Leveraging social media to build brand popularity is not a new trick in the books of business owners. Statistics show that social media has the 3rd highest customer acquisition rate after websites and email marketing. However, to gain popularity on most social media apps, you need to spend on influencers and grow your account by earning followers and the like. These could become heavy expenses, especially for a small business owner.
However, blowing up your business on TikTok doesn’t work the same way as on other social media platforms.
With TikTok, small business owners have a chance for organic and stunning growth without even spending a dime. The algorithm has an advantage in that your business videos can get to a larger audience irrespective of the number of followers you have. This presents an interesting marketing opportunity for business owners, with many SMEs like Silk Labs going viral on the platform.
Now, you’ve seen the light and are looking for methods to blow up your business on TikTok. If you belong to this category, we’ve got you covered. This article will cover various tips on how to blow up on TikTok and the algorithm that helps content blow up on TikTok.
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How Does Content Blow Up on TikTok?
The uniqueness of the TikTok algorithm is what makes it quite a pick for small business owners to advertise their products and services. The algorithm gives content from small channels with a small follower base to blow up without promotions. However, how exactly do you go viral on TikTok?
First, the key to making videos blow on TikTok is to understand the mechanism behind the algorithm and create content that suits it. So, how exactly does the algorithm work? Let’s dive into the algorithm itself.
Now, as a business owner, when you post a video on TikTok, the algorithm shows it to a small group of people who could be interested in that type of content. It also shows it to people who interact with the type of hashtag used. If this small group of people likes, comments, and shares the video, the algorithm keeps showing it to more people, hence getting your video more views on TikTok.
From this stage, TikTok keeps showing the video to many other people. As the video keeps doing numbers, its exposure to a wider audience increases. This is a chain reaction that keeps happening until the video goes viral.
5 Tips to Blow Up Your Business on TikTok
Now that you understand the algorithm behind videos on TikTok, how exactly do you create video content people want to engage with? If this is the question on your mind, this section has everything you need to know about making engaging content on TikTok. Let’s get into it:
1. The First Rules of the Game: Engagement Metrics and Completion Rate
If we were to make a list of factors determining how many people will see your video, engagement metrics, and completion rate are high up on that list. What exactly do these two terms mean? Engagement Metrics have to do with the percentage of people who like, comment, and share your video after watching it, and the Completion Rate is the percentage of people that watch your video to the end.
With tons of content to view on TikTok, you don’t need an expert to tell you that getting people to watch your video to the end could be a little tricky. However, people use various tricks to ensure their videos crush both metrics with insane numbers. These include:
- Captivate attention with the first 3 seconds of your video: The attention span of humans is shorter than ever. Getting the attention of your viewers in the first seconds of your video determines if they'll even want to see the rest. Get creative and get them hooked!
- Tell interesting stories: One trick that works for people in the creative industry is telling engaging stories while showing the process behind their work. However, this trick applies to almost any kind of process revealing content. A story helps keep the viewers engaged while watching how you make magic with your products.
- Make your videos in parts: This is another trick that makes people want to watch your content to the end and even check out your TikTok page. Perhaps you're telling an interesting story while showing your process reveal video; you could segment this story into parts to make the viewers want to view the other parts of the story.
- Trigger their curiosity: This is another trick that keeps people hooked till the end. For example, an artist making a portrait drawing could show parts and parts of the drawing while making the grand reveal at the end of the video.
- Give value to your listeners: You should not always make your content about selling your products. Sometimes, make tutorials or educational content that involves your products. This way, you’re educating your followers while passively advertising your product.
- Your environment matters: Have you ever seen a video where the scenery and lighting were so nice that you just had to watch it to the end? That’s the power of the environment and lighting. When you want to make videos, try to get a beautiful background. If you can’t afford good lighting, find a natural light source to make your video look good.
2. Don’t Forget to Use Trending and Specific Hashtags
Hashtags are one of the indicators that instruct the TikTok algorithm on who to show your videos to. There are always trending TikTok hashtags that could last for days and even weeks or months. It could be a movie scene, a dance, or a song. Learn to tap into these trends and their various hashtags. This helps expose your content to users who interact with this hashtag and gets your content to a broader audience.
To find hashtags trending on TikTok, check out your Discover page and find the best one that suits your content. You could also check out hashtags that are related to your business and see which of them could get your content to a larger viewership.
Check your Discover page
TikTok then shows you trending topics on this page
Do not just use popular hashtags if they don’t fit the type of content you create. Also, learn to mix popular hashtags with less competitive ones to provide the algorithm with a specific group of people that will view your video.
Also, there are always specific hashtags for particular industries. For example, this lip gloss-making store known as popaglosscosmetics always attaches hashtags like #lipgloss or #lipglossbusiness to her videos. This way, anyone who loves checking out lipgloss videos will see their content more on their For You page.
3. Imitation with a bit of creativity
Whatever industry your business belongs to, there will be a bigger brand than yours on the app. Check out the TikTok page of this brand and see how you can imitate their most successful videos while putting in your twist of creativity. You should understand that imitation, in this case, is not advising you to copy everything about the video, and you could just find creative inspiration from these bigger brands.
For example, you could check out their backgrounds, the popular words in the video, how frequently they post, their hashtags, etc. These indicators could give you a bit of direction for your content and help you grow faster.
4. Have a goal for every video
As a business owner, you’re not just creating content to entertain people, but you’re trying to get them to buy your products. Hence, you should have a goal for every video you make. When starting afresh, you’re probably just trying to grow your community, follower count, create viral videos, etc.
After this, you should be aiming to convert these followers into customers. Having an established customer join your following could only help your growth. People like this tend to have firsthand experience with your products/services and will engage your content/discussions better. Hence, you should start directing them to your online store.
Speaking about online stores, your store should also integrate TikTok features in your marketing procedures. This way, customers who find you on the store first could check out your TikTok content and join your loyal followers. Shoplazza has integrated with TikTok shopping. With a Shoplazza store, online sellers can integrate their store with their TikTok account( must be a TikTok for Business account), which allows them to pull products from their store to the shopping tab on their TikTok profile. With this feature, online sellers can easily sync products to TikTok shops to reach more shoppers.
Check out the TikTok features on Shoplazza, which comes with a 7-day free trial for new users.
5. Be consistent!
Consistency is vital in any type of endeavor. When starting your TikTok journey, there will be ups and downs. The key to making it a success story is never giving up on it. Keep creating content and keep engaging your viewers. Sometimes, all you need is that one viral video. Of course, not all your videos will go viral.
So, keep at it, have fun, and your success will come in no time.
Summary on How to Blow Up Your Business on TikTok
First, remember that this is where you stand a chance to become popular even though there are brands with bigger resources. Also, you can’t get it right off at the start. Experiment, strategize and make sure you stay consistent at it. Follow the tips above, such as getting the hashtags right, being creative with the process, working with goals and milestones, and you should get that big break in no time.
