Did you know TikTok has about 100 million active users each month in the US alone? And did you also know that the TikTok app itself has been downloaded over 2.6 billion times?
TikTok has become one of the most popular apps available on the market, widening its user demographic and therefore motivating more businesses to implement TikTok marketing strategies to grow their brand.
If you are running a business or looking to market your product on social media platforms, TikTok marketing is a great way to take your brand to the next level.
Find out how TikTok advertising has grown into the ultimate marketing powerhouse it is today and how top TikTok marketing companies can help you market your business and boost your brand awareness.
What is TikTok marketing?
TikTok is a video-sharing social media platform that allows its users to create looped videos.
Starting out as ‘Musical.ly’ and launching first in China back in 2014, it was largely used for dancing, viral challenges, and lip-sync videos. This concept carved the app into the platform it is today.
Now, there are no limits to what you can do on TikTok, maintaining the emphasis on incorporating music.
TikTokers typically film snappy videos, using effects, filters, on-screen captions and music, using hashtags and categorising to get discovered by users. Topics ranging from nutrition and fitness to campaigning for change, TikTok is the ultimate platform for short-form mobile videos.
So, even if you have not used the app yourself, there is no doubt you’ve heard of TikTok – whether it is a reference to a viral TikTok clip, a dance challenge or a simple TikTok logo in the bottom corner of a video.
While the app mainly resonates with a younger audience, due to its rapid growth in popularity and brands targeting this age group, TikTok is starting to attract more businesses and professionals.
TikTok may be the new social media powerhouse, but there is still less competition given its rather recent evolution. So, it may be the perfect marketing goldmine for your business, attracting more potential customers at a rapid speed.
Why should I use TikTok advertising for my business?
Now you may be thinking “why exactly TikTok?”. And you’re not wrong in doing so, as several business owners are having the same thought. And this is mainly due to TikTok being known to mainly target a younger audience.
But did you know that in the U.S. alone, 53% of TikTok users are above the age of 30?
With business owners not recognising TikTok as an evolving powerful marketing tool just yet, now is the perfect opportunity to take advantage of this low competition and start thinking about implementing some top-level TikTok marketing strategies.
And if you’re still not yet fully convinced to use TikTok advertising for your business, it’s time we hit you with some more facts:
- TikTok is projected to have 79.6 million users in the USA in 2022, which may climb to 88.7 million in 2024
- In the UK, TikTok is set to reach 10 million users in 2021
- TikTok grew children’s social media use by 100% in 2019, and 200% in 2020
- TikTok offers Brand Takeover Ads, which can cost $50,000 a day with five million impressions guaranteed
- Engagement on Tiktok is remarkably high. For example, Jennifer Lopez got 69 million more views on TikTok compared to Twitter for posting the same video, despite having 40 million fewer followers on TikTok.
Also, in 2019, TikTok’s #Raindropchallenge accumulated over 995 million views.
- Within a year of TikTok’s development, it already had 1 million views a day
It’s no surprise that TikTok is slowly grabbing the attention of business owners as an effective marketing channel.
The concept of creating a short clip that can go viral is appealing to many, increasing users to engage and interact with content massively. So now is the best time to utilise the power and success of the app for your own professional gains.
But you may be new to the game and may not know how to use it just yet. With the help from some of the top TikTok marketing companies you can get your product to where you want it to be, quickly and surely.
So, how does it work exactly?
How does TikTok advertising work?
To understand how TikTok advertising works, let’s first talk about how TikTok is used as an app.
As we discussed above, the platform consists of videos that are up to 60 seconds long, usually containing very snappy and fast-paced clips. Users can scroll through their feeds and explore new video content from TikTokers.
The feed, a.k.a. the For You page, is based on the interests of the individual users, which is picked up by TikTok’s algorithm. This selection also relies on many other factors, such as your location, language and device settings, hashtags, captions and genre categorisation as well as the accounts and content you usually follow and engage with.
All relevant content to the user is presented on their feed where they can continue to discover more videos that they will most likely be entertained by.
Talking about the video content itself, TikTok allows creators to add a variety of effects, filters and background music to their videos. This is why several dance challenges have gone viral from this platform.
Viewers can ‘like’, comment and/or share the videos by forwarding it to their connections via direct message or sharing them on their other social media channels.
With the app booming in its popularity, it certainly is considered one of the go-to digital social networking services amongst the giants of social media, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
Top TikTok Platforms and Agencies
- Yodel Mobile - The leading global app marketing consultancy
- REPLUG - ENABLING YOUR MOBILE GROWTH
- Trend - We help brands produce content that converts through our network of microinfluencers. We are a marketplace for brands and creators.
- Phiture - We Help Apps Grow
- Moburst - Mobile Done Right
- Intellifluence - Influencer marketing made easy
- The Influencer Marketing Factory - The Go To For Influencer Marketing
- SEM Nexus - Startup App Marketing Experts
Now how does content go viral within TikTok? And can we use TikTok for marketing in order to increase visibility and awareness for our brands?
How can I use TikTok for marketing?
With only 6% of marketers believing in the TikTok platform offering the best influencer marketing ROI, the competition is fairly low right now. So it may be the perfect time to use TikTok marketing for your brand to boost your visibility.
To get a head start into how to use TikTok for marketing, download the app to observe the space for some weeks, which will make it easier for you to understand the functions and tools as a marketing channel.
The great thing about TikTok videos is that they are simple to make, with all of the editing effects and music being right at your fingertips. Videos do not require an extravagant amount of preparation for production design either, as they can be filmed in your home, garden or any informal setting really.
What TikTok marketing strategies should I implement?
Just like on any other social media platform, if you want to create an online presence for your app and succeed, you need to create engaging and intriguing content that appeals to your audience, making them want to watch and interact with your content further.
The goal is to make TikTok understand the relevancy and quality of your content, making its algorithm promote your content on as many feeds and For You pages as possible.
Before we get into how exactly to create top-level marketing content, let’s dissect the crucial elements that should ideally be included in a successful TikTok marketing strategy.
Start a TikTok brand channel
Creating a branded page and following relevant content formats and hashtags that suit your unique brand is a great way to kickstart your marketing campaign on TikTok.
Growing your very own TikTok brand channel comes with a variety of benefits, such as owning your content, reaching new audiences and being one step ahead of your competitors, achieving organic growth through an instant algorithm boost.
Once you have figured out your target audience and your content niche, meaning what topic your app mainly revolves around, focus on building your channel around that particular content category to build an authority around your brand.
Uploading consistent content that is relevant to your audience will allow TikTok’s algorithm to recognise your videos as important to users following that hashtag. It will then begin to suggest your content to them, enhancing your visibility massively.
Get familiar with TikTok influencer marketing
Influencer marketing and collaborations are effective and easy ways to advertise your brand. With the help of popular TikTok influencers, you can grow your company on the backs of popular users.
The social media realm is centred around influencers that promote a variety of brands through content, with extraordinary aesthetics and creative unique videos. Huge influencers usually have thousands and even millions of followers who are ready to buy any product they introduce.
Social media influencers are the new celebrities of the new digital age, with followers being their loyal fans, idolising them with a passion. Getting these influencers to help market and use your products in their videos is the perfect way to earn the trust and loyalty from new followers and potential customers.
Remember to identify which kinds of influencers you need to contact. Different influencers will reach a different audience. Once you’ve narrowed down what sort of influencer is best for your target market, you are good to go.
Even TikTok knows how crucial their influencers are and therefore launched TikTok Creator Marketplace to aid influencer marketing.
This platform is designed to encourage brand and creator collaborations, allowing brands to find content creator partners based on real performance data.
TikTok Creator Marketplace
Source: TikTok
Thanks to this new platform, you can use TikTok’s support in finding creators and even managing campaigns.
Up your hashtag game
Just like Twitter, TikTok relies heavily on the use of hashtags. To gain popularity on your own account it’s best you include trending hashtags. This will give you a better chance of landing onto Discovery and For You pages quickly, increasing your traffic and going viral with your content.
Keeping your hashtags relevant and trending is what will help TikTok’s algorithm learn where your videos work best.
In order to identify the most relevant and effective hashtags for your channel, make sure to do your hashtag research. In your search, make sure to ask yourself:
- What hashtags relate to my app?
- What hashtags are trending in my field?
- What content does my target audience consume? What are they ‘liking’ and sharing?
These questions will help you choose just the hashtags you need in your videos to see your organic growth skyrocket quickly.
Once you have gathered your hashtags, be sure to incorporate the relevant ones into your content.
But don’t overdo it. Get your audience’s attention with just the right ones.
This will take some practice and familiarising yourself with the TikTok landscape. So, getting a feel for the platform is the best step forward.
These TikTok marketing strategies can take your brand to the next level. You can integrate the most elite strategies into your plan, but at the end of the day it all comes down to the quality of your content.
How can I create good TikTok marketing content?
In order to get the kind of content out there that will instantly engage your audience you need to ace the production of it first and foremost.
Because the exposure of each user depends on how well their videos do, TikTok focuses on the performance and views of the individual videos rather than taking into account your entire profile.
The algorithm considers the amount of rewatches, shares, comments and likes each video receives. So, you want to focus on creating quality content for top TikTok marketing that will make your platform go viral.
Choose trending topics
When planning and creating your content, make sure to do your research on what is currently trending on the platform. You want to choose topics and themes that grab the attention of your target users. This may be a specific song that is commonly being used in videos, a challenge or reaction videos.
Dive into the content of your competitors and similar businesses, and skim through the comments of their audience to see what they are looking for in your industry. Type in broad keywords as well and see what videos are performing best.
You will quickly understand what topics are in high demand within your field.
Go with the flow but be original. Choose a content format that creators are going viral with, but tailor it to your brand. Start a challenge with a popular track, but make it a unique plot that includes the unique services your business offers.
This will instantly attract people to watch, making the algorithm label your content as relevant and trending, pushing it to the top of feeds.
Start a hashtag challenge
We previously discussed that, just like Twitter and Instagram, TikTok relies heavily on hashtags as well – the social media SEO, if you will. This lets the algorithm understand what your content is about, the category it falls under and what kind of audience it would interest.
But apart from just sprinkling your video captions with the right hashtags, running a hashtag challenge campaign is one of the most popular marketing tactics used across social media platforms today.
They are usually non-sponsored and involve a fun and simple challenge that is meant to motivate users to take part in, spreading brand awareness organically and instantly.
Collaborating with TikTok influencers and bloggers in your hashtag challenge is also a great way to gain popularity quickly.
Engage your users
Speaking of motivating your audience to participate in challenges – user engagement is a key factor to focus on when creating great TikTok content.
In TikTok marketing, user-generated content is great content. It allows you to quickly promote your brand with hashtags and editing tools, inspiring users to post their own ideas and tag your brand in their content.
This form of user-generated content can be videos of users’ experience with a specific service, their reaction to it, or a dance or Do It Yourself (DIY) challenge with your products.
How much do TikTok ads cost?
Coming up with creative video ideas can be a challenging task, especially when you are running your own business and have plenty of other important things on your to-do list.
Why not give TikTok Ads a try?
TikTok has an advertising platform, with campaigns starting at just $50 a day, in which it allows brands to advertise and generate more revenue, quickly.
To get started, you first want to establish your objectives and think about what you would like to achieve with your TikTok ad campaign. Then you can move onto the next step, which is to choose your ad format.
TikTok offers a variety of formats for your ad campaign:
- Branded effects
- Branded takeover
- Branded hashtag challenge
- Story
- Top view
- In-feed
Many businesses find In-feed Ads to be an effective format to get great results, while the other options may require you to have a sizable ad budget. Using In-feed Ads, your ads will appear in the users’ For You section when scrolling through their feed.
Taking a look at costs, there are some factors that will impact how much your TikTok ads will cost:
- Ad objective (traffic, conversions, app installs)
- Bidding format and amount
- Target audience (depending on gender, location, age, language, interests)
- Your industry
- Ad formats
TikTok doesn’t officially publish its ad rates, but here are the average costs for advertising on TikTok with In-feed Ads:
TikTok Advertising Rates
| Model | Rates | Country |
| Cost-per-click (CPC) | $0.19 | US |
| Cost-per-thousand-impressions (CPM) | $1.82 | US |
Source: AdEspresso
Check out our list of the best TikTok marketing agencies and platforms working for top TikTok influencer marketing, TikTok ads and TikTok content for your brand below.
A list of top TikTok marketing agencies and platforms
| Founded | Employees | Revenues | Social | Traffic |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2007 | 11-50 | - | 5k+ | 1,000 |
Yodel Mobile is the leading global app marketing consultancy and Mobile Agency of the Year 2019, specialising in launching and scaling apps.
Since their inception in 2007, they’ve launched and aided the growth of over 200 apps. They work with clients from single territory start-ups to established, multi-territory, international brands such as mytaxi, NBCUniversal, UKTV, Bauer Media, Fujifilm, The Economist, Teletext Holidays and Gymshark.
- Services: Launch or scaling strategy, Organic acquisition, Paid user acquisition, Retention and engagement, Data
- Offices: London, UK.
- Tagline: Global and local marketing expertise for app driven businesses
Learn more about Yodel Mobile
| Founded | Employees | Revenues | Social | Traffic |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| - | 51-100 | - | - | - |
Phiture is a multi-award-winning mobile growth consultancy and agency working with the teams behind leading apps. Using the company’s industry-acclaimed Mobile Growth Stack as a strategic framework, Phiture team offers 5 key services: App Store Optimization, Performance Marketing, User Retention/CRM, Subscription Revenue Optimization services and Growth Consulting.
Services: Mobile Growth, App Store Optimization, Performance Marketing, Subscription Revenue Optimization and User Retention / CRM
Trend
We help brands produce content that converts through our network of microinfluencers. We are a marketplace for brands and creators.
| Founded | Employees | Revenues | Social | Traffic |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | 10-50 | - | - | - |
Trend operates as a true marketplace. This being said, there are no software fees, no subscriptions, or commitments required. Each creator has a fixed cost of $100 – You can come and go from the platform as you please. Whether you are an SMB, mid market, or enterprise business, Trend can adjust to your creative and influencer needs.
- Services: User Generated Content, Influencer Marketing
- Tagline: We help brands produce content that converts through our network of micro-influencers. We are a marketplace for brands and creators.
| Founded | Employees | Revenues | Social | Traffic |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2013 | 11-50 | $17m+ | 3k+ | 20,000 |
Moburst is a mobile growth marketing agency founded in 2013 with branches in the US and Tel-Aviv. Moburst’s clients include some of the biggest brands in the world such as Google, Uber, Reddit, YouTube, Samsung, and many other amazing startups, gaming companies, and brands. Its team of growth experts promoted 600+ products in the past seven years and helped many start-ups gain more organic users, boost ROI on paid media and improve their products. Its user acquisition is achieved through a selection of hyper-targeted, remarketing, influencers, and brand engagement campaigns get the right message to the right user, at the right time. Its mixture of media channels are ideal to fit your goals and budget, including RTB/exchanges, social, ad-networks, premium publishers, video, retargeting, influencers and search.
- Services: Mobile Campaigns, Media Management and Optimization, Influencers Marketing, Mobile Strategy, App Store Optimization and SEO, A/B Testing, Product Consulting, Creative Production, Video Production, Social Management and Website Production.
- Offices: New York, San Francisco and Tel-Aviv
- Tagline: Doing mobile right
| Founded | Employees | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 10-50 |
REPLUG is a leading app marketing consulting agency, supporting mobile-first startups and traditional organizations launching and scaling their mobile apps.
- Services: Growth Consulting, Paid User Acquisition, Apple Search Ads, Social Media Marketing, App Store Optimization, User Engagement, Mobile CRM
- Tagline: ENABLING YOUR MOBILE GROWTH
| Founded | Employees | Revenues | Social | Traffic |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| - | - | - | - | - |
There is a science to app marketing, and most companies do not know how to do it properly. We utilize every digital marketing tool at our disposal to get your app off the ground.
- Services: Paid Search, Paid Social, ASO, Influencer Marketing
- Offices: New York, US
- Tagline: Startup marketing experts
| Founded | Employees | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | 10-50 |
The Influencer Marketing Factory is an Influencer marketing agency that help brands to leverage Influencer marketing in its full potential. The agency is focused on delivering on a brand’s KPIs, helping it to reach its targeting audience and bring solid ROI. The channels it works with include TikTok, Instagram, YouTube and Twitch. The agency clients range from Universal, Sony Music, Hilton to Southern Cross University and Gismart.
- Services: Influencer Research, Contracting, Reporting & Analytics, Content Management, Target Audience Identification, Content Guidelines
- Tagline: The Go To For Influencer Marketing
- Locations: NYC, Miami, US
| Founded | Employees | Revenues | Social | Traffic |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | 10-50 | - | - | - |
Intellifluence is the largest warm influencer marketing network in existence with over 100,000 verified creators; each and every influencer has opted-in to work hand-in-hand with brands, saving you time by eliminating the need for cold outreach.
- Tagline: Influencer marketing made easy
- Services: Influencer marketing platform, ASO, social media marketing
- Locations: USA
Learn more about Intellifluence
Distract is a fast-growing agency brings forward a bespoke solution designed to deliver results for your media marketing, from innovative paid social campaign to search strategy. Their clients range from national household names, to regional powerhouses and local startups. They are also a TikTok Ads Partner, with direct access to the advertising platform, being best placed to help you reach your audience with bespoke TikTok Marketing practices.
What They Do
- Search Optimisation
- Social Media Marketing
- Influencer Marketing
- Digital PR
- Web Development & Optimisation
OK Cool is a globally distributed team of professionals, specialised is strategy and creativity and scaling brands on TikTok. With innovative content production and paid marketing, they have the talent to humanise brands, mastering their formats to share and own unique cultural moments.
OK Cool helps brands activate their communities on the rapidly-evolving platform of TikTok that intentionally promote chaotic evolution. The full service creative studio, with creative consultants and specialist social media partners to leading design and branding agencies, will accelerate your business through the cultural lens that TikTok, Instagram and Facebook demand.
What They Do
- TikTok Strategy
- Creator engagement
- Organic content production
- Platform management
- TikTok paid ads
- Reporting and analytics
