TikTok Content Strategy for Small Business Marketing
In less than a year and a half, the number of adult U.S. TikTok users has grown more than five times, bringing its global total to more than 800 million. As of October 2020, it was the seventh most popular social media network worldwide.
Building a solid social media content strategy for the TikTok platform has become an essential part of a successful marketing strategy for virtually any brand or business, but with the platform still being so new, it can be difficult to know where to start and easy to waste your efforts and resources on ineffective content production.
Before You Get Started
Arm yourself with as much knowledge as possible by digging into existing TikTok content to see what works and what doesn’t for your specific audience. Check your old content, if any exists, your competitors’ content, and any channels you find that are relevant to your industry and popular with your audience.
If you haven’t already, do a bit of research into your TikTok audience to find out who they are, what content they consume the most of, and what gets them engaged. And be sure to check out TikTok’s robust creators platform.
We would definitely recommend to check out some popular TikTok users and see what is popular, including dana_nicole_, marketing_guy, and valerie_lisitsyna, among many others.
Define Your TikTok Goals
To achieve measurable growth, you have to grow and you have to be able to measure. That means KPIs (key performance indicators). Start by defining your goals for your TikTok content strategy. What are you hoping to achieve with this channel? How do you define success? Then identify the KPIs that will indicate your progress.
Your video views are a great indicator of whether your channel is reaching your audience and whether your content is being seen. If your video view metric is good, take a look at your followers. Is your content engaging enough to build its own audience? Are you prompting your viewers in the right way? Each KPI will clue you into strengths and weaknesses throughout your strategy.
Where are your viewers in their journey?
Ultimately, you want to sell something to your audience, which means you need to solve a problem for them. By figuring out where they are in the buyer’s journey, you can tailor your content to be more engaging and more valuable.
At the beginning of the buyer’s journey, when the consumer is newly aware of the pain point, your content should focus on brand awareness and information. When they reach the consideration stage and start exploring different solutions, your content should offer credibility and build the relationship. The final stage is the purchase decision, at which time the consumer will be further in your sales funnel.
What’s your thing?
Having a thing that makes you different can be the difference between mediocrity and measurable growth. What you’re really doing is carving out your content’s market share by finding a gap between what your audience wants and what they’re already getting.
It can be difficult to find that space because your content will be competing with much more than your regular industry competition. You’ll be competing with all the other content creators who can offer your audience the same stuff. Analyze the current content climate and try to find a weak point where you can get it.
Creating Your TikTok Content Strategy
Decide your timeframe. Some brands prepare a week at a time while others prepare months. It’s probably easier to start small when you’re first getting started. Choose a duration that works for you and begin brainstorming content ideas to fill those days. Use your research to decide what type of TikTok content to focus on, what format, etc. Your list should include a schedule and topics that are specific enough to easily be turned into usable content.
Use a content planning tool like Trello or write your content ideas down in a physical content planner. As soon as you have enough content, start gathering the images and video you’ll need for the week or month. Remember to maintain your brand personality and voice regardless of what you’re posting. Video is currently outperforming other content formats, so schedule quality video whenever possible.
Some of the most popular content categories on TikTok right now include:
- Seasonal posts for both well-known and little-known holidays
- Day-of-the-week hashtags
- Subtle branded content
- Tutorials
- Testimonials
- UGC
- Contests/giveaways
- Quotes
- Behind-the-scenes
- Brand updates
Set it and forget it.
If you’ve already tried the content creation method of hoping you have time to get to it at the end of every day, you might have already realized that doesn’t work. Even if it did, all of your content would be published late at night when everyone is going to bed on your side of the world.
“Content batching” is the term for creating a bunch (or a batch) of your content ahead of time and uploading it to a content scheduler that will post automatically according to your schedule.
This frees you up to work on everything else without a care while your high-quality content is posted on TikTok frequently and reliably. Watch your TikTok analytics and adjust your future content strategy according to what works for your audience.
