Twitter? Has potential for slow and steady growth.
LinkedIn? A great place to get noticed organically.
Facebook? Oversaturated.
Instagram? More saturated than palm oil.
TikTok? A gold mine of free attention.
TikTok is underrated at the moment. It's probably the best place to grow your brand or business organically right now, regardless of what industry you're in. Take advantage of it while you can.
And keep an eye out, because it may very well kill Instagram.
Why some businesses have bad results on TikTok
The biggest problem businesses have on TikTok is that they do not understand what content they should post there.
They just post animated pictures with their logos... or awful, staged videos.
Or they just re-post content like bland YouTube ads.
- TikTok is NOT a place for you to dump generic commercials or infomercials about your business.
- TikTok is NOT a place for you to just plug your business with a meaningless image.
Nobody watches those kinds of videos on TikTok.
... nobody watches those videos anywhere, but they especially don't watch them on TikTok.
TikTok knows nobody watches these videos, so TikTok does not promote them, therefore: the videos fail. These kinds of videos get a couple of views, no engagement from viewers, and then nothing...
So what kind of content should you post on TikTok?
Content that does well on TikTok
Here are examples of content that does well on TikTok.
- ironic, shameless, self-deprecating bloopers (e.g. a video of when you were supposed to make a serious speech, but you tripped while walking onto the stage and the whole audience laughed at you)
- fun facts/little known facts about things we use or see every day (like a famous movie scene that was actually unscripted)
- insider tips about businesses (like what you should ask plumber before you hire them)
- extremely cute child/animal videos (but really, where does content like this not do well?)
- uniquely funny/creative videos that match a trend (TikTokers post videos that sync up "perfectly" with the audio track of another video or a specific song, these are referred to as "trends" by the TikTok community)
- fun/dramatic/unexpected stories from people's lives (like a date gone terribly wrong, or how you ended up marrying a stranger you met on a bungee jumping adventure)
- among many others...
If you want to start posting videos or pay for ads on TikTok, DOWNLOAD THE TIKTOK APP, WATCH SOME TIKTOKS, AND YOU'LL GET A FEEL FOR WHAT YOU SHOULD POST.
It's that easy. Just download the app and scroll through what is called the "for you" page (it's an endless list of videos that are slowly tailored to match your interests by the TikTok algorithm, based on what videos you watch/interact with the most). This is the best way to get a feel for what videos do well (and at first, you will want to just mimic these videos, but put your own personal "spin" on them). Be sure to read the comments of viewers, too. Get a comprehensive feel for the TikTok community and what makes them "tick".
How you should present content on TikTok
How you present content on TikTok is just as important as what content you present. Just because a piece of content does well on YouTube, Instagram, etc. doesn't mean it will do well on TikTok... as a rule of thumb: you shouldn't re-post content on TikTok, you should post TIkToks on TikTok.
... in other words: you should no post any random video on TikTok, you should post a video that feels like it belongs on TikTok.
A good example of a "serious" business that has a good TikTok strategy is Ryanair. They post a lot of humorous videos that mock or fit ongoing trends. It might serve them well to try some other types of content too, but there's nothing wrong with what they're doing right now. Take note of how their content actual feels like TikTok content, not ads or infomercials ripped from other video campaigns they may have done (even though a lot of the content they utilize is exactly that).
Why your ads on TikTok suck
If you paid for ads on TikTok and they're not doing well, I guarantee it's because what you posted was crap. It was probably clearly an ad, and not an entertaining one.
Nobody on TikTok watches ads. As soon as you scroll to an ad on TikTok, you just keep scrolling.
So what do you do as an advertiser?
You make your ad seem like it's just another TikTok. Then people will at the very least actually watch it, and then they might actually respect your company, and check out your product/website/whatever.
That said, I love watching terrible ads on TikTok... it's kind of entertaining. I get a real kick out of it. And I get to see terrible TikTok ads every time I open the app. It's very clear that probably around 90% of companies advertising on TikTok have no idea what TikTok is or how it works. It's funny to watch. They are literally just burning ad money aimlessly, and I can already hear them complain about how "TikTok ads don't work". They work. There's a crap ton of attention on TikTok, you just don't know how to take advantage of it.
Don't pay for ads. Hire a child.
But what's even funnier about these terrible ads is that if instead of buying these ads, they spend the same money to pay a "trendy", 22-year-old girl with a solid work ethic and general understanding of business to run a TikTok account for them, they would almost definitely have 20 times better results than the terrible ads they ran.
Do not disable comments on TikToks or TikTok ads.
If you posted an ad on TikTok and you disabled comments, you need serious help. Probably professional psychiatry. I seriously have a lot of sympathy for you if you've committed such a heinous crime. Contact me. I will give you free advise. I'm serious. You need all the help you can get.
I don't want you to feel bad, but you should feel bad. Think how ridiculous it is to literally forbid viewers of your ad (which you are paying for) to give you feedback about your ad for free. FOR FREE. You might be sick. You need to check your temperature and go to a hospital.
I see TikTok ads basically every day with comments disabled. This is not funny to me. It breaks my heart.
But isn't TikTok just for kids?
No.
You couldn't be further from right if you think TikTok is just for kids. Over 30% of TikTok users are over 30, about about 7% are over 50.
It's like Facebook all over again. Remember when you (or your parents) thought Facebook was for kids? Remember when you and/or your parents said they'd never have a Facebook account?
Download TikTok. Watch the videos. You'll be surprised how many creators on the app are over 30.
So why is TikTok so great?
Because it's underpriced attention.
If you know what you're doing, it's free attention.
If you spend an hour or 2 scrolling through TikToks (very easy to do when you start using the app), I can almost guarantee that you will find a viral 1M+ view count video from an account that has only that 1, single video.
Edit: Here's a couple of examples; I screenshotted these while browsing TikTok over a couple of days. I unintentionally ran into all of these accounts by scrolling through my "For You" page for about a total of 1–3 hours. Each of these accounts has only 2–3 videos, but well over a million views.
Find me an Instagram account of someone that isn't famous, that has only 1 post and millions of views. It's practically impossible.
... But it is possible on TikTok.
... for now... so take advantage while you can!
Thank you for reading this post!
I don't care if you use TikTok or not, if you read this entire post, you're awesome. Thank you so much for being here. I hope you check out TikTok, download it, spend many hours enjoying the awesome content that's on there, use it to grow your business, use it to make new friends, or any combination of those things!
By the way, if you start using TikTok, you will likely be ahead of the game when it comes to new trends AND you'll see a lot of funny videos before all your friends do. That's because a lot of the trending videos you see posted on Instagram Reels or Facebook were just taken from TikTok.
