Leveraging TikTok Trends: A Guide for Businesses
TikTok has caught the attention of businesses of all sizes due to its mastery of personalized algorithms and easily digestible forms of marketing and entertainment. The platform offers businesses a great opportunity to reach a younger demographic and promote their products or services in creative ways. No other platform can match the visibility that TikTok offers organically.
However, businesses often struggle to leverage the ever-popular trends on TikTok. Leveraging trends can help businesses showcase their personality, take advantage of the fun side of the app, and gain more exposure. But how can they do this effectively while maintaining their brand's voice and marketing goals? Here are a few ways to get started.
Types of Trends
Trends on TikTok often combine a popular sound with an action or effect in a video. Some of the most popular trend types include:
Challenges, such as the hot chip challenges and "core memory" challenges
Duet Trends, where users respond to other TikTok users' videos
Transition Trends, which use editing tricks like jump cuts or finger snaps to make videos more appealing
POV Trends, which insert the user into various scenarios created by the content creator
Dance Trends, which involve specific popular dances
Trending video effects, which use native/in-app filters and video effects
Capcut templates, which use popular video templates
Hot topics such as politics, cultural topics, and celebrity gossip.
How to Relate Trends to Your Business
By leveraging trending hashtags and challenges, businesses can increase brand awareness, reach new customers, and create a more relatable and authentic brand image. Incorporating TikTok trends into a business strategy can increase engagement, brand loyalty, and business growth. However, it's essential to figure out how to relate these trends to your business. Here are some ways to leverage trends for your brand:
Use relatable jokes. Making the jokes relatable from the point of view of your target audience or customer is the most common tactic and can be successful.
Use trending sounds as an opportunity to educate. Think creatively about how the sound can be repurposed with a text overlay or video example of a fun fact, quick tip, and more.
Use trends to teach or tell your story. Combining sound and text captions to convey your message can foster a stronger connection and build relationships with your audience.
Use sounds and POV trends to sell in a less "salesy" way. On TikTok, people don't want to be sold directly. It's better to show why your product or service is unique or solves a problem.
It's important to note that business accounts can only use original creator sounds and dialogue sounds/trends, not trending music sounds. Therefore, businesses must get creative with how they participate. Additionally, using too many trends in your account can confuse your message and business goals and cause your followers to be lost on what you are offering. Generally, you should aim to stick with 20% to 50% of your posts featuring trends. If you're at a loss for how to get started or need help navigating a plan of attack for your business on TikTok, let us know! We can help you get started.