How to Create the Ultimate TikTok Strategy

TikTok has swiftly transformed from a fun video-sharing app to something everyone is speaking about and spending countless hours scrolling on. Much like previous platforms and trends, TikTok’s incredible popularity makes it one of the best and most powerful marketing tools around, especially considering that a quarter of 18 to 54-year-olds prefer to search on social media now, not search engines.

For businesses and brands, platforms like TikTok are invaluable for anyone looking to engage a broader market and connect with younger audiences. Put simply, you need to be seen on social media to be found online. In this blog, we’ll provide some tips, advice, and insights for creating a top-tier TikTok strategy capable of engaging and growing your audience. 

Understand Your Audience

The first step in a successful TikTok strategy, or any marketing strategy, is understanding what makes your audience tick. TikTok’s user base is on the younger end of the scale, with the vast majority being Gen Z and Millennials — 60% of TikTok users are Gen Zers. With that said, its appeal is definitely broadening, and it’s successfully attracting more users from other demographics. 

Regardless of which generation you’re in, it’s quickly become essential to familiarise yourself with TikTok and its various tools. Doing so will prove to be crucial for researching your target audience and their preferences, behaviours, and the types of content they simply can’t ignore. Fortunately, TikTok has some handy analytical tools to get valuable insights into your audience, their activity, and which demographic they fall into.

Creating Engaging Content

Be Authentic

Authenticity is key for any brand if you hope you truly engage your audience; the same can be said for how you use TikTok. Users prefer content that feels genuine, relatable, and sparks emotional responses. How often do you feel that way when you watch super-polished, corporate-style content? We’re guessing… rarely.

To connect with your audience and immerse them in your brand experience, it’s important to show your human side. Yes, you’re a brand, but you’re also living, breathing humans who experience the same things as your audience. With this in mind, share some behind-the-scenes clips, user-generated content, and some insights into your employee’s lives. 

Take Note of Trends

Every social media platform experiences various trends, but TikTok thrives on them. Keep an eye on the latest trends and participate in challenges, create employee content, and use popular or trending hashtags to boost your content’s visibility. Additionally, regularly check for any of the latest trends that are relevant to your industry or those that you think would engage your audience. Also, there’s nothing wrong with just trying things out for fun and seeing how it performs. If it’s successful, fantastic! If not, you’ll learn a few lessons for future content.

Tell Your Brand’s Story 

Effective storytelling can inspire your audience, make you memorable, and create a brand story that people can get behind. Whether it’s through a narrative-driven video or a series that uses multiple posts to deliver an immersive brand experience, storytelling helps create an emotional connection with your viewers and offers reasons to follow your journey.

High-Quality, Eye-Catching Visuals

TikTok is a video-sharing platform, so it’s a no-brainer that it’s dominated by high-quality visuals. Content with aesthetic appeal and impressive visuals is naturally the most engaging, and for brands, the blueprint is right there to be explored and utilised. It’s important to make sure your videos are well-lit, with clear video and audio, and offer a visually appealing experience.

While you can’t expect every TikTok you make to go viral, it’s crucial to experiment with styles and various approaches to see what works. This helps you become more efficient with ideation while embracing your inner creativity when it comes to producing content.

Nailing Your TikTok Strategy

Consistency is Key

If you look at the world’s biggest brands and even those smaller brands that are successful on social media, they all have one thing in common—consistency! Whether you’re looking to maintain your current user engagement progress or grow your audience, it’s crucial to post regularly. 

Regular posting is essential for maintaining user engagement and growing your audience. To help inspire productivity and a more organised approach to content creation, make a content calendar to plan and schedule your posts in advance. Aim to post at least once a day to stay visible and relevant in your followers’ feeds.

Engage with Your Audience

Despite being a source of entertainment for more than 2 billion users, TikTok is a social platform at its core, so interaction is essential. Keep this in mind and respond to comments on your videos, engage with other users’ content, and participate in collaborations with influencers and non-competing brands. This not only builds a community around your brand but also increases your visibility on the platform.

Use Hashtags Effectively

Hashtags are incredibly important for improving your brand’s discoverability on TikTok. They help to make your videos more searchable and visible to a larger audience. To get the most out of them, use a combination of both broad and niche hashtags to cover general topics that attract a wide range of viewers and niche ones that cater to particular interests or communities.

It’s also a good idea to keep an eye on trending hashtags and incorporate them into your posts when and if they’re relevant. Trending hashtags can provide a well-timed boost and increase the chances of your video going viral.

Partner with Influencers

Collaborating with TikTok influencers can work wonders for your reach and brand reputation. Identify influencers whose audience aligns with your target market and whose content style matches your brand’s voice. Influencer partnerships come in many shapes and sizes and can range from sponsored posts and product reviews to account takeovers and challenge collaborations.

Analyse and Adjust

Much like your marketing efforts, product development, or any aspect of your brand—it’s essential to continually analyse and refine your TikTok strategy. Diving into the stats and insights will help a lot in this regard. Regularly review your analytics to understand what content is resonating and with who. Oh, and also discover which content isn’t yielding results so you can cut it out of your content calendar.

Track key metrics such as views, likes, shares, and comments while paying close attention to follower growth. Use these insights to adjust your strategy, experiment with new content types, and optimise your performance.

Invest in TikTok Ads

Investing in paid ads can boost your reach and engagement, especially when combined with organic strategies. Tailor your ads to be as engaging and authentic as your organic content to maintain consistency and audience trust. Getting started with TikTok Ads is quick and easy and lets you showcase your brand to TikTok’s two billion-strong audience in no time. 

It also allows you to identify and target your ideal customers using lookalike and custom audiences, further improving the quality of your ads and the chances of them finding the right people.

Would Your Brand Benefit from a Professional TikTok Strategy?

Nailing your TikTok strategy is all about knowing your audience, making compelling content, staying consistent, and tweaking things as you go. By jumping on trends, interacting with your viewers, and making the most of TikTok’s features, you can seriously boost your brand’s presence and see some impressive growth.

Are you already using TikTok for your brand? If not, you’re missing out! Get in touch today to discover how Peaky’s experts can help your business reach new peaks of success.