In our latest blog, you will learn about:
- The extent of TikTok’s rising popularity, and how it’s shaping the market
- Why it is important for small businesses to leverage TikTok
- How data holds the key to building effective brand awareness
- Other avenues in which TikTok can help small businesses push their brand out to new audiences
Have you ever sat and wondered how you can tap into generation Z?
Well, there’s a quick response to that – if you’re not leveraging TikTok, you haven’t even come close to tapping into this ever-growing generation.
Every year the GenZ market grows, as a new batch of impressionable consumers enters this generation bracket. Even here at Set Hub, we notice the profile of the users we interact with on social media becoming younger, which is reflective of their impact on the market.
Over 60% of TikTok users are young adults categorized as Generation Z – that is, born after 1996. Why is this important? Well, it’s an app that’s driving the market, and Gen Z is driving the app.
The short-video streaming application was the most downloaded app of 2021, just as it was in 2020…and 2019. Its growth is exponential and shows no signs of slowing down.
If ever there was a platform to promote brand awareness in 2022, it’s TikTok.
Using TikTok For Brand Awareness
This presents an opportunity for small business owners who now have a direct line to a brand new audience that grows by the day.
If you’re thinking about how you can leverage TikTok to build brand awareness for your business, here’s what other small businesses like yours are currently doing. They are:
- Gathering Data On User Habits To Build An Audience Profile
- Aiming for the ‘For You’ Page
- Translating Data Across Other Channels
- Using TikTok’s advertising capabilities
- Influencer Marketing (after you’ve built the foundations)
Now, we’ll take a look at each point in detail, discussing how they can contribute to boosting your brand.
Gathering Data
The key to successfully launching on a new platform launch is the effective utilization of data. But, if you’re new to TikTok, you won’t have any just yet…so it’s time to go and get some!
The platform’s analytics feature is super extensive and will segment all the metrics behind your video views and interactions into interpretable brackets that will allow you to split your audiences up and plan your strategy around them.
The platform provides data on gender, popular territories in which your content is being viewed, the average watch time of your videos, audience reach – all the good stuff you need to know to tap into the activity on your platform.
This is critical for building brand awareness because you can begin to establish a profile of what your audience looks like – and you can target them directly with content that resonates with them.
Fundamentally, by understanding who they are and what they look like, you can cut through the noise and make better use of your time and resources.
A handy little feature that TikTok provides is about your followers too. TikTok will demonstrate what they’re watching, what they’re listening to, and their general browsing habits on the platform.
The point here is – there are a lot of potentially valuable data to tap into, but you need to go and get it first! This will help shape your strategy and understand what puts you in front of your target audience.
Aiming For The ‘For You’ Page
The TikTok ‘For You’ page is the Hollywood Boulevard of the app. It’s the place that people want to be. If you land there, in front of the eyes of the audience you’re aiming for, you’re really going to get yourself noticed.
A bit about the ‘For You’ section – TikTok puts the content it believes its users want to see in their unique ‘For You section. If the user shows an interest in basketball, they’ll see more basketball-related content. But, as the interests develop, the app will present this content in such a way that it isn’t repetitive, ensuring the feed doesn’t become stale.
Landing on the ‘For You section puts you in front of warm audiences in an effortless way. The user doesn’t have to search for you – you come to them. Talk about effective brand awareness!
While this section of the app is partly algorithm-driven, it is moored in user habits, and – importantly for any business owner – the quality of content you produce.
As a core principle, any content you post on your TikTok feed needs to be high-quality content. Why would they share low-brow content that is unlikely to engage its audience after all? So make that a standard practice for anything you choose.
A potential key to unlocking your presence on the ‘For You’ page though? Hashtags.
TikTok even has a top hashtags trend search, so if you have some inspiration about potential hashtags to link to your content, be sure to check the top hashtags first to ensure their relevance.
Translating Data Across Mediums
This one is slightly left-field, as the focus of this blog is on TikTok itself. However, from a brand awareness perspective, whatever you can possibly learn about your audience from TikTok should definitely be leveraged across other platforms.
Why? Well, considering the level of granular data that TikTok will provide your business about what your audience looks like, and how it’s interacting with you on the platform, why can’t you begin to leverage this cross-platform?
Brand awareness ultimately doesn’t have to stay on TikTok. If you have insights into what a particular audience looks like, it can be translated across other mediums. There is a family of social media platforms that may be waiting to learn about your brand, and practices that work on TikTok should ultimately be tested on short-video-friendly platforms like Instagram and YouTube.
If you have managed to build a solid image of what your audience looks like on the app, why not test the content that resonated with them on an Instagram reel, or a YouTube short? You may just have stumbled across a winning formula that will do great things for your brand.
TikTok Advertising
This particular point capitalizes on the sheer scale of users on the platform itself.
There are just over 1 billion active monthly users of TikTok. If we consider app downloads too, that number jumps to 3 billion, so there’s an extra 2 billion people that pass through from time to time.
Imagine presenting your small business to an audience of over 1 billion people. You surely wouldn’t be calling yourself that for much longer!
Joking aside, in an audience of over 1 billion people, there’s got to be a small segment of relevant people for you to tell your story to. This is where leveraging the platform’s advertising function can help you cut through the clutter and aim directly for your target market.
The potential fruition of a successful advertising campaign on TikTok is exponential too, with 92% of global users taking action after watching a TikTok video.
Not only are you boosting your brand awareness here, but you’re also increasing your chances of conversions.
TikTok’s advertising platform allows for specific brand awareness campaigns that can target by gender, age, interest, location, hashtags, you name it. This level of targeting allows you not only to spread awareness of your brand but vitally put your small business in front of people who are more likely to take action.
Leave a little bit of space in your marketing budget for paid advertisements on platforms like TikTok, as they hold a lot of considerable potentials.
A Note To Influencer Marketing, Too…
Of course, no discussion about building brand awareness on TikTok is complete without discussing the role of influencers.
The influencer marketing industry is projected to be worth over $16 billion in 2022 – up from $1.7 billion in 2016. There are many parallels that can be drawn between the rise of TikTok and the rise of influencer marketing, and some would argue that it’s no coincidence they both parallel each other.
However, a note about influencer marketing – while it is a tool to build brand awareness as you can extrapolate from already-existing audiences and talk directly to them, you should have a clear understanding of what your audience looks like on the platform before you explore this avenue.
Until then, sift through the data and build a picture of your audience profile.
Leveraging TikTok for Business
The impact that TikTok is having on the ability of small businesses to promote themselves is truly fundamental. There is now an audience of over 1 billion people that are actively tuned in to the screen on which you can place your business. Added to the ultra-detailed targeting opportunities available to businesses, the potential to strike gold via a social media platform has never been higher.
With such exciting opportunities presenting themselves to entrepreneurs in the market, it’s never been a better time to consider launching your dream business. If you’re looking for help and guidance starting your business journey, let’s connect and bring your dream to life.
If you’re looking for a helping hand with incorporating your new venture, let’s connect.
Call us at +97143873401, or fill in our website form and we will call you back within 55 seconds.
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