TikTok Domination: A Small Brand’s Guide to Viral Content

You could say that Covid-19 was the best thing that ever happened to the app TikTok, as we were all forced to do nothing but sit, scroll and partake in video trends. While this app has completely transformed thousands of people’s lives with a surge of new influencers, it has also transformed what people want to be of influence and has put normal-looking people with likeable personalities in a light to shine; in comparison, it was as if you had a luxury life or looked pretty; you were an influencer.

It’s also become a platform for small brands to showcase their products, whether it’s through TikTok Shop, organically with daily posts or influencer marketing. As it’s the most popular app for Gen Z, and its popularity expanding as an example. The US has over 102 million users and while they were about to be wiped from the app last week, Trump stepped in and saved the app and saved thousands of people’s jobs.

If you are a small brand and you are looking to do some marketing but don’t have a large budget, I would recommend investing time and effort into your TikTok strategy to help you dominate. Here are 5 ways you can take advantage of and reap the benefits of this app.

Trends

You will hear everyone tell you to participate in trends and because they happen so quickly, I would recommend that you get behind them because they could get caught up with the spike and contribute to a million people viewing your video and being introduced to your brand, which is life-changing. According to TikTok, trends are ‘nebulous,’ meaning they can be fun, short videos with a catchy song or catchphrase or they could be a story time trend like ‘put a finger down’ trend.

Brands can engage with trends and do them tastefully to align with their morals and values. Depending on your business type, like if you were an e-commerce brand, you might be able to engage with a lot more trends compared to a professional practitioner brand. However, there are ways of turning and twisting them into something that is relevant.

Leverage User-Generated Content

When it comes to paid social and organic social, there are some things that work better than others. I heard that videos that are talking and are longer than a minute do better than short lip-syncing videos. The same goes for user-generated content, and through a survey, 80% of consumers say these types of videos highly impact their decision to purchase. 

I think I could say the same, as I am more likely to trust a brand if I see normal everyday people using the service or wearing the product. While you can post from your own account, it also helps if you are asking your users to post. You could create an incentive for users to post, such as offering a discount for a post off their next product or appointment.

You could also collaborate with influencers; while this might be costly, it can increase your brand awareness and sales instantly if the video gets a good reach. But this is especially important for all kinds of brands and services to take advantage of when you have a celebrity or influencer client.

Post Regularly

You want to ensure that you are relevant and are engaging, contributing and sharing regularly with your followers. As the algorithm doesn’t work in everyone’s, it will still show your followers new content with it’s own dedicated tab; nonetheless, posting regularly helps maintain your audience’s interest and increases engagement.

According to TikTok, posting between one to four times a day can help boost your views, engagement and so forth.

Mixture of Content

Doing a mixture of short, long, trendy and educational content is variety and that works well for both the audience and TikTok, and it will feel more inclined to show that kind of content to different people, widening your audience. 

Authenticity

This is what has completely transformed who and what we see as influential people: the more authentic you come across, the better. Users are scrolling through content on average 95 minutes a day which is a long time and I know about 10 people that spend at least double that daily so that’s a lot of opportunity to be seen.

Embrace your brand’s unique voice and personality to connect with users authentically and remember to have fun with the app; the videos don’t need to be perfect and people like to get to see the real sides to brands and not just the sell sell, sell side.

While complying with trends is all well and good, try and think outside the box to other brands and do something different, like with a brand that sells abayas. They create interesting content that is unique to their culture while keeping it modern, fun and girly.

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