In the age when you can shoot HD or 4K video with your phone in a pocket, everyone has become a creator. Deep inside, every creator has a dream of getting famous and collecting an army of followers. But ultimately, when creators forget about such dreams, they remember the true reason for creating content — to have fun with the process and, even more than that, to share their content with others.
If you’re considering using TikTok advertising for your business, you’ve probably visited the platform and understood its beautiful gimmicks. TikTok did what other platforms couldn’t do or didn’t even think about. It combined things that were considered incompatible on other platforms.
That’s why TikTok has made it to the top of social media this quickly.
In March 2020, TikTok reached 76 million monthly app downloads globally, which is likely to make it the most downloaded app of the year according to Ainnow Data.
Compared to 2018, the number of TikTok users in the United States skyrocketed 97.5% in 2019.
In September 2019, TikTok became the second most used mobile app in the United States after Facebook with US users spending an average of nearly 500 minutes in the app. In March 2020, this monthly average almost doubled to 858 minutes.
How to Create TikTok Advertising
After TikTok disrupted the way people share video, TikTok advertising gained tremendous popularity among businesses and brands.
According to the 2020 State of Influence Report by Traackr, TikTok took the cake in advertising between the first half of 2019 and the first half of 2020, leaving major social media platforms such as Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter way behind:
- Paid active influencers on TikTok increased by 368%
- Sponsored posts increased by 95%
- Engagements with sponsored posts increased by 298%
To run TikTok advertising, you need to create a TikTok Ads Manager account.
If you’re already familiar with major ad platforms like Facebook Ads Manager, you’ll learn how to run ads on TikTok really fast, as TikTok Ads Manager works pretty much the same way.
To create a TikTok advertising campaign, you need to set:
- Marketing objectives. Just as in Facebook Ads Manager, all goals in TikTok Ads Manager are divided into three major groups: Awareness, Consideration, and Conversions. To learn more about them, read this article.
- Placements. The same as Google and Facebook, TikTok has their own family of apps called placements, i.e. places where your TikTok ads can appear.
- Audiences. You can form audiences using different targeting options based on users’ demographics and devices or create Custom Audiences and Lookalike Audiences to target users who have the same characteristics as your current customers.
- Budgets. There are two types of budgets you can set for your TikTok ad campaigns. A lifetime budget is spent during the period you define. The daily budget is spent during one day.
After you customize these settings, you also need to upload and customize your TikTok advertisement videos or images. And that’s all — your TikTok ads are ready to go live! Once you launch your ads, you can monitor their performance on the TikTok Ads Manager dashboard.
How Much Does It Cost to Advertise on TikTok?
Compared to other ad platforms where you can start advertising for a few dollars, the TikTok advertising cost may hit you in the pocket.
The minimum ad cost on TikTok is:
- $50 for the ad campaign level
- $20 for the ad group level
If you use the lifetime budget option, TikTok will calculate your lifetime budget as the minimum daily budget (which is $20) multiplied by the number of days for which you schedule your ads. For example, if you run ads for 17 days, you’ll need to pay $340.
The amount of money you spend depends on the bidding type you choose. There are five bidding types on TikTok:
- Cost per click (CPC). Set the amount you want to pay per click made by a user.
- Optimized cost per click (oCPC). Set the amount you want to pay per action taken by a user.
- Cost per thousand impressions or cost per mille (CPM). Set the amount you want to pay per one thousand impressions.
- Optimized cost per mille (oCPM). Set the amount you want to pay per one thousand impressions that lead to conversions.
- Cost per thousand views (CPV). Set the amount you want to pay per one thousand views of a 6-second or 2-second video.
Note that your bidding type is defined by your campaign goal.
TikTok Advertising Best Practices
If you’re ready to test TikTok advertising for your business, there are a few golden rules you need to know. Here’s how to do TikTok ads the right way:
Be Real and Natural
TikTok is booming on the media landscape because it has one distinctive difference compared to other platforms — it revolutionized video sharing by making it frivolous. To succeed with your TikTok videos, you should come as you are.
The simpler your posts and ads, the better the response they’ll get. Breaking the fourth wall is the best way to be simple. Consider your marketing not as producing professional video content but a direct face-to-face communication with every customer.
Find the Right Moment and Play
On TikTok, naturalness goes hand in hand with straightforwardness. To successfully promote your products or services, you should mention them in the first seconds before viewers skip your ad.
However, if you need to boost your brand awareness, don’t draw your viewers’ attention to products or services. Viewers don’t like ads; they like stories. Produce content in a playful format, entertain your audience, and amuse yourself!
Use the Full-Screen Vertical Format
TikTok is a mobile app, and you should use a vertical video format as an advertising and content standard. It will help you reduce the distance between your business and viewers by creating the effect of personal presence.
Add a 120 BPM Soundtrack
When you create a TikTok advertising video, you should remember that the soundtrack is just as important as the video footage. While 85% of Facebook users watch video content with the sound off, users on TikTok are used to enjoying content with the sound on because sound is an integral part of storytelling on the platform.
TikTok recommends making videos with fast-paced soundtracks that are higher than 120 beats per minute (BPM) because such videos usually get more views than those with music slower than 120 BPM.
Collaborate with TikTok Influencers
Another way to use TikTok to boost your conversions and sales is by attracting the followers of TikTok creators who have already gained popularity on the platform. Creators are recognized, and they know how to advertise on TikTok. If you clearly explain to them what you want to achieve using the platform and give them the right direction, they’ll guide users to your business.
Follow the Latest Trends on TikTok and Beyond
It’s important to follow the hottest news and creative trends both on TikTok and in the world. In such a way, you’ll be able to think out captivating and, more importantly, relevant ideas for your TikTok ad content.
As of June 2020, the top eleven categories of TikTok content by hashtag views were:
- Entertainment — 443.3 billion hashtag views
- Dance — 150.3 billion hashtag views
- Pranks — 54 billion hashtag views
- Fitness and ports — 43.3 billion hashtag views
- Home renovation and DIY — 28.6 billion hashtag views
- Beauty and skincare — 21.8 billion hashtag views
- Fashion — 17.5 billion hashtag views
- Recipes and cooking — 12.9 billion hashtag views
- Lifehacks and advice — 8.3 billion hashtag views
- Pets — 7.5 billion hashtag views
- Outdoors — 1.2 billion hashtag views
Explore the Most Followed TikTok Pages to Get New Ideas
To grow your TikTok audience and get better at TikTok advertising, you need to keep looking for creative new ways of expression. One of the best ways to do that is by checking out TikTok profiles that belong to other creators, brands, and businesses.
We’ve created two lists of TikTok pages you should take a look at. Enjoy!
The 40 Most Followed TikTok Accounts
As of November 2020, the top forty TikTok creators worldwide are:
- Charli d’Amelio — 98.5 million followers
- Addison Rae — 69.2 million followers
- Zack King — 52.7 million followers
- Loren Gray — 49.5 million followers
- TikTok — 48.7 million followers
- Spencer Polanco Knight — 48.6 million followers
- Dixie D’Amelio — 43.9 million followers
- Riyaz Aly — 43.6 million followers
- Bella Poarch — 43.2 million followers
- Will Smith — 42.5 million followers
- Michael Le — 42.1 million followers
- Jason Derulo — 39.8 million followers
- Brent Rivera — 35 million followers
- Baby Ariel — 34.8 million followers
- Faisal Shaikh — 32.1 million followers
- Gilmher Croes — 32 million followers
- Kimberly Loaiza — 30.9 million followers
- Jojo Siwa — 30.4 million followers
- Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson — 29.7 million followers
- James Charles — 29.6 million followers
- Avani Gregg — 28.6 million followers
- Arishfa Khan — 28.6 million followers
- Jannat Zubair Rahmani — 28.2 million followers
- Nisha Guragain — 28 million followers
- Stokes Twins — 28 million followers
- Burak Özdemir — 28 million followers
- Flighthouse — 27.5 million followers
- Chase Hudson — 27.3 million followers
- Joe Albanese — 27.2 million followers
- Lucas and Marcus — 26.5 million followers
- Awez Darbar — 26 million followers
- Selena Gomez — 25.7 million followers
- Liza Koshy — 25.5 million followers
- Kristen Hancher — 24.7 million followers
- Sameeksha Sud — 24.5 million followers
- TikTok India — 24.4 million followers
- BTS — 24.5 million followers
- David Dobrik — 24.1 million followers
- Jacob Sartorius — 23.8 million followers
- Jayden Croes — 23.2 million followers
27 TikTok Brand Pages Where You’ll Get Ideas for Your Business Page
Here’s a list of TikTok accounts that belong to brands from different industries:
- ESPN — 12.4 million followers
- NBA — 11.9 million followers
- Netflix — 10.8 million followers
- Nickelodeon — 9.6 million followers
- WWE — 8.6 million followers
- NFL — 5.1 million followers
- Red Bull — 5 million followers
- Liverpool FC — 3.4 million followers
- Fortnite — 2.9 million followers
- Gymshark — 2.1 million followers
- San Diego Zoo — 1.7 million followers
- SNL — 1.5 million followers
- TeenVogue — 1.3 million followers
- Kaja — 1.4 million followers
- Chipotle — 1.3 million followers
- NASCAR — 818.7 million followers
- Gucci — 803.1 million followers
- The Washington Post — 775.4K followers
- Spikeball Inc. — 583.2K followers
- JGR NASCAR Team — 530.7K followers
- asos — 375.4K followers
- Mercedes-Benz — 325.2K followers
- Crocs — 307K followers
- Apple Music — 247.3K followers
- Vineyard Vines — 211.2K followers
- Guess — 52.2K followers
- Calvin Klein — 27.K followers
Have Fun with Your TikTok Advertising
If you want to get real results on TikTok, remember that your major goal is not to promote yourself but to have fun and entertain your audience. Just take a look at the content produced by any of the brands above and you’ll get what we mean. After you grow your audience organically, your ads will work twice as effectively.
Finally, don’t forget that you can use Softcube AI as an extra tool for your TikTok marketing.
Good luck, and enjoy your TikTok and TikTok advertising!
