Using TikTok to Promote your Business

TikTok is an application for creating short videos and messaging. You can shoot videos directly in the application or download ready-made videos and add filters, AR masks and music to them. The video platform has already gained popularity in China, and now is rapidly developing in other countries. TikTok has 500 million users worldwide, and it was the most downloaded app for Apple in Q1 2018. It has been installed 80 million times in US. TikTok (in China it has a different name - Douyin 抖 音) people download it more often than Facebook, YouTube or Twitter.

Due to the recommendation system in TikTok any profile can become popular. Each video is ranked separately, and even in the not promoted account one of the videos can become popular on TikTok and bring thousands of likes and fans.

What products and services are most suitable for promotion in TikTok?

• Cafes and restaurants.
• Massage and other SPA-procedures, hairdressing, visage, sale of decorative cosmetics
• Style and fashion
• Professional areas where you can film the work process (sewing, car tuning, equipment repair, creation of creative jewelry or interior items, cooking).
• Fitness and other gym activities
• Mobile apps
• Musical compositions and artists: the most frequently used compositions fall into trends, they are used by millions of people to create videos

In fact, even a tractor can be sold in TikTok, the main thing is to properly present your product to the audience.
How to attract audience attention to your product?

1. Directly introduce the product

If your product is very creative, functional and useful, you can directly show it to the audience. For example, in the social network 抖 音 (Chinese TikTok), a cafe advertisement that makes a hot pot of milk tea has recently been very popular. Is it creative? Quite creative, i think. Or an app advertisement that pays users for a certain number of steps per day.

This marketing method is more suitable for sellers of products that are interesting to use.

2. Focus on product benefits

How to attract the audience if the product is not too creative? You can talk about the unique functions of the product in a slightly exaggerated form, in order to let the audience easly remember you. For example, “large space” is one of the sale points of the BMW GT. To emphasize this point, the sales staff simply “hid” 12 people in the car, which surprised and amused the audience.

You also can show a new creative way of using the product, as the Chinese company for facial soap production did: they clearly demonstrated that their soap can be equally effectively in washing face, hair and clothes.

3. Share your customers opinion

The key point in choosing a product for a client can be public opinion. You can show a queue near your store, a consumer’s video review of your product, communication with the consumer, the customer service process, etc. An example is a video of a cafe where a bartender and a visitor making a cocktail together, or a teashop "答应奶茶" video, where they show the queue for tea with the caption “Have you tried it yet?”

4. Demonstrate the company corporate culture

Many users not only care about the product quality and service level, but also pay attention to the corporate culture. Customers may be curious about the daily lives of leaders and employees of some well-known enterprises. You can clearly show the office culture, the employees friendship and the work process.

For example, Xiaomi has released a series of funny office videos “The Daily Life of Xiaomi Employees” before the Spring Festival, showed an employee award ceremony at the end of the year, daily work, leisure time, etc. Or the company Alibaba, which received about 30,000 likes and comments like “I want to work for you” after a similar post.

You can also use the TikTok paid advertising service , or contact popular bloggers to promote the product, however, the advertising market for bloggers has not been formed yet, so prices are often not substantiated.