How to slay the TikTok game

The fifth largest social network. 1.5 billion monthly active users. Over 1 billion app downloads. TikTok has been taking over the world in recent years, exploding in popularity not only between Gen Z and Millennial's but with the older generation as well. 

With new trends being created every single day and more and more brands jumping on the bandwagon, what better time to join the hype than now? Sit back, relax and find out how you can slay the TikTok game. Here’s our top tips:

Understand and capitalise on your niche

Before you become a viral TikTok superstar you need to spend time absorbing and understanding your target market. There’s no point creating random content that has no relevance to your brand or interest to your customers. The first thing you should do is identify which niche your brand fits into and how you can stand out to bring value to your followers.

Identify your TikTok persona

Always remember; people first, product second. The best brands on TikTok will prioritise personality over showcasing products. It’s important to collaborate with creators who represent the brand and can create content native to the platform.

Practise fearless posting

Be speedy and allow creativity. TikTok does not restrict your reach based on your following, a post can achieve viral reach and views with only 15 followers. If there is a trend on the platform relevant to your niche or brand, brief it, create it and post it. There is also no importance on chronology in the feed, you can go viral at any time as the app doesn’t even tell users when a video was posted.

Adapt and tap into trends

Identifying your niche early on will allow you to easily identify which trends are relevant for your brand. You can start your own trends if you’re feeling creative or even apply existing trends to your brand voice and niche. By starting your own trend you have an increased chance of generating higher reach if adapted by platform users.

Produce with platform features

TikTok has the most extensive native editing tools of any mainstream social platform. Make sure to familiarise yourself with the editing tools as they evolve. It’s also important to capture the user’s attention in the first 3 seconds, since TikTok punishes videos with low completion rates. When it comes to ads, make sure they look as organic as possible or users will just scroll past, if they look like part of the feed then they are much more likely to be watched. Tune into trending tracks - it categorises its content by its soundtracks.

Don’t forget about SEO

TikTok is a search engine. Unlike other platforms, the search tool scrapes captions, hashtags, sounds and usernames simultaneously. As a result your captions and hashtag strategy have a heightened importance.

Community management

With site traffic opportunities on TikTok being limited, brands should look to the platform as a way to create brand affinity and community management. Real time engagement is super important on any social platform, this happens within the comments section on TikTok. Make sure you get to grip with the TikTok lingo, it’s known to be sarcastic and full of emojis. 

Brands we think are killing it on TikTok

GymShark

GymShark is a great example of a brand that completely understands TikTok, have built a strong content strategy around it and are seeing fantastic results to the tune of 5.7 million followers on their account. They post consistently, at least once a day and make sure their content is engaging as well as motivational. 

Chipotle

This popular Mexican food chain has over an amazing 2.5K followers as well as one of the best bios on TikTok – “Less Tok, More Guac.” Chipotle first found its success when it encouraged users to take part in the #ChipotleLidFlip Challenge created by a Chipotle employee. This was later imitated by over 100K trying to replicate the stunt.

San Diego Zoo

If you love animals, you need to check out San Diego Zoo’s TikTok account. What better way to make engaging social content than with cute videos of animals. The San Diego Zoo takes full advantage of this, creating short videos that people can’t help but like and share, resulting in over 2.6 million followers.