The Ins and Outs of TikTok Marketing Tools

In the summer of 2020, TikTok launched a TikTok for Business hub, followed by TikTok Pro a few months later. Initially, there was a differentiation between the two—one was for businesses, and the other was for growth-savvy creators—but TikTok eventually merged the two hubs because they delivered nearly identical insights.

TikTok for Business is now the sole option. You may expand your profile with a business account and access real-time data and audience insights.

How to Create a TikTok Business Account

1. Go to your profile page.
2. Open the Settings and Privacy tab in the top right corner.
3. Tap Manage Account.
4. Under Account Control, choose Switch to Business Account.
5. Choose the Category that best describes your account—Tiktok offers categories from Art & Crafts to Personal Blog to Fitness to Machinery & Equipment.

From there, you can add a business website and email to your profile, and you’re ready to roll.

How to Advertise on TikTok

Making an official TikTok ad (paying TikTok directly for marketing) is a certain strategy to increase the number of people who see your content. Tiktok ads allow you to target your audience by gender, location, age, interest, and unique variables.

Types of Ads Available on TikTok

Here’s a list of all the different types of advertising you may place on TikTok’s ad platform and apps. In some places, not all ad types are available. Check out the TikTok ad specs for all formats further on in this post.

In-feed Ads

These are self-service advertisements you can make using the TikTok Ad Manager interface.

Image Ads

These include an image, brand or app name, and ad text and are exclusively available in TikTok’s News Feed applications (BuzzVideo, TopBuzz, and Babe).

Video Ads

These are offered on TikTok and the TikTok family of news apps. They appear in the user’s For You stream as 5-60 second full-screen videos. A video, an ad display image, the brand or app name, and ad text are all included in each ad.

Spark Ads

Your brand can utilize Spark advertisements to promote organic content from your account or other users. Spark Advertisements offer a 24 percent greater completion rate and 142 percent higher engagement rate than normal In-Feed ads, according to the TikTok study.

Pangle Ads and Carousel Ads

These are advertisements that are only available through TikTok’s Audience Network and News Feed apps, respectively.

Ads for Managed Brands

Ads for managed brands may appear in-feed. However, those who work with a TikTok salesperson have access to enhanced formatting, including:

• TopView Ads:  When users open the TikTok app, video advertising displays as a full-screen takeover for 5 to 60 seconds.
• Branded Hashtag Challenge: User-generated content appears on the hashtag challenge page during a three- to six-day marketing campaign to stimulate engagement.
• Branded Effects: To get TikTokers to interact with your business, use custom stickers, filters, and unique effects.

Too much detail and information?

To put it more simply, here are four main ways your business can advertise on TikTok.

Brand Takeover

When a user opens up TikTok, they see the brand takeover ad before any other user content. You can link the ad to a landing page if you make an exclusive offer for TikTok.

Native Ad

This is a kind of ad that plays in between user content. Remember that users can easily skip this type of ad by just scrolling past it.

Sponsored Hashtag Challenge

Businesses can sponsor a specific hashtag challenge and advertise on the Discover page. This is a great way to get more engagement for your brand and hashtags. If you’re looking for a little push towards your challenge from the platform, TikTok offers promotional support of 150 grand per day, the challenge will be promoted for a set time with a banner on TikTok Discover Page where users can learn more about the challenge.

TikTok now offers an e-commerce feature called the hashtag challenge plus, which lets video viewers shop for products right in the TikTok App. In addition, a separate tab features an in-app experience where products from the campaign can be purchased.

Branded Lens

TikTok’s Video Editor includes many different effects and filters that users can use to create eye-catching content. Like Snapchat, Tiktok allows brands to design their custom filter. TikTok Branded Lenses can go live for up to 10 days and are a great way to encourage users to interact directly with your brand. It’s best to pick something related to your business that resonates with your target audience.

How to Make a TikTok Ad Account

If you want to run advertisements on TikTok, you’ll need to set up a TikTok Ads Manager account.

To do so, go to ads.tiktok.com, click Create Now, and fill out the form. (It’s only the essentials: nation, industry, company name, and contact information.)

How to Create a TikTok Marketing Strategy

1. Get familiar with TikTok
2. Define your target audience
3. Perform a competitive audit
4. Set goals that align with your business objectives
5. Post regularly
6. Track your progress
7. Create space to experiment

How to Get the Most of TikTok for Business

Let’s take a look at TikTok advertising and explore some tips that will help you leverage the platform to its full potential in 2023.

Start a Branded Channel

Brands that want to take advantage of TikTok’s huge potential should make it an always-on channel by creating a consistent presence on the platform using a combination of paid marketing and organic content.

Make a branded page and start experimenting with different sorts of content. Content may be created quickly and on a minimal budget. The best thing to do is to keep up with trendy hashtags and memes and then adapt them to your business. Create and share real material using the app’s built-in filters, effects, soundbites, and editing tools. Although TikTok has a large organic reach, meaningful interaction can only be achieved if your content resonates with your audience and follows the platform’s standards. It’s just not possible to post your company’s brand messaging here.

Don’t miss out on upgrading to PRO Account as well, which gives you access to TikTok Analytics.

Don’t Make Ads, Make TikToks

“Don’t Make Ads, Make TikToks” is effectively encouraging companies to abandon their efforts to “cut through the noise” or “stand out from the crowd” in favor of attempting to blend in and add to the cacophony. Ads that interrupt the user’s online content experience are no longer effective. They’ve been exposed to these commercials for years and have gotten very good at recognizing them as advertising and swiping through, skipping, or simply ignoring them to go back to the material they were watching.

TikTok thrives in its carefree, unfiltered, anti-aesthetic nature, which focuses more on authenticity. To connect with and ultimately engage TikTok audiences, your ads need to, first and foremost, be authentic—adopting the same visual language as organic content.

Best practices:

• Videos should feel raw rather than polished
• Draw on user-generated content (UGC)
• Have music play a central role
• Utilize stickers and/or emojis
• Be experimental, playful, and humorous
• Tap into current trends playing out on the platform

Wrap Up

Do you feel ready for 2023? Get your account up and running and start exploring all the opportunities this wild and wonderful platform has to offer.

There is no shortage of business opportunities on TikTok. As with any social platform, choosing the best advertising methods that align with your goals and make sense for your brand is important. Hop on the TikTok train!