Broaden Your Horizons: TikTok Growth Tips for the Gen Z Era
When brands brainstorm ways to reach audiences online today, it’s pretty standard now that it has to involve methods to reach TikTok users. In the Philippines alone, there are 43.4 million adults within TikTok’s ad reach – that’s around 37.3% of our population!
But turning those 40-something million TikTokers into followers is where things can quickly get confusing. We don’t blame you. Breaking into a space with over one billion total users is intimidating, and capturing your crowd within it even more so.
Thankfully, the Near team has several hacks to help your brand achieve its growth goals steadily.
Dive deep into TikTok culture.
When you market on TikTok, you have to learn the ways of the TikTok world. Here are a couple of ways to make sure you understand the culture:
1. Learn the lingo. As you may have already noticed by now, TikTok speak is pretty unique. So the homework is to listen and learn from how people talk and interact on the platform. What phrases do they use? How do they respond to each other? It won’t hurt to adapt these into your brand language, and don’t hesitate to add some fun ✨emojis✨ here and there. Just don’t overdo it or you’ll find yourself slipping into corny territory!
2. Be trend-savvy. Trends come and go so fast. You must be in the know about what’s happening on the platform to show off your products and unique selling points. These trends can range from challenges, to sounds and music, and video types that you can adopt for your brand’s content. Chiming in when a trend is still fresh can put your brand on the right people’s For You Pages and expand your reach!
Here’s Lola Nena’s jumping on the POV trend:
Remember: Don’t jump on trends willy-nilly. Trends are opportunities to showcase your brand’s creativity, so make sure your personality still shines through. Add your own flavor to a trend or insert a twist that only you can do!
Reach your niche and its interests.
TikTok marketing isn’t about catering to everyone. Trying to make your content as palatable to as many people as possible often proves counterproductive because, in the end, you just end up not appealing to anyone. What you want to do is find your audience – those who will not just look at your posts on their feeds, but also interact with them.
Let’s use TikTok’s flourishing reading community as an example. The #BookTok hashtag has over 32 million posts on the app as of writing. A tap on the hashtag reveals a wealth of book recommendations, reviews, and discussions from various users.
People freely ask and answer questions and give opinions about certain books in the comments, so it’s easy to tell there’s a thriving community there.
Pro-tip: Your existing target market, your competitors’ audiences, and your social media analytics give insight into what niche/s your brand fits into.
Your brand now has to find its community on TikTok, and here are some tips for achieving that:
1. Use hashtags wisely. Hashtags help your content reach the right audience on TikTok. There are widely popular hashtags like #fashion, #cooking, or #gaming, but it is key to use ones that are specific to you to reach people within those communities and increase your engagement with them.
This TikTok from @Jea.cooks about Tip-Top Chicken Nuggets uses hashtags like #foodrecommendation, #foodieph, and #chickennuggets to signal the kind of content it is and make sure it finds people who are interested in similar things.
2. Make the discovery journey fun. TikTok is a place where people find new things to enjoy, and your audience is no exception. Look at the niches you are targeting and see what kind of content they love. Then create content about your brand that explores what the audience is curious about or touches on what they need without being hard-sell about it.
3. Add closed captions. This may seem like a minor thing, but closed captioning makes your videos accessible to more people. Don’t let a lack of captions get in the way of you capturing your niche!
See people as your brand’s co-creators.
Features like Duet, Stitch, and the ability to turn comments into video content make it obvious that TikTok is a platform that encourages interaction between creators, brands, and users.
Brands, your community plays a big role in determining your brand identity within TikTok. Here’s how you can involve other people in telling your story:
1. Connect with influencers. Influencers have the community and reach that your brand may not have from the get-go. Influencer partnerships are a great way to give you a headstart in capturing your niche and introducing your brand to new audiences, even those that may not be in your immediate target market.
2. Feature your audience. Repurposing user-generated content is one way to do this. But another is to respond to queries and suggestions from your audience by making content out of them.
Jo Sebastian does this often, where she offers curious commenters advice on healthy eating through explainer videos. The comment section even has conversations where people share lessons they’ve learned about proper diet and eating habits!
Engaging people lets your brand maintain an ongoing conversation in which people feel welcome to chime in and offer helpful advice, feedback, and suggestions for the brand and other people.
Key Takeaway
Growing on TikTok this year entails a focus on building a solid community rather than casting a wide net and hoping people pay attention. Brands can accomplish this by gaining an understanding of TikTok culture, identifying their niche and catering to it, and letting people such as influencers and other creators take part in building the brand’s online identity.
Seeking to make meaningful connections on TikTok through social media and influencer marketing? Contact Near Creative today!
