Welcome to Section Seven: Promotion and Growing Your TikTok Following! You have the content pillars and the optimized profile. Now, we’re focusing on how to get those videos seen by millions, how to manage paid promotions, and the critical strategies for exponential organic growth.
7. Promotion and Growing Your TikTok Following
Why and when you should promote your videos (TikTok Ads vs. Organic Growth)
Growing on TikTok requires a dual focus: maximizing organic visibility while strategically utilizing paid promotion when necessary.
Organic Growth First: For any creator, longevity is the goal, not fleeting virality. Successful organic growth relies on providing consistent value, creating content that resonates deeply within your niche, and building strong habits around content creation. Focusing on organic content is essentially free and allows the discovery algorithm to find your audience.
When to Use TikTok Ads: TikTok offers powerful advertising tools for brands and marketers seeking expanded reach.
• To Supplement Organic Content: Ads can be used to promote posts and supplement your organic content strategy.
• For Direct Sales and Targeting: TikTok Ads are strong at driving actions and are highly compatible with social selling. Businesses can create in-feed ads, select a target audience, and track the campaign’s performance, often integrated seamlessly with a platform like Shopify.
• To Expand Reach: If you are willing to spend money to get your content in front of more people, ads are a strong option.
While paid campaigns can be powerful, entry-level campaigns often start at $500 or more. Some creators choose to reinvest profits from successful affiliate sales back into paid ads.
How to use TikTok Ads effectively: In-feed ads, Brand Takeovers, and Sponsored Hashtags
TikTok provides several effective ad formats for businesses:
1. In-Feed Ads (Native Video):
◦ These appear in users’ For You Feeds (FYP) and autoplay like any other regular TikTok video.
◦ They are great for driving sales and creating a low-friction buying experience.
◦ You can create these using the TikTok Ads Manager. You can also use Spark Ads, which boost your organic TikTok posts with brand backing.
2. Brand Takeovers:
◦ Brand Takeovers are one of the ad types TikTok has experimented with, giving an indication of available promotional formats. (Note: The sources mention Brand Takeovers as an option, but do not provide specific tips for their effective execution.)
3. Sponsored Hashtags (Hashtag Challenges):
◦ Brands can encourage or launch hashtag challenges.
◦ Users love taking up a challenge, which often begins with a hashtagged name to make it memorable and easy to find.
◦ Once a challenge is launched, users can participate with just a few clicks. This is a great way to generate User-Generated Content (UGC).
◦ Users want brands to create new challenges, trends, or memes.
How to collaborate with other TikTok influencers to increase followers, shares, and engagement
Collaboration and networking are key drivers of success, as they determine longevity. The most successful TikTokers connect, cross-promote, and grow together.
1. Finding Partners:
• TikTok Creator Marketplace (TCM): This platform connects brands with creators for paid sponsored content and affiliate campaigns. It operates like an influencer agency, allowing brands to find creators open to collaboration.
• Other Tools: Platforms like Shopify Collabs also help connect creators with brands looking to boost awareness. Influencers can also find campaigns on platforms like Aspire or by offering services for UGC creation.
• Proactive Pitching: Creators should proactively reach out to brands they want to work with. You can use tools to find the email titles of decision-makers in a company.
2. Collaboration Strategies:
• Use Native Features: Use the Duet feature (recording a video side-by-side) and Stitch feature (clipping and integrating moments from another user’s content) to react, respond, and remix trending content. These features are a fundamental part of the community and help decrease discovery potential if disabled.
• Cross-Promotion Effect: Collaborating with creators whose audiences are similar to yours leads to cross-promotion, helping both parties double their visibility and gain new followers.
• Authenticity: Partnerships should feel authentic. When brands partner with an influencer perceived as an expert, it boosts the brand’s credibility.
Building an organic following: Tips for gaining authentic followers and avoiding bots
Building an organic, authentic following is based on strategy, high-quality content, and consistency.
1. Consistency and Frequency:
• High Volume Start: To quickly get over the initial hurdle, many suggest posting three to five times per day for the first few weeks or month.
• Sustainable Cadence: The industry average is about seven posts per week, but aiming for a sustainable schedule of 3 to 5 posts per week is often recommended for consistency and avoiding burnout.
• Set Goals You Control: Focus on setting goals you directly control, like your posting frequency, rather than external factors like follower count.
2. Content Strategy for Discovery:
• Search-Based Content (SEO): Especially for new accounts aiming for rapid growth, focus on videos that people are actively searching for. Use relevant keywords in your captions, text overlays, and voiceovers to make content discoverable via TikTok Search.
• Value Pillars: Content should offer clear value, fitting into categories like Educational, Entertaining, Relatable, or Inspirational.
• Master the Hook: The first three seconds are critical. Start with a strong verbal hook (a question, bold statement, or problem) combined with a visual hook (text overlay) to stop the scroll, especially since many users scroll mindlessly or watch with the sound off.
3. Engagement Tactics:
• Immediate Engagement: Be the first person to like and comment on your own video. Ask a question in that first comment to boost engagement.
• Audience Interaction: Respond to comments and messages.
• Video Replies: Respond to comments with a video reply. If someone asks a question, creating a video response can give you a boost, as the video is shown to everyone who watched the original post.
4. Avoiding Bots and Penalties:
• Authenticity is Key: TikTok audiences prefer an authentic, less-polished aesthetic. Content that feels organic and prioritized relevance and humor performs well.
• Community Guidelines: TikTok will penalize or suppress content that violates community guidelines, misinformation, or content that falls under “FYF Ineligible” standards.
• No Fake Engagement: TikTok strictly prohibits deceptive behavior and the trade of services that artificially boost engagement or manipulate the recommendation system (like “like-for-like” schemes).
Cross-promoting your TikTok on other social platforms (Instagram, YouTube, etc.)
Cross-promotion is the practice of sharing your TikTok content on other social media platforms to maximize visibility and audience reach.
1. Platform Focus: While content repurposing is an option, beginners should focus tunnel vision on one main platform (like TikTok) until they have a solid strategy established. Time spent checking stats on secondary platforms could be better spent improving the strategy on your primary platform.
2. Repurposing Content: You can repost your TikTok videos as Instagram Reels or YouTube Shorts. When reposting, ensure the content still makes sense for the specific platform.
3. Driving Traffic: Use your link in bio to direct TikTok traffic to your other platforms (YouTube channel, e-commerce site, blog). Tools like Linktree or Hootbio allow you to centralize multiple external links in that single clickable bio spot.
4. Analytics Tracking: Dedicated social media management tools like Hootsuite or Social Status can help you track and measure performance across all your social channels, including TikTok, to see which strategies are most effective.