Until a few years back social media was all about Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Then, TikTok appeared out of nowhere and became the fourth most popular social network in a very short span of time.
A quick reference: Tiktok has gained more than 500 million users in two years, who get almost a billion views a day altogether. Impressive? Moreover, an average user spends about 52 minutes a day on TikTok, which indicates a good engagement.
If the above stats are not convincing enough, digest this – TikTok emerged as the most downloaded app in Q3 2020, leaving all the apps of the Facebook family much behind. It also emerged as the highest-earning non-gaming app globally during the same quarter.
TikTok has gained such popularity with the “short videos” concept. The essence of the social network is that users are able to post videos with a short duration – usually between 15 and 60 seconds – where they implement original ideas that are being viewed for a thousand times daily.
Concerning advertising and attracting the attention of major brands, TikTok is doing well – many companies are actively cooperating with the social network, creating challenges and content.
Why pay attention to TikTok?
First and foremost, as we said above – a huge number of audiences of different ages, fields of activity and interests. The service has a great potential for development – after all, it constantly sets records for being the most downloaded application in AppStore and Google Play every month.
Despite facing challenges in various countries, including India where the app is banned, TikTok is clocking impressive growth rate month over month.
Loyal attitude to the audience – any user may get on top. Today, TikTok algorithms allow doing this, again, making Instagram lose its positions – for a long time, they have been using algorithms that do not allow broadcasting to all the audience.
Earning on TikTok
The social network offers development options for everyone – whether you’re a blogger or a businessman, you can take your niche at TikTok.
Bloggers are given the opportunity to advertise brands or other bloggers, take part in the brand’s Challenges, earn on it, and to become a brand ambassador, constantly placing it on your account.
In the case of business, it’s still simple – you just need to attach a link to your main social network so that users can go there and make purchases. All you have to do is attract an audience that will be interested in what you do. In addition, TikTok will allow you to add active links to sites in your profile description and videos in the near future.
Promoting on TikTok. Where to start?
What do I need to start working with TikTok? It’s very simple. Here’s a step-by-step guide:
1. Create a profile
After downloading the app to your smartphone, go through a simple registration – just choose a nickname. After that, you will be able to start using TikTok, trying many features in practice.
2. Design your profile
Profile description, however, as in any social network, in TikTok plays a big role. You’ll be judged, and a potential subscriber will show his interest in you or not within the first 10 seconds.
3. Transfer your account to PRO-mode
Remember, that is an important feature – you’ll have valuable data that TikTok collects for you: the number of views of your videos, profile views, subscriber dynamics, and subscriber data – their geo and gender.
4. Shoot clips
All you need to do is just start posting publications. Your creative opportunities are incredible – you can implement a lot of ideas. Be inspired and act on it, and you will succeed!
Now let’s consider how to create the very first video and what functionality this sensational application offers.
1. To start shooting the first video, click on the large color button at the bottom of the personal page. Then, to create a video, you will need to click on “+” in the center of the bottom panel.
2. You will see a screen where the application will ask for permission to access the camera and microphone. Click on each of the buttons and allow their use; without this, it will be impossible to shoot video.
3. Then the app will open the camera on your phone, as well as all the functionality of the application, with which you will shoot and edit your videos. In addition, at the bottom, you can choose the video format: 15 or 60 seconds.
4. Let’s start shooting. To do this, press the big red button. A huge advantage of TikTok is that you can film all the videos not at once, but in frames, stopping shooting at any moment and then edit the pieces. At the top, you can see what this storyboard looks like. If something went wrong and you are not satisfied with the result, you can delete the shot by clicking on the selected button in the screenshot, without affecting the successful pieces of video.
And finally, let’s look at the additional functionality and TikTok features created to improve video:
1. In the upper right corner, you can see the button with the caption “Flip.” By clicking it, you will start shooting with the front camera.
2. The second icon is “Speed.” Before you start shooting, TikTok will ask you to select the playback speed. You can leave the normal format and speed up or slow down the shooting, depending on your needs. In general, this is a very cool thing, but you need practice to learn how to use it.
3. “Beauty” works like a mask on Instagram – it smoothes the skin and makes it perfect. Its use is very noticeable, so think twice about what’s more important for you: beauty or naturalness.
4. The “Filters” help improve image quality. There are multiple different categories with lots of options. You can appreciate the instant effect of a randomly selected filter from the “Landscape” section.
5. “Timer” – an indispensable thing for everyone who shoots by themselves. You can choose a delay of 3 or 10 seconds.
6. Last but not least, one of the most important things is “Music.” You can easily add your favorite songs to your movies, and the choice in TikTok is really huge.
It should be noted that the TikTok interface is created in the image of Instagram, so if you are an active user of the latter, you won’t have any problems with TikTok. It is also worth mentioning that TikTok functionality is not always enough for video editing, and if you don’t want to mess with complex editing programs, you can always use online tools like Fastreel.
TikTok promotion
Now it is easy to get subscribers very quickly. However, the option of official advertising on TikTok is still available to some people. There are partner agencies, which work directly with TikTok, the volume of required advertising budgets is tens of thousands of dollars.
We have identified several most effective ways that are available to everyone:
● Buy your page advertisement from bloggers. They will shoot a video and quote you.
● Try to reach the top of hashtags and recommendations. To do this, you need to actively shoot videos, pick up popular hashtags and get good starting activity on your account.
● Compete with a branded hashtag. Contest mechanics, as always, are effective, and if the contest video itself get on top – it can bring you a lot of free coverage and new subscribers.
To sum it up, we want to say that you need to start an account on TikTok – take a ride as a blogger, make your business more successful, or just share funny videos with friends. The main thing is to have time to promote it, and that’s all!
