When I say “TikTok” what’s the first thing that comes to your mind?
If you think the social media platform is just for dance tutorials and duets, you’ve got another thing coming. TikTok is gradually emerging as one of the best advertising platforms to grow your following. Yes, even over Facebook. And yes, I know that’s CRAZY to say – but I’m going there.
TikTok has officially reached over 1 BILLION users with over half of them being between the ages of 18 to 34. If you’re advertising to that age range, there’s a potential goldmine waiting for you on TikTok.
How to Use TikTok Ads
There are four major ways that marketers are using TikTok ads. You’ll want to get familiar with them before diving in too deep.
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Hashtag Challenge – These ads encourage users to participate and engage with your brand.
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Branded Content – Ads can appear as branded stickers, lenses, and AR content for users to adopt in their videos.
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Brand Takeover – This splash ad takes over the person’s entire screen for a few seconds.
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Sponsored Content – Promote your company by partnering with an influencer or popular TikTok user.
Getting Ready to Use TikTok Ads
Before you can run a TikTok Ad, you’ll have to first set up an account on the TikTok Ads Manager. Follow the simple prompts to set up your profile and then create your first campaign.
During the process of creating your campaign, you’ll need to select your ad placement and target audience. Placement can be automatic or you can choose manually. I recommend going through the process of choosing manually so that you’re in control of the placement and not some random generator.
Choose your targeting based on the ideal audience for the ad. You’ll select demographics such as location, gender, age group, interest category, and connection type. Get as specific as you can in this section – you can even customize it by selecting “create new.” Next, choose your call to action.
The final step is to choose your ad spend, duration, and goals. Your ad spend should be based on your budget and can either be set for a daily budget or a total budget (the daily budget is currently set at a minimum of $20).
Measure For Success
For most businesses, the main goal of social media advertising is to increase your followers which will (hopefully) lead to an increase in sales. Therefore, the metric you should be paying attention to is your ad engagement and follower count. TikTok will deliver analytics so you can see how your ad is performing and if any tweaks are needed. If they are, tweak away until you start seeing that follower count climb.
TikTok, Don’t Stop
Look, I know that TikTok has a rep for being a silly app that magically makes hours disappear in a matter of seconds and, to be honest, it is exactly that. However, it’s so much more! It’s also a new frontier for marketers to take advantage of in fresh new ways. If you’re looking to boost your followers, especially in the age range of 18 to 34, you need to beep bop on over to TikTok and create your ads account today.
