Before you get started, there are a few things you should know about TikTok.
It doesn’t have affiliate adverts. Unlike other social media platforms, you cannot sign up for their affiliate scheme and make money from your posts. Secondly, the Chinese government has the ability to mine any information from your profile, be it anything from your home address to which posts you clicked “Like” on. The TikTok promotional tool is rigged, and yet probably provides the most value of any promotional tool on social media in history. Finally, the other side of the game is rigged too, which means if you are not paying TikTok for promotion, then the TikTok algorithm is not promoting your content. Now you know all the important stuff, here is how you use TikTok for business as a beginner.
Buy a Popular TikTok Profile
You can start from the bottom, but it will be far cheaper and far less time-consuming if you buy a profile that already had a baked-in audience. Picking the correct profile is the tricky part, especially if the original owner used himself/herself as the lead star of the show. Buy TikTok profiles that suit your business industry and/or that appeal to your target audience, and don’t forget you can always buy more than one so that you can cross-promote as much as you wish.
Start By Promoting Your Stuff
There is this notion that you should build content that your customers will love, and then sneak adverts into your content, perhaps by posting one advert for every regular post. That is a sound policy with other social media but remember that TikTok doesn’t promote your posts at all unless you are paying for it. Ergo, you may as well make every post promotional, but that doesn’t mean it has to be any less appealing. Creative approaches will pay off in this case. For example, if your diamond-tipped knives can cut through a shoe, then show it. If your tires can run over a bed of nails before popping, then show it on your TikTok posts. You will be surprised how much people will respond if you are just open and honest about your intentions on TikTok.
Don’t Worry About Screen Sizes
There are settings on your photo shop and your video editors that are made for TikTok sizes, and that is fine, but don’t worry too much about it because TikTok adjusts for just about any size of video. It is not like YouTube Shorts where you have to have a very specific size, or like Instagram where if your videos are the wrong size then you have a problem uploading them on your phone. TikTok adjusts for any size, it is only the thumbnails that are a problem when it comes to TikTok.
The Thumbnails
Here is the thing about Thumbnails, you can really set the wrong tone with them in your library of videos and when people first see them. Each of your thumbnails need some sort of identifier that they are your content. You may like to have the very same thumbnail for every post, which is not bad because it helps identify your content as your own, and people will not be confused like they would be if you did the same thing on YouTube. However, people may have a hard time remembering which video they were on last time if every thumbnail is completely the same. On the other hand, having every thumbnail different, with no branding or identifier, will result in far fewer subscribers. This is simply because there are so many creators that if people cannot recognize your thumbnail from others, then they will assume you are just another among many, and they will be less likely to engage with your content.
