How to Advertise on TikTok: A Complete Guide for Freelance Social Media Managers

TikTok exploded out of nowhere to become one of the most downloaded apps in the world, and freelance social media managers in Dubai ran into a frenzy trying to figure out how to use it to their advantage. With over 800 million active users, businesses can’t simply ignore the existence of TikTok, especially if their main target is users under the age of 30.

To get you a closer, in-depth view of the app, here is a complete guide for using TikTok as a marketing platform.

What is TikTok?

If you remember the app called Musical.ly, then you have a rough idea of what TikTok is all about. Musical.ly was an app used by its users to lip-synch to various types of videos and can share them with friends. Its primary users were between 13 and 24 years. When the company was shut down in mid-2018, its users were merged to the new and improved app called TikTok.

The company was an instant hit with millions of downloads being seen within the first few months. The app encourages its users to record and upload short videos (of up to 15 seconds) of themselves lip-synching to comedy skits & songs, and also dance to popular music. The popularity of the app also expanded the age bracket of those using it with users over 30 taking at least 34% of the total number, unlike its predecessors.

These figures are quite impressive to ignore, and companies are now considering adding TikTok as one of the social media platforms to consider for marketing their businesses.

How can brands use TikTok?

Freelance social media marketers in Dubai have figured out the three main ways brands can use TikTok to market their products and services. They include:

Creating their own channel and posting relevant content that can help make their brand more visible
Collaborating with influencers to spread their content
Using TikTok paid ads options

Many brands choose to combine all three to get the most out of their social media marketing campaigns. The company is still relatively new and is yet to fully mature as an advertising channel since its algorithms and reach isn’t as good as for other established platforms such as Instagram and Facebook.

However, there are various app ad opportunities that businesses can use to get to their target audience before the in-app ads become too prolific. There are currently four advertisement formats to choose from TikTok. They are:

In-feed Video Ads
Brand Takeover
Hashtag Challenge
Branded Lenses

1. In-feed video ads

Depending on the product or service being advertised, these types of ads generally appear at the end of an organic video or in the feed. Since the app is generally composed of short videos, the ads can be seamlessly inserted in between them without disrupting their functionality.

Just like it would appear on other social media platforms, these ads have a call to action button on them, such as the ‘call now,’ ‘download,’ or ‘order now’ buttons. Once clicked, the user will be redirected to the advertiser’s website page or performing whatever other action they needed to be done.

Targetted marketing is also available on TikTok, although it is not much advanced. Brands can only target users based on age, gender, and location for now.

2. Brand takeover

This sort of ads works exactly as the name suggests. They appear immediately one opens the app. It is usually a full-screen advertisement and can be in the form of a video, GIF, or an image. They can be used to provide backlinks to the advertiser’s profile, hashtag challenges, or an external link, e.g., a website or another social media platform.

The main problem with such types of advertisements is only given on a category basis, meaning only one brand can take over a category for the day. This makes this type of advertising way costly.

3. Branded hashtag challenges

You can pay for branded hashtags to be shown to your target audience, making you to indirectly gain more users. With such an ad, there is a banner with your sponsored hashtag challenge written on it, and the TikTokers will have the option of clicking and joining such a challenge.

The app offers analytics for the advertisers to see how the branded hashtag performed and how much user-generated content was achieved.

4. Branded filters and lenses

These branded lenses are just like the AR filters on Snapchat and Instagram. If your brand has its own filters, it can be shown to people, and as its popularity rises, the more engagement you’ll receive.