As a business owner, you might know the unique benefits of using TikTok for business over personal account. With TikTok business accounts, sellers can access advanced analytics, advertising opportunities, eCommerce integrations, and professional branding features. That’s why learning how to use a TikTok business account is more helpful than ever.
In this guide, we’ll walk you through 8 details steps to use TikTok for business, plus 4 best practices tips to help your content go viral with ease!
Let’s explore thoroughly now!
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What is the Benefit of a TikTok Business Account
Before exploring how to use TikTok for business, it is vital to understand why you should do that.
As you know, TikTok has revolutionized the social media landscape with its short-form video content and user-friendly interface. While initially popular among Gen Z users, TikTok has gained significant traction among businesses as an effective marketing platform. Below are the main reasons why businesses use TikTok so much:
- Get access to a massive customer database: With over 900 million TikTok users worldwide, this platform owns a significant user database. This is an excellent answer to how to use TikTok for small business to reach large audiences and diversity.
- Acquire high engagement rates: TikTok users are highly engaged compared to most other social networks. They spend an average of 58.4 minutes per day on TikTok. This engagement level allows businesses to contact their target audience and build brand awareness.
- Join a trendsetting platform: TikTok is known for setting trends and viral challenges. Jumping on these rages can significantly boost your brand’s visibility. This is also how you can create buzz around your products or services.
- Offers huge Influencer marketing opportunities: TikTok has many influencers who have amassed large followings. This kind of marketing on TikTok has proven highly effective, with many campaigns going viral and generating massive brand exposure. Thus, collaborating with TikTok influencers can help businesses gain more reach and connect to other potential buyers.
How To Use TikTok For Business?
To use TikTok for business, follow these 8 steps:
- Create a TikTok Business Account
- Optimizing Your Business Profile
- Choose a topic for your TikTok channel.
- Identify your audience
- Make a plan
- Create TikTok viral content
- Using TikTok ads
- Measure performance on TikTok Analytics
Now, let us explore in detail each step in the process of how to use TikTok for business.
Step 1: Create a TikTok Business Account
- First, download and open the TikTok app on your smartphone.
- Then, create a new personal account by utilizing your email address or log in through your Google, Twitter, or Facebook account.
- Once you have created a personal account, tap on the profile icon at the bottom right corner of the screen.
- Then, tap on the menu icon (three horizontal lines) at the top right corner of the screen and choose Settings and Privacy.
- Under Settings and Privacy, tap on Account.
- In the Account settings, tap on Switch to Business Account to convert a personal account into a TikTok Business Account.
- Select a category that describes your account. Then, click Next.
- Finally, click Next to start using your business account
Now, you need to answer the question “How to make a business account on Tiktok”. It’s time to move on to the next step: optimizing your profile.
Step 2: Optimizing Your Business Profile
Your business profile is often the first impression potential customers have of your brand, making optimization essential for success. Here are what you can do to create a well-optimized business profile:
1. Use your business name
Use your business name in your profile to maintain consistency across platforms. This helps build recognition and trust with your audience. Additionally, keep the name clear and simple by avoiding unnecessary keywords or phrases, making it easy for customers to find and remember.
Additionally, consistent business naming across social media, websites, and directories improves SEO, helping search engines better index and rank your business and making it easier for customers to find you.
2. Add high-quality images
Think of your profile picture and cover photo as your first handshake with potential customers—they need to be professional and visually appealing. Ensure they align with your branding to create a strong and inviting first impression. For platforms like TikTok, an ideal dimension is 1080×1080 pixels for a square profile image.
Tips: You can use the same profile photos as on Instagram or Facebook to maintain a consistent brand image.
3. Utilize a short and compelling bios
Creating a short and compelling bio for your business profile is crucial for making a strong first impression. Your TikTok bio should be brief yet informative, providing just enough information to entice potential customers; under 80 characters. It could clearly state what makes your business unique. For examples:
- Brewing happiness in every cup! Visit us for artisanal coffee and cozy vibes
- Discover unique fashion pieces that express your style!
4. Be strategic about your URL
You should customize your URL to reflect your business name or primary service. A clear, memorable URL can enhance brand recognition and improve click-through rates.
Depending on your goals, you can link to your homepage, a landing page, a blog post, or even an app download page. Just ensure the URL is clear and recognizable to build trust, as a trustworthy link is essential for encouraging people to click.
Step 3: Choose a topic for your TikTok channel.
Now that your profile is set up, it’s time to think about the type of content you’ll be creating. To choose a suitable topic for your TikTok channel, here are some things that you can consider:
- Your product: The first way is to pick a topic centered around your products. For instance, you can share how your products are made, packed, or sourced; how your products solve problems or improve daily life; how to use your products in a creative way, etc. This ensures consistency in your brand message while keeping your audience engaged and interested.
- Your audience: Think about the age group and interests of your audience and how they might learn best. For example, teenagers often enjoy fast-paced, visually appealing, and interactive content, like challenges, memes, or short tutorials.
- Content type: There are some of the most popular TikTok categories include, fitness, DIY, beauty, fashion, and cooking. Choose one type based on your strengths.
- TikTok’s trending hashtags: Trending hashtags attract high traffic, making it easier for your content to reach a larger audience. However, trends fade quickly, so your content may lose relevance after the trend ends. Also, prioritizing trends over meaningful content may weaken your overall message or brand values.
Tips: If you still can’t choose a suitable TikTok topic, you can start by creating a video on any idea that interests you or follow a trending topic to get started. It helps you get into the habit of creating, which can spark more ideas.
Step 4: Identify your target audience
Learning how to use TikTok for business requires a strategic approach, starting with identifying your target audience. Here’s how:
1. Do customer interview
Customer interviews are a direct way to gather insights. You can ask about their interests, challenges, and what type of content they enjoy on platforms like TikTok. These insights will help you create videos that genuinely connect with your audience’s preferences. Here are some questions to get to know your audiences:
- What social platforms do you use most?
- What type of content do you find engaging?
- What challenges or interests do you have that relate to our products or services?
These interviews can reveal specific themes, trends, or pain points that help you craft TikTok content that meets their interest.
2. Look at your social followers
Another way to identify your target audience is by doing secondary research. Looking at your social followers is a key step in identifying your target audience because they represent a group of people who have already shown interest in your brand. To discover this data, you can use tools like Instagram Insights, Meta Business Suite, or Twitter Analytics to dive deep into who follows your brand. You should look at metrics such as:
- Demographics: Age, location, and gender breakdown.
- Engagement patterns: What type of content drives the most interaction?
- Interests: Common topics your followers engage with.
Knowing your audience’s information helps you identify the right target audience for your TikTok channel.
Tips: You can read comments on existing social media platforms and customer feedback on your website to gain more insights into your audience’s questions, interests, or any gaps that are being overlooked.
3. Check your competitors
Studying your competitors is an essential step that helps you stay ahead in your niche while refining your TikTok strategy. It involves identifying brands that are similar to yours and are active on the platform, then analyzing their content to determine what types of videos are performing best.
It is also important to focus on their engagement metrics, such as the hashtags, challenges, or trends that are driving their success, as well as observing how their audience is responding. This process allows you to identify weaknesses or missed opportunities in their strategy so you can create unique content that is positioned to attract and engage an underserved segment of the audience.
Step 5: Make your content plan.
On the journey of discovering how to use TikTok for business, you need to realize that even if you excel at making content plans to promote your brand on other platforms like Instagram or Facebook, TikTok is different. It is a unique, dynamic, and unpredictable platform that demands a cohesive content strategy.
Making a content plan ensures you don’t miss important dates and allows you enough time for creative production.
- Start by defining your key objectives: Are you aiming to increase brand awareness, drive traffic to your website, or showcase your products?
- Once you have clear goals, decide on the types of content: This could include product demonstrations, behind-the-scenes footage, tutorials, or entertaining challenges that align with trending topics. Choose types of content that will resonate with your target audience.
- Next, establish a posting schedule: Consistency is key on TikTok, so determine how often you will post and what times of day you will target. You can also plan content around events, holidays, or specific campaigns to keep your feed timely and relevant. TikTok allows you to schedule TikTok posts up to 10 days in advance.
- Incorporate a mix of content styles to keep things fresh: Use a combination of videos, duets, and even live streams to engage different segments of your audience.
With a clear content plan, you can ensure that your TikTok presence remains consistent, strategic, and engaging.
Step 6: Create viral content
Now, we move to the core step in how to use TikTok for business: generating content. There is no general formula for creating compelling content for business on TikTok. However, there are some things you should follow, at least to ensure that your content has a chance to reach your audience, including:
- Follow TikTok trends: You ought to stay up-to-date with the latest TikTok trends and challenges. Incorporate popular trends into your content to increase its visibility and reach. Nevertheless, verifying that the trends match your brand and remain pertinent to your intended audience is vital.
- Tell a story: Storytelling never seems out of style in the marketing industry. And when you market for business on TikTok, this technique is still very effective in captivating your audience. An engaging narrative has the potential to foster an emotional bond with your audience and enhance the memorability of your content.
- Keep it short and snappy: Keep in mind that TikTok is a short video platform. Therefore, although TikTok videos have a maximum duration of 60 seconds, shorter videos tend to perform better. We suggest you grab viewers’ attention within the first few seconds with a hook and deliver your message concisely.
- Use captions and text: Due to the typically brief content on TikTok, it can occasionally challenge the audience to grasp your content completely. Using clear and concise text or captions can complement your visuals and enhance the viewer’s understanding of your content.
- Leverage music and sound effects: Music and sound are crucial in creating moving visual content. Using trending sounds is also a way to push videos to trend. If you are in a business account, you can access 1M+ songs and sounds for commercial use in the Creative Center on TikTok. If you are in a business account, you can access 1M+ songs and sounds for commercial use in the Creative Center on TikTok.
Step 7: Get more views using TikTok ads
Similar to TikTok Shop, TikTok advertising is also an optional step in how to use TikTok for your business. However, it’s worth a try as a way to reach a larger audience in less time. TikTok offers a variety of advertising selections for businesses looking to promote their products that can mention:
- Spark ads is a native ad format that lets you leverage organic TikTok posts for advertising. By using real TikTok posts, Spark Ads ensure that all engagement—such as views, comments, likes, shares, and follows—gained from boosting a video is attributed to your original content. Each TikTok Ads Manager account can support up to 10,000 Spark Ads.
- In-feed ads are native ads appearing in users’ TikTok feeds as they surf the app. They may be up to 60 seconds long and involve features like clickable links and call-to-action buttons. In-feed ads are a great way to reach a wide audience on TikTok.
- TopView ads are full-screen video ads that appear when users first open the TikTok app. They can also be up to 60 seconds long and are an obvious and impactful advertising option on TikTok. It’s perfect for launching new products and promoting events.
- Branded takeover is similar to TopView ads but is limited to one advertiser per day. Full-screen ads appear when users first open the TikTok app and can include images, videos, and links. It is designed to create mass awareness and capture the attention of users right from the start.
- Branded hashtag challenge ads are a type of TikTok ad that allows a brand to sponsor a specific hashtag and create a challenge that encourages users to participate and take actions related to the hashtag. It is perfect for boosting engagement and raising brand awareness.
- Branded effects ads are interactive TikTok ads format that allows brands to create custom filters, stickers, or special effects for users to incorporate into their videos. These ads enhance user engagement by inviting creators to use branded visuals in their content, making the interaction with the brand more personal and fun.
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Step 8: Measure performance on TikTok analytics
After spending a considerable amount of time on TikTok, it becomes crucial to assess your progress objectively as a TikTok business manager. That’s why exploring TikTok Analytics and optimizing your TikTok channel become the close to final step in how to use TikTok for business. It would help if you analyzed your reach and engagement metrics. Doing so lets you understand who is watching and following your content.
Besides, analytics data eliminate the need for guesswork in content strategy by providing concrete evidence of what is effective and what is not. Besides these 4 most basic metrics such as likes, comments, shares, and followers. Here are most main metrics to track on TikTok that every TikTok creator needs to track:
- Profile views: The number of times your TikTok profile has been viewed
- Engagement rate: The ratio of engagement actions (likes, comments, shares) to video views
- Average watch time: The average length of time people watched your videos
- Watch full video: The percentage of viewers who watch your videos all the way through, indicating content quality.
4 All-Time Best Tips to Easy Go Viral on TikTok
We keep on going on the journey of how to use TikTok for business by keeping in mind 5 tips for creating viral TikTok content. From leveraging the latest trends to interacting with your followers, we’ll show you how to maximize your TikTok presence and increase your chances of going viral.
Let’s get into it now!
1. Encourage user-generated content – UCG
User-generated content (UGC) on TikTok refers to videos, challenges, and other creative content created by regular TikTok users that feature a specific brand, product, or service.
UGC helps brands build trust and credibility, increase engagement, and get higher conversion rates. When a brand posts UGC on TikTok, it performs 22% better than branded content, 32% higher than Facebook ads, and 46% higher than conventional ads.
The most effective ads leverage authentic UGC that showcases genuine product interactions, rather than overt sales tactics. Gen Z consumers on TikTok are highly discerning and can easily detect inauthenticity, which is an immediate barrier to success on the platform.
Todd Piechowski, VP of Growth at Envision Horizons
After knowing several benefits of UGC, you might want to take advantage of using these campaigns to leverage your brand performance. Here are some types of TikTok UGC campaigns that you can create:
- Hashtag challenges that encourage users to participate in creative video responses. Brands create unique hashtags and encourage users to create and share content. This type of ad can generate high levels of engagement and user-generated content.
- Branded effects allow brands to create custom filters, stickers, and augmented reality (AR) effects that users can apply to their videos. This type of ad can help increase brand awareness and engagement on TikTok.
- Contests and giveaways that require users to create UGC to participate, incentivizing content creation and boosting engagement.
2. Identify profitable niches
To reduce competition, differentiate your content and brand from the vast sea of generic TikTok videos, and have higher earning potential, you should identify profitable niches to create content on TikTok. Here are several niches that can be particularly profitable and successful on TikTok helping you get a clearer answer to the question of how to use TikTok for business:
- Comedy: Funny, humorous content tends to perform well on TikTok. This could include comedy sketches, relatable memes, or entertaining skits.
- Motivation: Uplifting, inspirational, and motivational content resonates with many TikTok users. This could include self-help tips, positive affirmations, or stories of personal growth.
- Challenge: When you invite your audience to create their video based on performing a specific task with #hashtag such as using a filter, performing a dance, etc.
- Review: Real-life stories and anecdotes from law enforcement professionals seem to captivate TikTok audiences.
3. Post your content consistently and regularly
Consistency is key on TikTok. Posting content frequently and regularly helps keep your audience engaged and increases the likelihood of your videos appearing in their feeds. We encourage you to experiment with different types of content that not only keeps your feed interesting but also helps you maintain a consistent post schedule.
Also, posting when your audience is most active can significantly boost your reach. To find out when your followers are online, check the ‘Follower Activity’ report under Creator Center → Analytics → Follower tab. This report highlights peak activity times from the past week. Or you can check this best time to post on the TikTok detail guide.
4. Interact with your followers constantly
It’s essential to invest time in reading, reacting, and responding to comments on your TikTok business videos. This practice demonstrates that you value your audience’s feedback, encouraging ongoing engagement. Additionally, commenting on other channels’ videos can boost your presence on TikTok.
In addition, you can go live to build stronger relationships with your followers. Hosting live streams on your TikTok for business account allows you to connect with your audience more personally and appear regularly in the audience’s mind. During these sessions, you can answer questions, discuss specific topics, and build rapport with your viewers. Live streams also provide an opportunity to sell your products or offer special deals to your audience.
According to Statista’s report in March 2024, 28 percent of content creators announced making between According to Statista’s March 2024 report, 28% of content creators earned between $25 and $199 annually. About 22% made $1,000 or more from live content, while roughly a quarter earned less than $25.
How To Use TikTok For Business: FAQs
Yes, using TikTok for business is worth it. The platform has over 1.58 billion monthly active users, offers powerful engagement tools, and helps brands connect with younger audiences while driving traffic, awareness, and sales effectively. Yes, TikTok for business is free to use. You can create a business account at no cost, but advertising and promotional campaigns on the platform may involve additional fees Yes, you can use your personal TikTok account for your business. However, it is recommended to create a separate business account to maintain a clear distinction between personal and professional content and to access additional features and analytics specifically designed for businesses. Yes, you can switch between a TikTok Business Account and a Personal Account at any time. TikTok advises against switching back and forth from a Business to a Personal account. So, if you would like to promote your business on TikTok but also post organic personal content, we recommend you do these two activities in separate accounts.
Get Success with Your TikTok For Business Today!
Overall, how to use TikTok for business is a relatively long process and requires a lot of investment in time and effort. However, this investment will likely bring positive results to your business performance. Furthermore, our how to use tiktok for your business is very detailed, your job is just to read carefully and follow each step.
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