structure includes a “Sponsored” label, and call-to-action button.

Your retail brand should invest time into testing which advertising type will best appeal for your target audience!

In Conclusion

With a little bit of creativity and a lot of strategy, TikTok offers substantial marketing opportunities for retail brands. In being an early adopter of TikTok for retail, your brand has the potential to surpass your competitors by building a strategic presence before the platform becomes oversaturated.

So with that, we encourage you to download the app, begin creating a community around your retail brand, and use TikTok as a platform to not only tap into new audiences, but also diversity your digital marketing mix.

About the author

Samantha Ridgway is a social media specialist at Sagapixel, a digital marketing agency in Philadelphia, PA. She is passionate about the intersection of social media and SEO and how the two impact one another.