Getting social media credibility is one of the greatest ways to build a steady following for your business. This faithful following can translate into steady bucks for your company if utilized properly. When it comes to social media in 2022, TikTok is one of the most popular social media platforms in 2022. It’s not hard to see why. With the endless variety of content, it is almost impossible not to get stuck.
Apart from the entertainment section of this app, it has become a goldmine for business owners and startups. With the app having higher engagement rates than other social media platforms and generating over $2 billion in all-time spending, you can definitely make a killing off this app.
However, you need an audience to be able to pull this off. So, how can you find your own target audience on the mammoth user base of this app and build a following for your startup? If you’ve been looking for how to get more TikTok followers in 2022, this is the guide for you.
Ready to build that army of TikTok followers? Let’s get into it then!
Photo by cottonbro
How to Get More Followers on TikTok?
1. Define your Target Audience
As a business, you're not creating content for the 1 billion users on TikTok. You're aiming to create content for a particular set of people who love to interact with what your business offers. This is your Target audience. To determine your Target audience, you might need to create personas first. What type of age group can use your products? What type of content does this age group like? What time are they most active on the app?
If you don’t have the answers to this, you can always ask your existing customers. If you have a good following on other social media platforms, direct your questions to them there. Create polls and insert links to direct them to your TikTok page.
Also, monitoring your analytics is a great way to identify your target audience. You can use this to know your followers' gender distribution and location. This gives you an idea of when your followers will be most active, so you can know when to post. To access the Analytics of your posts, you need to switch to a business account first.
Once you’ve found your target audience, create content that suits them. You can get inspiration from your competitors on the app to see what resonates with your target audience. However, remember you’re not an entertainer. You need an audience that will patronize you. So, try as much as possible to attract people that will convert into sales for you.
2. Join Trends
Trends is to TikTok just the way Trending Topics is to Twitter. However, on TikTok, Trends are much more powerful, depending on how well it resonates with the user base. So, Trends could be the way you get a viral video that changes the game for your business.
You shouldn’t jump on all Trends just because you like them. Find those that relate to your business, and people can know what you do by watching the videos. Also, you should try to find Trends your audience likes or is participating in. This increases your chances of getting to their For You page (which is where you want to be). A good practice would be to participate in the more popular and relatable trends. This gets your videos to a bigger audience and the chances of finding new customers increase.
3. Use Hashtags
Hashtags are one of the surest ways to get people interested in your type of content to notice your brand. When you don’t use hashtags, it confuses the TikTok algorithm on who to show your content. However, with hashtags, the algorithm shows your videos to the people who interact with the type of hashtags you used, hence, bringing those with true interest to your video.
Try to add enough hashtags using various variants of the keywords your target audience might search for. You could also use hashtag analytic tools to find out which hashtags are most engaged in your community. However, try to use as many specific keywords as possible, as generic hashtags might get your video to the wrong audience.
If you already have a food following, you could try using branded or company hashtags. However, you might need an influencer to help you create content with this branded hashtag. This helps you gain access to a wider audience and increases your chances of gaining more TikTok followers.
4. Promote your Videos on Other Platforms
As a business, you’ll definitely have other social media handles where you have some followers too. You could share your TikTok content on these platforms while adding the link to your TikTok page. For example, on Instagram’s Reels (Instagram’s lookalike of TikTok), many content creators share their TikTok videos with their TikTok username as a watermark.
TikTok video on Instagram Reels
By directing your loyal followers to your TikTok platform, you gain more support from your followers, and you could have people put in encouraging comments under your videos. The comment section is another place where new followers find out more about your business, so getting some love there could go a long way to help gain followers on TikTok.
5. Duet other TikTok videos
Doing duets with popular TikTok content is a great way to get followers on TikTok. For example, if you duet a company selling complementary products on TikTok, you’re getting your content to a new audience that could be interested in your products. While most of them might not buy from you immediately, you could gain them as new followers that can become customers later.
However, you should only duet content that is relatable to your brand. This gives your brand an identity people can associate with.
6. Find the Best Time to Post
Knowing the best times to post is also vital to getting more followers. After defining your target audience, you should also find out the times they are most active on the app. This gives you an idea of when to post. There are also general times which have been revealed to have peaked in activity on TikTok.
After discovering the time your target audience is most active, you should post before then so you can start building engagement before they are active. This way, you can get yourself to more FYPs and gain new TikTok followers here.
How to Monetize Your TikTok Followers with an Online Store?
Perhaps you’re a content creator who has a good following, and you’re looking to monetize your TikTok, then this section is for you. Having an online store is one of the best ways to monetize your TikTok. All you need is to create an online store with an eCommerce hosting site like Shoplazza.
After creating the store, the next step is to get people to buy from you. Here are a few ideas you could utilize:
1. Integrate Your Online Store with Your TikTok Account
This is quite an obvious step, but we can never be too sure. Make sure the link in your bio is fully functional. You could also write a short message and include a discount for your TikTok followers if you could afford it. Shoplazza has integrated with TikTok shopping. You can integrate your store with a TikTok for Business account), which allows you to pull products from their store to the shopping tab on their TikTok profile. With this feature, you can sync products to your TikTok shop to reach more shoppers easily.
2. Show Users the Process of Making Your Products
One of the types of content people love to see is the process behind the finished product. You could make these videos while using voiceovers to explain the various challenges behind making the product. You could also make funny videos out of the process. For example, the business below is fond of showing her processes for making her perfumes with these videos racking up tens of thousands of views.
Thindwildmercury’s TikTok
You could also do a reveal video. This would show bits and parts of your products at different stages and do a grand reveal at the end of the video. This creates a sense of curiosity about your video and helps your followers appreciate the products more. This could get them to patronize you.
3. Get Popular TikTokers to Use Your Product
The power of influence is so much stronger on social media. With influencers getting huge engagements on TikTok, you can harness this statistic to your advantage. You could get popular TikTokers or influencers to make a video with your product (with a fee, in most cases). This could really shoot your product to the limelight and make you some good cash.
4. Post User-Generated Content
Starting a challenge where your users make videos with your product could be a good way to get new followers and potential customers. By posting this on their account, you gain access to their own followers, and also, posting on your page encourages many more customers to do the same. This way, you’re basically getting free word-of-mouth marketing. Besides, seeing random people make videos with your product gives people new customers more confidence to purchase from you.
With the total spending of users on TikTok already crossing the $2 billion mark, you should know you can always make money on the platform. You just need to go about it the right way.
Conclusion: DO NOT Buy Followers!
While many people feel buying followers gives people confidence in their brand, it turns out to be a hoax most times. When you have many followers and the engagement on your videos is not matching up, it becomes a red flag to customers. So, going organic is the best way to build up your TikTok account’s following.
If you want to know how to get new followers on TikTok and even monetize this following, this is the best guide for you.
(Contributed by Oluwafemi Adedeji & Hermes Fang)
