The Social Series: How to create a TikTok marketing strategy

Welcome to The Social Series! Over the next several weeks, we'll be diving into specific social media platforms and look at channel demographics, algorithm, and discuss tips on how to build a successful marketing strategy.

First up? TikTok.

Grab your caffeine, put on your comfy clothes, and let's dive in. Those looking for my Marketing...in sweatpants must-haves. Check them out here.

The first step in building any kind of marketing strategy is understanding the audience. These demographics and statistics give us a big picture view and will come in handy when we're developing any kind of content and future strategy. Here are some key user demographics:

User/Location Demographics:

TikTok reached over 1 billion monthly active users in 2023 (globally)

Largest TikTok audience: United States (over 102.3 million users)

Average App Usage (Daily)

Gender Demographics:

Age Demographics (Globally):

Women

Ages 18-24 = 18% of global users

Ages 25-34 = 15% of global users

Men

Ages 18-24 = 18.6% of global users

Ages 25-34 = 17.6% of global users

Understanding the Algorithm

One of the ever changing variables on every social media platform is the algorithm. Marketers, we need to make sure we're aware and clued in to any algorithm updates, as it's a very necessary part of our strategy. The algorithm is a variable that is out of our control, making it even more important that we understand it. For TikTok, the goal is to use the algorithm to end up on the For You Page (FYP). In order to use the algorithm to our advantage, we need to understand the key factors of it. TikTok's algorithm factors include:

1. User Engagement: Likes, saves, and shares of a user; Accounts that a user follows; Comments a user makes on other videos

2. User Interests: Topics that a user expresses interest in when signing up for TikTok; Videos that a user spends the most time watching

3. Video Information: Tagged locations of videos created; Hashtags used in videos; Sounds used in videos; Consistency in posting; Captions used in videos, etc.

4. Device Information: Location of device; type of device; preferred language on device; etc.

These 4 factors are the main elements that make up the TikTok algorithm. You'll notice that TikTok's algorithm key factors do not include the size of the creator/account. That's because one of the biggest advantages of the TikTok algorithm is that it prioritizes content relevance over creator popularity. Keep that in mind!

Now that we understand the audience demographics and how the algorithm works, let's dive into how to build a successful marketing strategy.

Here are top tips on how you can build a successful TikTok marketing strategy.

1. Create a niche

Don't be afraid to create a niche and find a subculture! When building your account (TikTok business account is recommended), you want to have a subculture. It's important to remember that the TikTok algorithm is built around people finding videos that speak to their interests. Creating a buyer persona for TikTok can help you identify your audience and also identify brands/creators that you may want to partner with. Another great way to niche down: hashtags! Look up hashtags that are relevant to you and that you plan on using to see what other related content and creators are out there.

2. Use TikTok's Best Practices (time, consistency, engagement)

Just like with any social media channel, your marketing strategy has to involve using the platforms best practices to your advantage. For TikTok, these best practices include primarily 3 things: timing, consistency, and engagement.

Timing: The best times to post on TikTok vary depending on your industry. In general, the best times to post on TikTok are:

• Tuesdays from 2 to 6 p.m.
• Wednesdays from 2 to 5 p.m.
• Thursdays from 3 to 5 p.m.

I highly suggest checking out Sprout Social's 'Best times to post on TikTok in 2024', as it breaks down the data by industry.

Consistency: TikTok recommends brands post 1-4X a day. That is quite a large number, especially if you're a small business and are trying to build brand awareness on multiple platforms. The bottom line is you need some sort of consistency when posting. Remember: The TikTok algorithm is set to help push out videos from accounts that post regularly! Take a look at your brand, your audience, and your marketing goals, and find your TikTok sweet spot when putting out content.

Engagement: Engagement is extremely important on TikTok. Engagement doesn't just mean speaking on a topic that encourages your audience to like, share, or comment. We're talking about the engagement between you and your audience. While it may seem tedious, responding to comments and interacting with your audiences videos will not only help your performance analytics, it can increase brand awareness. Right off the bat, I think of brands like duolingo, Microsoft, LaRoche Posay...etc. These brands are great examples of companies who actively interact not just on their videos, but with other creators videos. Engage in any way that you can!

3. Use TikTok's features

TikTok features are a great way to play to the algorithm and organically boost your content. Remember, part of the TikTok algorithm specifically looks for videos that use TikTok's features! One of the cool things about TikTok? There are several features you can use. Some of the most popular features include:

Creating content that includes multiple features is going to boost performance. On the flip side, strategizing for TikTok marketing campaigns using some of these features can be tricky. The content and trends on TikTok move so quickly, if you don't hop on the "trend train" the moment it passes you, that train is gone and another "trend train" is right behind. Still, there will always be trends for you to capitalize on, include in your content, and take part in!

The psychology behind your audience interacting with and sharing content online is extremely beneficial to have when building your marketing strategy.

Recent research shows that the top 3 motivators for audiences to interact with and share content online are:

1. Bring entertaining content or valuable content to others

2. Help them define themselves

3. Nurture and grow relationships

So, while it's extremely important to keep up to date on algorithm changes and TikTok's content recommendations (ex: TikTok recently suggested creators test out posting in landscape), we must not forgot the psychology of why people interact and share content online in the first place.

When creating any kind of social media marketing strategy, it's critical to understand the platform. As we spotlight many social media channels, we'll start to uncover how alike and different these channels are. Hopefully, with better demographic and platform understanding, we can execute more efficiently and see quicker results.

What platform should we cover next week? Let me know in the comments of this article!

Talk next week!

-Marketing...in sweatpants