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What Is TikTok Really About?

  What’s up with TikTok? Like really, what’s it all about? Everyone seems to be on it now, making videos and gaining thousands (sometimes millions of views). Not only individuals but businesses and thought leaders as well. From the United Nations and H.H. Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid of Dubai to The Washington Post and McDonald's all brands have TikTok accounts now.

  Why shouldn't yours? You might be rolling your eyes now thinking, "Oh no, not another social

  media platform to learn about" and we hear you. We millennials felt the same way too, looking in awe at our fellow Gen Pers who use the platform like a piece of cake. Then we end up staying wide awake in bed until 3 am watching pimple-popping or funny animal TikToks (guilty!).

  Back to the million-dollar (or views) question, how can you use TikTok to promote your business? We had the exact same question and did our research to compile this comprehensive and straightforward guide including everything you need to know about utilizing TikTok to enhance brand awareness and start a conversation with your audience, meeting them exactly where they are.

  Let’s dig in!

  P.S: Hold up, Gen Z, we’ll catch up with you shortly!

Why Use TikTok?

  Now let’s start with the basics, how many people are actually on TikTok? 750 million.) monthly users worldwide. Among them, you’ll definitely find the specific target audience for your brand. People spend on average 38 minutes on TikTok per day, so this is your golden chance to put your content out there to promote your brand and be seen.

  TikTok is quite prevalent in the Middle East as well. In early 2022, there were 22.37 million active users in Saudi Arabia, 4.27 million users in the UAE, and 20.28 million users in Egypt. Around 43.7% are aged between 18 and 24, and 31.9% are aged between 25 and 34 years. As for TikTok creators or influencers (whom we'll talk about shortly),they are aged between 18 and 24 years.

  Did we also mention it was the highest-grossing app in 2021?All pretty good reasons why your brand should be on TikTok.

How to Start Using TikTok For Your Business?

  TikTok is not only lip sync and dance videos; it has loads of informative and educational content as well. It’s a platform for all industries. So whether your brand is e-commerce, enterprise, or even a governmental organization, you can definitely use TikTok to reach your audience.

  But where should you start? Here’s the step-by-step guide.

  1. Download the app. Create a business account. Register with your phone number or email address.

  2. From the ‘Me’ page, select “Manage Account,” then click on “Switch to Business Account.” Select the category that matches your industry.

  3. Start customizing your profile in a way that complements your brand identity. Use the same profile photo that you use for your other social media profiles. This is important for maintaining a consistent brand identity.

  4. For your bio, you have 80 characters with spaces. This is your chance to introduce your brand and let people know about what you do and offer.

  5. Add a clickable URL link to your profile. You have to be strategic about what you add depending on your business marketing goals. It could be a link to your website, app, blog, or anything that would be relevant to your brand. You can also use a tool like Linktree if you need to add more than one link.

  There you go! Now you have a TikTok business account to start communicating with your audience. What’s next?

  As with any social media platform, it is important to identify your target audience and know their preferences and what they’re interested in so you can create content that grabs their attention and keeps them engaged.

  [](# HackingTheTikTokAlgorithm)

Hacking The TikTok Algorithm

  Then comes the word that freaks most of us out, algorithms. Algorithms are essentially a social media website’s way of organizing posts for each user based on their preferences and interests. No two users will ever see the same videos.

  But how does the TikTok algorithm work? The platform evaluates videos based on user interactions, which is basically what users like and dislike. This could be based on a number of factors that include (but are not limited to):

• Video completion rate (ones you continue watching until the end)

   

• Videos you’ve disliked

   

• Videos you’ve marked as inappropriate

   

• Which accounts you follow

   

• Videos you’ve liked

   

  TikTok also evaluates videos based on video information, such as captions, hashtags, trending topics, and so on. There are some other algorithms that are based on one-time settings rather than active engagement, such as language settings, country, and topics you’ve selected as a new user.

Using The Algorithm To Your Advantage

Grab attention

  You literally have seconds to grab your audience’s attention before they scroll to something else. Skip the intro or any unnecessary information and dive into the meat of the video. Start with something that makes users stop and watch.

Powerful captions and hashtags

  You only get 150 characters for both your caption and hashtags, so make them count and make them catchy. Use between 3 and 5 relevant hashtags (never a good idea to stuff your caption with hashtags). Keep an eye out for trending hashtags and challenges. Use a catchy and snappy caption.

High quality

  You don’t need a professional camera to shoot TikTok videos, but you need high quality, which your smartphone will be just fine for. The 9:16 vertical format is the most recommended (we’re talking about a 25% higher watch rate). Make sure to include sounds and trending music (who likes a silent video anyway?). You can also use a voice-over.

Make it fun

  Play around with text, animation, and cool transitions. Don’t forget trending effects as well. Make your video as engaging and interesting to watch as can be.

Post at the right time

  To know the exact times when your audience is most active, tap the three dots at the top right of the screen on your profile page. Tap “Business Suite” then “Analytics” to access this information. It is recommended to post 1-4 times per day. However, upon many trials and errors, you’ll be able to figure out the number that is doable and that works best for your brand.

Interact with other users

  TikTok is all about being real. Comment and engage with other users and accounts. You can also make use of the platform’s unique features such as Stitch, which allows you to integrate snippets of other users’ videos into your own, and Duets, which allows you to record a video and comment in real-time alongside another creator’s video. You can also go live with another creator for more exposure and engagement. Adjust your privacy settings so other creators can do the same with your videos to boost your reach.

Share user-generated content

  People love it when they see their content featured on a brand’s page. Encourage your audience to share videos of how they are using your product/service, engage them in a fun challenge, or trend, and watch the user-generated content roll in (more brand awareness and exposure for you, wink wink!).

  A big part of being successful and on-point on any social media platform is conducting proper competitive analysis. Before making a move, make sure to study what your competitors are doing, how they are communicating with their target audience, what you can improve, and how you can get inspired by them in general.

  It may seem that TikTok content is quite sporadic and all over the place, but it really is not. It’s not just about posting a video that goes viral and that’s it. You need a solid and powerful content plan that includes your content type, frequency of posting, tone of voice, and so much more. Learn our top tips for creating a full-fledged social media content plan from our article here.

  A great way to enhance your TikTok presence and reach out to more audiences is by collaborating with TikTok influencers relevant to your brand and target audience. They already have a huge fan base. They know well how to communicate and engage with their audience. Reach out to potential influencers and discuss how they can highlight your product/service in a way that is engaging, fun, and informative.

TikTok Ads Explained

  If you want to take things up a notch, invest in TikTok advertising. This is vital to get the ROI you seek, reach more audience, and make your videos more visible. However, it’s a good idea to start experimenting with organic content first to test out what your target audience likes and what they’re interested in watching before starting on ads.

  Utilizing a budget for media buying allows you to target specific segments of your target audience, based on location, gender, age group, demographics, and so on. How exactly? We’ve written a complete checklist to create an optimum paid ads plan here.

  Did you know there are seven types of TikTok ads? Let’s get to know them.

Top View Ads

  This kind of ad is a 60-second video that does not cover the entire screen as soon as users open the app. You can see it in-feed after 3 seconds, then it appears as a 60-second full-screen video. What’s good is that it offers an immersive experience for your users and it captures their attention since they can only view this kind of ad with nothing else on display. Brands report an almost 67% increase in sales using top-view ads.

Collection Ads

  This type of ad is in-feed and directs users to a gallery page. It allows users to enjoy an engaging shopping experience without having to exit the app. Note that it hasn’t been released to all users yet.

In-feed Ads

  The ad is embedded into the user’s “For You” page so it appears like any other video you’re watching on TikTok, allowing for a more seamless experience. The length is 60 seconds. These ads help you achieve more brand awareness, engagement, and memorability among your target audience.

Branded Hashtag Video Ads

  This is when you encourage your audience to engage with your brand and elicit user-generated content while enhancing your brand awareness. These kinds of ads have an engagement rate of about 17.5% since you’re relying on your audience’s creativity to advance your brand awareness.

Branded Effects

  This is your chance to get creative and design your own branded effects, filters, and stickers. If you’re collaborating with a TikTok influencer, you can ask them to use these branded filters in your campaign. And your audience can use them as well.

Brand Takeover

  This is similar to Top View Ads but with a few differences. Brand Takeover ads appear as soon as you open the app, taking over the screen for a few seconds, then changing into an in-feed video ad. In addition, they continue to appear on the “For You” page as images, GIFs, or videos that are clickable, leading to a landing page on TikTok itself.

Spark Ads

  This kind of ad is quite interesting because it allows you to share an organic video from a Creator’s account so it looks like you’re sharing it from theirs, not yours. Of course, you have to get their permission first. This kind of ad looks more seamless and blends better into in-feed videos.

Top TikTok Analytics Tools To Use

  As with any social media platform, you need to constantly optimize, enhance, and improve your content. And for that, you can use TikTok analytics tools to identify things like the best times to post and hashtag reach. Some of the tools you can use are:

Iconosquare

  It is a management, scheduling, and analytics tool for your social media platforms. You can add many social media accounts at once and analyze the data to make better decisions. You can also schedule the posts ahead of time so you have everything in place.

TrendTok

  This app uses AI to help you identify trends going viral near you and send you suggestions for trends you can use for your brand. This helps you create viral videos for your brand and achieve the awareness and engagement you’re seeking.

Pentos

  This tool helps you measure hashtags, analyze user information, monitor videos, and track sounds across TikTok. So you can know how your videos are performing on TikTok and how to improve.

Quintly

  You can use this tool to analyze, track, and optimize more than one TikTok account. You can also measure your campaign’s success and track the KPIs you set for your brand.

TikTok SEO Tips and Tricks

  You know what else is interesting (aside from everything we’ve just mentioned)? People now use TikTok as a search engine! Yes, you read that right. Thanks to the platform’s efficient algorithm, it has become easy for users to search for what they’re most interested in and find relevant videos. Almost 40% of young people now use TikTok and Instagram as search engines, as opposed to us oldies who use Google Search and Maps :D Moreover, whenever you search for anything on Google, you’ll find TikTok videos coming up, which is why you should have robust and engaging content already on TikTok to reach a wider audience base across different platforms.

  So that’s another step to add to your TikTok content strategy, SEO. You want your brand videos to be found and watched by as many people as possible. What should you do? Here are some top tips to achieve just that.

Make use of TikTok’s search predictive text

  The good thing is that when you search for something using the search bar, TikTok displays various keywords that people search for the most on the platform. Then you can incorporate these most searched-for keywords in your videos and captions.

Incorporate the keywords in your content

  You have the keywords, now what? There are three places you can incorporate the keywords in, captions and/or hashtags, on-screen text, and/or automated closed captions (which is the text automatically generated by TikTok from the voice-over in your video). The best place to add the keywords is on-screen text, especially in the first few seconds of the video.

Use your hashtags wisely

  The key here is not to include as many hashtags as possible (please don’t be tempted to do so). What you need is to incorporate a mix of high-volume keywords and long-tail keywords. What are they?

  High-volume keywords are short and general keywords that you use to disseminate your video to a wider audience base, but not necessarily to drive conversions. On the other hand, long-tail keywords are long and more specific keywords that users search for when they’re later down their search process, more likely to drive conversions and encourage them to take an action. They’re both essential to enhancing your TikTok SEO.

Use your previous videos to guide you

  After posting videos on TikTok, you begin to have a sense of what works and what doesn’t. Monitor your best-performing videos and perhaps do a second part for one of them to keep the audience engaged. Look at comments on your videos and see what users are talking about and interested in. You can reuse hashtags for successful videos.

  It’s all a process of A/B testing to reach the combination that makes your videos go viral!

TikTok For Businesses: The Real Deal

  If you have an e-commerce brand or an enterprise, we still have some cool tips, so keep reading! Why? Because in Q2 of 2021, TikTok has driven global spending on the platform to a staggering $525 million.

  For instance, with TikTok Shop (this platform doesn’t leave anything out, does it?), users can shop for their favorite products without leaving the app. This is indeed a significant feature because it makes the online shopping process all the more immersive, engaging, and dynamic. Users can watch cool videos about your product/service, know its benefits, how it’s used, and the creators who use it, they’re hooked, and BAM! More conversions and sales for you.

  Buut, we have some bad news and good news. The bad news is that this option is not yet available in the MENA region. The good news is that we have some insightful tips on making your brand a hit on TikTok.

Create fresh and creative content specifically for TikTok

  If you think you can just repurpose the content from your other social media platforms and call it a day, think again. TikTok is all about authenticity, creativity, and fun. That’s why you need to create engaging content exclusively for the platform, something that shows your brand’s human and fun side while sticking to your brand persona guidelines, of course.

Utilize TikTok’s special features

  Make sure to use the platform’s unique features to highlight your brand, engage your audience, and enhance awareness, such as Stitch, Duet, Live videos, and Q&A. Don’t forget TikTok creators to help promote your brand further, as people always like to see familiar faces using your product/service.

Include links to your website/page

  The link in your profile can be utilized to your advantage. You can add a link to your website so users can easily access it and take the action you would like them to. You can also use tools such as Linktree, Taplink, Linkin.bio, or any similar tool to add more than one link. The most important thing is to make your customers’ experience as seamless as possible.

Include how-to videos

  People like to see practical uses of your product/service. So make sure to include how-to videos in your content strategy to cater to people’s preferences to see informative and engaging videos.

Trends, trends, trends!

  Trends are indeed TikTok’s currency. We can’t stress this enough. Monitor trends on TikTok and use them in a way that serves your brand. This will get you more views, impressions, and definitely traffic. You can also start one yourself and encourage your audience to participate.

Brands That Made It On TikTok

  As with anything in life, you need proof that something truly works before you can invest your money in it. Fair enough, isn't it? So allow us to walk you through a couple of case studies from around the MENA region for brands that are killing it when they made an appearance on TikTok.

  From the United Arab Emirates - Justlife

  Justlife, previously known as Justmop, is among the UAE’s top leading home service providers. They offer a wide range of services from men's and women’s salon services to COVID-19 testing and home cleaning. What they wanted to achieve is generate more app installs and familiarize their audience with their services, so they naturally turned to TikTok.

  Reaching out and partnering with popular TikTok influencers to promote their services and establish themselves as a leading service provider, Justlife was able to get a 3x increase in revenue and lower funnel purchases. Moreover, they also got 7x more app installs and a 54% decrease in the consumer price index.

  From the Kindgom of Saudi Arabia - AlDakheel Oud

  With decades-long experience, AlDakheel Oud is among the pioneers in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in oud manufacturing. What they wanted to achieve was to increase brand awareness, generate sales, and drive consideration. They also wanted to engage with their followers in new and creative ways. And so, TikTok was definitely the answer.

  The solution was to establish a powerful content strategy that helped them achieve their goals. They used Top View ads in addition to Video View and Reach campaigns. As a result, they got a 45% increase in CTR (click-through rate) and a 58% increase in online sales, in addition to the account growing by 60,000 followers in just 3 months.

How Stllr Can Help Your Brand on TikTok

  You now have all the information you need to start making your brand a success on TikTok. We’ve gone over setting up a business profile, how to utilize the TikTok algorithm to your advantage, types of TikTok ads, and analytics tools to use. Moreover, we’ve covered insights about TikTok SEO strategies and specific tips about how to make your brand shine on TikTok.

  As with any new thing you try, you definitely want to make sure to get off on the right foot and establish a solid and powerful content and media buying strategy on TikTok for your business. And that’s precisely what Stllr Network is here for!

  We are the largest network of freelancers in the MENA region, bridging the gap between businesses that need experts and savvy marketers who know how to get the job done just right. Our freelancers go through a rigorous vetting process before being added to our platform to ensure the utmost quality and right work experience.

  All you need to do is sign up here and add details about your company, budget, requests, and any details about your project. Our team will happily walk you through the process and answer any questions you might have. Then you will be matched with the freelancer(s) you need for your project. You will have a chance to chat with the freelancer before you even begin to work together.

  You can request a specific service or package or choose from the ready-made packages available on our platform. As for payment, we make things a lot easier for you and for the freelancer. All payments are seamlessly and securely processed through us so you don’t need to worry about it. The project fees are put on hold until you receive the project from the freelancer(s).

  No matter what your business need is, the kind of project you request, budget limit you have, we guarantee you’ll find everything you need on Stllr Network. Our dedicated support team is ready to assist you whenever you need it.

  Get started with Stllr Network and unlock unlimited potential for your business through vetted experts!

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Interactive Question:

  Are you ready to elevate your business using TikTok? What sort of content do you plan to generate? Have you already experienced success on TikTok? Share your stories with the TikTok community in the comments section below!