Unlock TikTok Success: Essential Marketing Tips and Strategies for 2021
Tick-tock is growing fast, and it is set to dominate this year in 2021. So, if I could give you one piece of advice for social media, it would be this: immediately start using TikTok, with relatively little competition on this platform. Growing TikTok is pretty much accessible to everyone. Tick-tock has become the ultimate way to develop an audience quickly and promote your business authentically and engagingly. So, you lack the capital to invest in Facebook or Instagram ads. In that case, building a following on tick-tock might be the key to skyrocketing your sales.I mean, look at the massive impact of the Dreams Challenge on ocean spray sales, right? But the rules for success on tick tock are a lot different than any of the other platforms, and that’s why, in this video, you’re going to learn marketing tips and Strategies that are going to help your business go viral [, Music, ], hey guys, what’s going on, my name is Michelle, and if you’re new welcome to learn with Shopify, this is a channel for small business owners and entrepreneurs. So, if that’s you, make sure you click subscribe; our videos will give you the knowledge you need on every step of your e-commerce journey. We even offer free business tools to help you find your way forward, so ensure you are subscribed to our YouTube channel. You will always be one step ahead of the competition in the early days of Instagram. It was much easier to grow, and I speak for many of us when I say I wish I would have put in the time and energy to produce. My Instagram account back then. So it almost feels like tick-tock is a second chance, and growing on tick-tock right now is much more accessible. Please follow these steps because, who knows, this window of opportunity might not be around forever. So, in this video, we’re going to cover two things: first, we’re going to talk about how to use the app, and then I’m going to teach you how you can make your content go viral. Now, I have time-stamped these two sections below. So, if you want to skip ahead, you can do that, but other than that, let’s get into it. What are the benefits of being on TikTok? Since this platform is new, many people still struggle with the idea. Should they be on tick tock, would they benefit or not?I was a little lazy in my business.I already had Instagram.I already had Facebook to worry about and didn’t want to worry about another platform. Still, a friend recommended it, and I decided to try it.I am so glad I did. Here are the benefits you can expect from being on. Tick tock, firstly, and most importantly, you can take advantage of exponentially fast growth; reaching a massive audience and growing your following is more accessible than on any social media platform. This is a great place to start if you want to be an influencer industry expert or a business owner. TikTok allows you to link to your other social media profiles. So, if you’re looking to grow on Instagram or YouTube, TickTock will be the perfect gateway, and expanding each will lead to more sales. If you have an e-commerce business or sell services, tick-tock is the place to reach your niche audience. Tick-tock is also liberating because people come onto the platform expecting to see content that isn’t overly produced. So, you can quickly and easily make videos that could be better and still be successful. On that same note, this is still an entertaining, feel-good platform, whereas Instagram can be a little flashy. Tock is still where people come to be educated, inspired, or entertained. It’s a very light-hearted place to be, which does take the pressure off. How does tick-tock work?I’ll quickly glaze over the interface and how to make content. But if you want an entire video on how to use tick, tock, maybe you’re looking for something a little more in-depth, then make sure that you’re leaving me a comment in the comment section below; that way, I’ll know to film it. How do you set up your profile? First things first, you’re going to need to make your account. You can create an account using your email, phone number, or a third-party platform like Facebook. To change your username, tap the icon in the bottom right corner. It looks like a little person’s body, so you’ll hit that and then hit edit profile. Here, you can change it to your brand. Now, add a bio that sums up who you are as a business so that people get it in two seconds or less. And, of course, you want to remember to link to your website that way. If people are interested in buying your products or services, they have a place to go and how to navigate the app. Now that your profile is ready to go, it is time to understand how people consume content, so the app is divided into two primary feeds. The for-you feed is where the algorithm will show you a stream of videos it thinks you’re going to. This is like Instagram’s Explore page swipe left, and you’ll find the other feed, the following feed. The following feed will show you videos from people you choose to follow. You’ll find icons to engage on the right-hand side of any video. So, that will include your likes, comments, and shares now. This last icon is a spinning record with music notes, representing the song excerpt the user plays in their video. So, if you click on it, you’ll see the track’s name, artist and the song’s popularity. Keeping an eye on the popularity will also help you understand if a particular song is going viral.I’ll explain why that’s important later. Still, here you’re also Going to see a feed of other tick-tocks that are also using this song, how to create a tick, tock, video, okay, so now you’re ready to share your tik tok. So first, you’re going to tap the plus sign at the bottom of the screen, and before you start recording, you can add a song so that your video is in time with the Music. But otherwise, if you want to film something at the moment, you can skip ahead and start recording without a musical track. Then, you can add the Music Later tick. Tock has a lot of AR effects to choose from, including tap effects. On the left-hand side, browse them, and here’s a quick tip: it’s been speculated that using these effects can increase your exposure, so be sure to keep that in mind as you’re. Lastly, and probably the most important feature here, is the timer. So this will allow you to film videos without holding the record button, allowing you to be free. Do your thing and get creative with your content so you can upload videos recorded outside of the app. You can stitch them together in the app if that works better for you. So if you have the footage in your camera roll and want to use those, you can import them and trim them once you’re comfortable with TikTok; try using duets. Duets will split the screen so you can build on another creator’s video and record your content alongside the original. People are using this feature to make reaction or response videos. Music is at the heart of tick-tock. Picking a popular song can be why your video goes viral, so to choose a song you will hit, add a sound on the right-hand side of the recording screen. Here, you can browse the most popular tracks on the platform. You can also look at the songs associated with particular challenges on TickTock. Challenges unite the TikTok community, and advertisers can sponsor them. For example, ABC ran an American idol challenge on TikTok. People were just showing off their voices and singing, but most challenges aren’t sponsored. However, they’re actually created by tick tock and the community itself, so to browse all of the Tick. Tock’s current challenges: you will want to tap the magnifying glass at the bottom of the home screen and then at the top of the same menu. There’S going to be a search bar which can be used to find specific creators sounds or hashtags how to look at your analytics? Okay. So once you start sharing your tick tocks, you can check out how many people have watched them by looking at the view numbers on your profiles and then, if you want to look even deeper into your analytics, you’re just going to want to click the video itself. Then you’ll hit the three little circles, and then you’ll hit analytics here. You can see stats like your average watch time where people are coming from as well, and then you’re also going to want to tap the notifications icon at the bottom of your screen and that’s going to be showing you who has commented or liked your videos. Recently. Okay, so that is a super quick rundown of how to use tick. Tock, and like I said, it’s by no means exhaustive. So, if you do want something a little more in-depth, just leave me a comment in the comment section below, and I’ll make sure to make that video for you guys. So now, let’s talk about the eight tips and tricks you need to make your content go viral! Okay, super quick break here, um! If you’re ready to drive more sales, you should consider levelling up your marketing. You can level up your marketing by changing how you think about your store’s marketing funnel. So, if you want to learn how to drive more traffic to your online store, sign up for the free Marketing 101 webinar.I will make sure to leave a link in the description box for you guys on how to make a video go viral. Okay, so tip number one is to tell a story. Start your video with a problem, give clear steps about your journey, and then end it with a solution. So, let’s say you sell handmade vegan shoes. You can start the video by saying you know at first.I thought it was impossible to make handmade vegan shoes, but i did it and here’s how? Then you could show some behind-the-scenes footage and then, at the end you would just wrap it up all in a neat bow with your final solution. So if your story is unique or inspiring you’re not only going to grow your tick tock audience, but you’re also going to gain some loyal followers that are emotionally invested in the backstory of your brand. So if you aim to sell products, these types of videos that tell your brand story will help you make sales as well, alright, so the next tip that I have for you guys is to provide value. So, while tick tock trends can be a fun for a short, while i think eventually, viewers are going to get bored. You know, there are only so many times you can watch the same dance performed by different people. So what this means for you, as a creator, is you will need to provide value. People are coming to the platform either to be entertained, inspired, or informed, so you’ll want to ask yourself by the end of this video: What did the viewer gain? Did they laugh? Did they learn a new skill to grow on tick, tick? You’ll want to lead by providing value first, and then, you’ll want to promote your brand. So, going back to our shoe example, let’s say you create a video explaining how you were able to make your handmade vegan shoes. Okay, great, the heart of the video is going to be educational, though it’s only at the very end of the video, where you’re going to be fulfilling your own needs as a brand and take those couple of seconds to plug in your call to action. So your call to action could be to check out our online store, or it can be. Stay tuned for this collection to drop, but you’re only taking the last few seconds of the video to plug your products. The type of content we create on Instagram is shameless advertising.A video on Instagram might just be. You know, like a bunch of models wearing your shoes, laughing smiling kind of like a commercial that you would see on tv there’s no real value there, but that’s pretty much normal for instagram. However, that type of content does not fly on tick-tock, so make sure that you provide value and that there is a takeaway for the viewer. Tip number three is use. Viral sounds so using trending sounds is extremely important to get discovered, especially on tick tock. So if you’re not using trending, it sounds like you’re going to be far less likely to be featured on the for you page, and the for you page is where you’re going to gain most of your followers. So this is extremely important. So what you’re going to want to do to find your viral sound is you’re going to want to click, add song as you’re creating your video, then you’re going to go under playlist, and then you would look under the tick tock viral playlist and if you’re, creating An explainer, video or content that does need sound to make sense what you can do is you can drop the volume on the added song and then you can raise your volume on the original track and then that way the viewer can, you know, hear what you’re saying in your video um make sense of the video, but you’re still getting discovered for that viral sound that you’re, using in your video tip number four. Okay, we are just ripping through these, so make sure you’re hooking people. You’re not only going to want to hook people at the beginning, but you’ll also want to hook your audience every 5 to 10 seconds. This increases your videos average watch time and we do care about our average watch time, because, if tick, tock’s main incentive is to keep people on their app longer and your content is hooking people, your average watch time is long. Then, of course, tick. Tock is going to reward you with added exposure. Now, I find that adding captions or words to your video will get people to stick around longer. So when people can watch your video and then also read along they kind of get like glued to your content, it’s definitely happened to me and i’m sure it’s happened to you before as well, so make sure you’re, adding captions and words. Another great tip is to ask a question right at the beginning of your video and then use the rest of your video to answer it now. This works because people want to see things through to completion. Going back to our shoe example, you know we could start. Our video asking you know are vegan leather shoes really more sustainable than actual leather shoes. Now this question works because it’s controversial and it hits on sustainability, which is a pressing topic and, of course, we’re asking a question and using the rest of the video to give a solution or an answer and the final tip for hooking. An audience is to make fast-paced videos, quick jumps, cuts, flashing text, and that will continue to hook. People throughout the video, all right, tip number five is to find your niche and stick with it. So you’ll notice that some of the most successful tick-tockers are making one type of content and one type of content only. They recycle content by presenting it in slightly different ways, and these are the videos that go completely viral. This is efficient, because not only is it less work for you um, it’s also effective, so it’s really just like a complete win-win. So, for example, the silk labs makes content around the behind the scenes of owning a small business and jenna has videos about how she makes her products and the growth of her business over time. So, she found the type of content that works for her, and she continues to post that kind of content without deviating. So you might be asking yourself: okay, how am i gon na find the type of content that works for me? Well, if you have no pre-existing audience, then you’re gon na have to experiment a little until you find the type of content that really hits, but once you do find that winning type of content you’re going to want to keep creating. You know content precisely like that, but just different variations, so you might want to post the same video with a different sound, and that’s going to reach a completely different audience. Sticking to your niche is not only important to grow on tick-tock, but it’s essential to reach an audience that will be aligned with your brand. So if you post something, that’s maybe a little bit off brand for you then sure you might get 100 extra followers, but are those followers really valuable if they’re, not the right audience so biggest takeaway is find that niche stick to it and you’ll be successful? Okay, so the sixth tip is to close your app as soon as you’ve posted now. Some theories say that if you post a video, you should immediately close your app. The reason for this is because tick tock actually wants to send you notifications to entice you to reopen your app. So, if you can hold off long enough and resist the temptation to open the app again, this can help your videos go viral.I’ve noticed that it works for me, but the jury is still out on this one. So try it yourself, um and actually leave me a comment. If this is working for you leave me a comment.I’D be curious to know tip number seven is ensure that your videos can be watched on their own, so on tick, tock, there’s a little bit less of an emphasis on follower loyalty. So when you log on to youtube uh, for example, you can easily watch every single video that your favorite youtuber has posted, so series content like part one part two, those are more appropriate on youtube, but with tick tock, it’s definitely much easier to miss videos. Even of the people that you follow so make sure that you’re creating videos that can be watched alone so take the show seinfeld. For example. Let’S say i started watching right in the middle of the season: seven um!I could pretty much pick up what’s going on right, but if i jumped into the middle of stranger things or shit’s creek in the middle, i might be a little confused right. So go for seinfeld type, content um that is just easy to understand and that they stand alone rather than in a series create content assuming that you’re reaching a brand new audience most of the time, especially when you’re, just starting out so tip number eight is watch For shadow bands, shadow banning is when the bots that moderate tick tock detect some sort of a violation of the use of the app. This is going to result in less exposure for your account now tick tock has not yet confirmed that shadow banning is something that they actually do. However, there’s definitely enough of people that have experienced this or been affected by sudden drop in engagement, so you might notice that all of a sudden you’re not getting all the likes or all the reach or all the comments that you’re used to – and sometimes this can Be for no apparent reason at all, so what i’m saying is keep an eye out for this now. If this does happen to you, just try deleting the content that you think might be against violation, um. Also many actions taken in a short amount of time like replying to every single comment, um or liking. You know a bunch of videos that might be flagged as spam behavior, so this could all be contributing to your shadow ban and then sometimes you’ll just have to wait it out. It might take a couple of weeks for your account to be restored back to normal. Before you can actually start seeing your regular engagement come back all right. So in the span of this video you just learned the basics of using the tiktok platform and you learned how to go viral.I’M telling you it does not take a rocket scientist to go viral. It is so so accessible so doable. So all you really need is the drive to do it and make sure that you’re following the steps in this video – and i promise you you’re – going to gain some real traction. So i know most of you watching are business owners or maybe you’re wanting to become an online business owner now, if you’re serious about starting an online business, then shopify has everything that you need. You can get started with a free 14-day trial, no credit card required which is great and building an online store shouldn’t, be this easy or this much fun, plus the powerful features and free apps will make marketing simple and allow you to make more sales. More often so i will leave a link for you guys in the description box for you to get started with your free 14 day trial. If you thought this, video was helpful, make sure that you are giving it a big thumbs up that actually helps our channel and our community grow and also leave your questions in the comment section, and i will do my best to get back to each and every One of you um, if you have questions about this video um or questions about your marketing in general um. But if you are looking for more simple and actionable tips to help you grow your online business then make sure that you are subscribed to this channel. Learn with shopify um, we release a new video each week. That’S going to help you grow um, start or even run your successful online business so make sure that you’re subscribed so that you don’t miss out other than that. Thank you so much for watching, and i will see you in the next one: bye, [, Music]. You
