If you want to grow your TikTok account this year and beyond, you need a solid TikTok strategy. Since its rise to popularity, TikTok has changed a lot. However, it still remains one of the best apps for growing your account and building a solid audience to promote your business, product, and services as long as you have a strong TikTok marketing strategy.
So, if you want to learn the best TikTok growth tips and figure out how to improve your strategy, read on.
Understanding TikTok's algorithm
When TikTok first became popular, one of the things that made the app so attractive to people was its algorithm. The app seemed to read everyone's mind and soon adapted to showcase the videos that you want to see on your For You page.
TikTok is unique because each new video you post has a chance to be pushed in front of a lot of people and even go viral. While it's hard to predict which video will go viral, the chance is there every time, and it makes it very lucrative.
TikTok confirmed that there are three things that matter when it comes to getting a video on the For You page:
- User engagement: how many likes, shares, comments, and other forms of engagement the video has.
- Video information: what are the hashtags, what sounds are used in the video, and what information is conveyed in the video.
- Device and account settings: the location, language, and device type.
Creating engaging, relevant content, using trending sounds and the right hashtags, and making sure you have captions enabled are all essential to cracking the algorithm and increasing your chances of showing up on your target audience's For You pages.
Key elements of a successful TikTok strategy
A solid TikTok strategy can help you reach more people and grow faster. Here are a few things you want to consider when you're creating your marketing strategy for TikTok:
Take advantage of TikTok tools
TikTok seems to be a platform that wants the creators to succeed. After all, if creators post engaging content, more and more people will want to stick around. So, take advantage of all the creator tools available to you on TikTok to create better content.
For example, their TikTok Studio gives you a chance to research and see what's trending on the app currently. You can even choose countries and topics. This tool can be very useful if you want to be in the loop with the latest trend.
Know your audience
TikTok's unique algorithm helps relevant content to show up on people's For You page. That means that you have to be very intentional with how you speak to your audience, and what type of content they are looking for.
Before you create content, do lots of research to understand what type of content your audience is consuming on the app. That includes trends, sounds, even what language they use, and what other people and brands they follow. All of that will help you create content that gets sorted by the algorithm to reach your people.
Quality or quantity? Both.
When it comes to TikTok, quality of content doesn't always win over quantity. However, quantity isn't always better than quality either. With TikTok, both things matter – you want your videos to be of good enough quality so people want to engage with the video, but you also want to produce more videos to increase your chances of being seen rather than posting less but better quality videos. You might need to experiment and find what works for you.
Make promoting your products seamless
While TikTok can be a lucrative place to promote your products, for the promotion to be effective, it has to feel organic. A great example is Courtney Steeves and her promotional video on her new clothing line for fall. It looks like a simple, aesthetic fashion video showcasing beautiful clothing for fall and works like a charm to get people interested in where to get all the pieces.
Engage with your audience
To maximize your engagement, you want to make sure you are engaging with your audience. If someone comments on your videos, always make an effort to respond. If someone asks a question, or want to know more about something you mentioned in the video, be thoughtful and give your audience all the answers. Not only people will appreciate your kindness, but also the algorithm will love the extra engagement.
Engage with other users
To maximize your reach, actively engage with other people on their videos. Repost, comment, share, and find other ways to engage. Bonus points if you engage with people in your niche. That will help TikTok's algorithm to assign your content to the niche and show your videos to relevant people.
Creating engaging content
Once you have your strategy nailed down, the next step will be refining your content. To increase your chances of appealing to the algorithm, you want to create the best quality videos people will love and want to engage with. Here are a few tips that can help you create engaging content:
Use humor
Using humor is always a good idea when creating TikTok videos. If a video makes people laugh or smile, they will be more inclined to engage with it and even share it with their loved ones.
A great example is Signs of the Times, a second-hand designer reseller who created a very simple yet effective funny video promoting their second-hand Hermes bags. They showcase the product in an organic yet effective way without being too sale-sy.
Hook people in immediately
On TikTok, people are scrolling fast. So, you always want to make sure you grab their attention immediately. A great example is Dr. Joe Damiani, DPT, and his videos on exercise and health. He wastes no time and hooks you with unique angles each time.
Get to the point
While you can create videos up to 30 minutes on the app, most people still prefer quick and snappy videos. This means you have no time to waste – try to get straight to the point with your video. A great example is HealthyFitnessMeals, an account with plenty of healthy recipes. The moment you land on their video, they show you what you need and how to make a recipe at home.
Make it a series
If you notice that one video did well, consider making it into a series. A fashion creator from Kim & Tess did a video on her Megan Ryan Fall where she walked people through how to channel the Megan Ryan vibes this upcoming fall. Once the video got plenty of engagement, she turned it into a series, showing people how to channel the Megan Ryan Fall vibe in all areas of their lives.
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Leveraging trends and hashtags
There are two more things you want to consider to increase organic growth on TikTok – trends and hashtags.
Riding the trendy wave
While it's possible to grow your TikTok account without participating in fast changing trends, if you do leverage trends, your growth will be much faster. TikTok rewards content that drives engagement. And video trends, where people create their own version of a trending video or meme, are very engaging content people love.
So, make sure you're in the loop with all the trends that are happening on the app. Once you notice a trend coming up, jump in on it sooner rather than later so that you can take advantage as soon as possible and maximize your results.
How to use hashtags on TikTok
So, hashtags used to be much more important to use on TikTok in the past than they are right now. That doesn't mean they don't matter anymore, though.
Using hashtags can still be very helpful when you want your content to rank in certain categories. However, for that, you only need to use 3-4 hashtags per post. Consider hashtags as part of your SEO strategy because optimizing for TikTok's search engine is crucial right now and moving forward.
Consistency is key
Consistency is key on all social media platforms, and TikTok is no exception. If you are committed to growing on this platform, you want to be committed to showing up and posting regularly. The app rewards those creators who create the most engagement, and being consistent with your posting schedule can help you increase your chances of attracting more people.
Being consistent doesn't mean posting multiple times per day, every day. If your schedule allows, and you can commit the time and resources to post that often, then go ahead. However, even staying consistent with posting a couple of times per week, at the best times for you is more than enough.
To make it easier to stay consistent with your content, you might want to create a TikTok content calendar. You can plan content in advance, so you know exactly what you need to post and when. Also, once you know your content calendar, you can plan your filming and content creation days easier.
Engaging with your audience
As we already touched on, engagement is key for successful growth on TikTok. Apart from answering all the comments under your videos and engaging with other users on their videos, here are a few things you can do to improve your TikTok engagement:
Include CTAs
CTAs (Call-to-actions) are just as effective on TikTok as they are on all the other platforms and mediums. So, make sure you sprinkle them in every video you create, offering more ways for your audience to engage with your videos. If you encourage them with a question or a prompt, they'll be much more inclined to offer their thoughts or ask questions.
Be a tease
Another way to encourage engagement subtly is to pique people's curiosity. How can you do that? Well, by giving them a sneak peek or a teaser, without giving them the full information.
It's a tactic that's frequent in music artists, as well as recipe creators on TikTok. Musicians will often share a teaser of a son they're working on, which prompts people to ask questions about what is the song, and when it'll be available.
Recipe creators share a teaser of a new recipe they made without giving their audience the recipe. Once the audience sees the beautiful food, they want to know how to make it, so they ask for a recipe, driving engagement to the video.
Utilize videos
Another effective way to drive engagement to a series of your videos is to answer comments under your videos with another video. It's a very common tactic that many creators utilize. This way, you can add hashtags to the answer video, and the commenter gets notified. Plus, you can add trending sounds to the answer video, which can help boost the video too.
Example: When Personal trainer Ilmee Mintz posted her banana bread on her account, she got a lot of requests from her audience to share the recipe with them. She responded to one of the recipe request comments with a recipe video.
Analyzing performance and adjusting strategy
The best way to find out whether your TikTok strategy is working or if you might need to change something is by analyzing your analytics. The good news is, TikTok makes it super easy to do for everyone. Their Analytics tool has evolved throughout the years, and as it is right now, it tells you everything you need to know about how to grow faster and create better content.
TikTok Analytics have a few different sections, and each section offers different breakdowns of the analytics. At first glance, it can be overwhelming. But it's pretty easy to navigate once you familiarize yourself. So, let's look at some of the most important Analytic metrics to look out for and how to use them for your advantage.
Overview
When you first open your TikTok Analytics, you'll see the Overview section. Here, you can see a few key metrics right off the bat. While it's good to see these things, the most important information you'll find if you scroll down to the "Traffic Source" and "Search Queries" sections.
By analyzing where the traffic to your account comes from, you can better understand which strategies work for you (optimizing hashtags, focusing on trends, etc.).
The "Search Queries" section shows you what people searched in the Search bar that led them to your video. You can use that information to search for those keywords, analyze what type of content other people create, and gain some insights on how to improve your content.
Content
In the "Content" section, you are able to see your top-performing posts by views or likes.
By analyzing your best-performing posts, you can see what content resonates with your audience the most. Once you know that, you can create more content that performs well.
Viewers
In the "Viewers" section, you can see lots of key metrics about people who view your content, such as their age, location, and total views. However, the most important metric to track here is the "Most active times."
TikTok shows you what times of day, and which days of the week your viewers were the most active and engaged with your content. This is such a useful information to know because it allows you to better schedule your posts and know exactly when to post during the week and day to reach the most amount of people.
Followers
The "Followers" section allows you to get a glimse into people who follow you. While TikTok is unique because followers don't matter as much as content itself does, it can still be a useful thing to analyse, especially the "Follower insights" section.
Here you can see the gender, age and the location of your followers. By analyzing the location and other metrics, you can see if you are reaching your target audience with your content. If you notice that these metrics don't align with your ideal customer avatar, you'll know that you might need to shift your content strategy to attract the right people.
Conclusion
TikTok is an amazing platform for creators and business owners to grow and reach their target audiences. Organic growth on TikTok is still possible, as long as you understand the way algorithm works, and invest your time and effort in creating high quality, engaging content your audience wants to see. Combine that with being consisitent with your posting schedule, and chances are you'll start seeing results in no time.
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