How to Use TikTok to Grow Your Business or Church
TikTok is a new and highly engaging social media platform for audio-visual content. This social media platform allows videos up to 3 minutes long and offers filters, special effects, and music to make your videos fun and engaging.
This app generally has a young audience – teenagers and young adults. We all know, teenagers and young adults spend a lot of time on social media scrolling through content that they find entertaining, humorous, and fun. And when they see it, they share it.
So, the key to effective use of TikTok to promote your business or church is producing or sharing fun videos, engaging with your audience, creating fun challenges, and using the right hashtags to increase your reach.
CREATE A TIKTOK CHANNEL
The first thing to do before using TikTok for business or church growth is to create a channel. Creating a TikTok channel requires that you get the app downloaded to a mobile device and register with an email address or phone number. After you have created a password, your username automatically generates. But you can change your username after the registration is complete. You can choose to use your church or business name or use your name and link to your church or business in your account bio. Then you'll want to watch a video or two to get a feel for the platform, follow a few competitors, and other brand giants so you can see what they are doing and what their content is.
CREATE YOUR CONTENT
If you do prefer to create an account for yourself, however, then here are a few things to consider:
1. Decide on Your Content
Decide on what type of content you will create. Remember that Tiktok has a young audience interested in entertaining, fun, and humorous videos. You don't need to think up your own ideas, though. Just scroll through the app to see what is popular and make videos similar to it but with your spin on it. Remember not to be formal or serious. TikTok is a space for you to follow the trends, be silly and playful, and show a different side of your business or church. You'll also want to be consistent in posting content. TikTok's algorithm rewards consistency in posting by making your content more visible on the platform.
2. Engage
It is super important to get users to participate and interact with your content. Hashtag challenges are an example of how you can get users to participate with your content. Another example is asking users to send pictures of them using your product, service, or church attendance.
3. Hashtag Research
This platform uses hashtags to increase the reach and visibility of your post. You'll need to research trending hashtags, what kind of hashtags your audience clicks on, and which hashtags apply to your business. If you use just any popular hashtag, you'll disappoint the user who clicks on your video. So, remember to use hashtags that apply to your video.
START OR PARTICIPATE IN A CHALLENGE
Challenges are the fun part of TikTok; it is one way to get more people involved. For example, you can create a hashtag for your business or church and then challenge users to do something related to your business or church and ask them to hashtag their video with your created hashtag.
TikTok users love challenges. They make videos according to the challenge and hashtag it too. As the cycle continues, the challenges and hashtags become a trend, indirectly putting your business or church in the spotlight and bringing new eyes to your TikTok channel.
ESTABLISH A PARTNERSHIP WITH INFLUENCERS
You can establish partnerships with TikTok influencers who represent your business' or church's values, vision, and mission. They can link to your relevant products, events, and websites from their bio and create awareness on your behalf.
PAID ADVERTISING
Another way of using TikTok for business or church growth is through advertising. Tiktok advertisements help your reach out to thousands of users.
There are four ways to advertise on TikTok:
1. Brand takeover ads are when your ad is the first thing users see when they open up the TikTok app. Your ad can have links to lead the user to a website or sales page.
2. Native ads show in between the users' content. Users can easily skip these ads by scrolling past them.
3. Sponsored challenges can advertise on the 'For You' page, where you can get more engagement for your business or church.
4. Branded filters are filters you design for users to add to their videos.
You can take full advantage of the exciting activity on TikTok for your business or church growth. It has proven its value in the social media marketplace and will be around for quite some time. If you're considering social media as an effective growth tool for your business or church and your audience is the younger generation, then be sure to include TikTok on your list of platforms for community building and outreach.