TikTok For Business: Our Ultimate Guide For Beginners

This article will provide an in-depth exploration of TikTok for business, offering beginners valuable insights, practical strategies, and essential tips to effectively leverage this powerful and popular social media platform for marketing and brand promotion.

What Is TikTok For Business?

TikTok for Business is a platform specifically designed to help brands and marketers utilize TikTok for advertising and promotional purposes. It provides various tools and features that enable businesses to create, manage, and optimize their content as well as advertising campaigns to reach a wider audience, engage with potential customers, and achieve their marketing goals.

TikTok Business vs. Personal Account

The primary distinction between a TikTok Business account and a Personal account lies in the features and capabilities each provides, catering to different user needs. 

A Personal account is geared towards individual users looking to create, share, and interact with content for entertainment, networking, or personal expression. It offers basic content creation tools and limited access to analytics.

On the other hand, a TikTok Business account is designed specifically for brands, marketers, and content creators seeking to leverage TikTok for promotional and commercial purposes. It provides access to a broader range of features, including advanced TikTok analytics, advertising options, and additional content creation and optimization tools. In short, the TikTok Business account is used to build a brand presence and engage in marketing activities.

How To Set Up Your TikTok Business Account

If You Don’t Have A TikTok Account

To sell on TikTok, you need a TikTok business account. This type of account offers features that personal accounts don’t, such as detailed analytics, ad creation tools, and the ability to set up a TikTok Shop.

Step 1. Start Your Sign-Up 

Go to the TikTok for Business landing page and click Get Started to sign up for your account. There, you can enjoy many ad credit limited offers.

Step 2. Provide Your Contact Information

• Enter your business email or phone number and create a password. Make sure to agree to the terms and conditions. If you want updates from TikTok for Business and TikTok Shop, opt-in by subscribing.
• Then click Continue

Step 3: Verify Your Contact Details

Check your email or phone and follow the instructions to verify your contact information.

Step 4: Enter Your Business Information

• Complete the form with your business details, including your industry, business name, region, time zone, and currency. 
• Once you’ve filled in all the required fields, accept TikTok’s Commercial Terms of Service, Advertising Terms, and Payment Terms, then click Get Started to finish setting up your account.

Step 5: Input Billing Information 

Once you’re registered, proceed to add your billing details. If you’re based in the United States, you’ll need to select the state where your business is located.

Step 6: Launch Your Campaign

After setting up your billing, you’ll land on the Ad Manager dashboard. Here, you can begin crafting and managing all your TikTok advertisements.

If You Already Have A TikTok Account

Anyone who has a personal TikTok account can create a TikTok Business Account. To upgrade your account, follow these steps:

On Mobile

• Open the TikTok app and log in to your account.
• Tap Profile to go to your profile homepage.
• Tap the hamburger menu icon on the top right corner to open your Settings and privacy page.
• Tap Account.
• Under the Account control options, tap Switch to Business Account.
• Select a category that best describes your account, then tap Next, and this will complete the process.

On Desktop

• Go to www.tiktok.com and log in to your account.
• On the top right corner, hover over your profile icon.
• Go to Settings.
• Toggle ON Business Account at the bottom of the page.
• Select a category that best describes your account, then tap Next, and this will complete the process.

Once you’ve switched to a Business Account, you will get access to various exclusive features, including adding your business contact information and website.

TikTok For Business Supported Features

Ads Manager

TikTok Ads Manager is a comprehensive tool designed to help brands create, manage, and optimize their advertising campaigns on the platform. Here’s a simplified breakdown of its functions:

• Setup Guide: It enables users to set up ads through a straightforward process. This includes choosing goals like getting more website visits, sales, or app downloads, targeting specific audiences, and deciding on the budget and schedule.
• Various Ad Formats: The tool offers different ads to keep viewers interested. These include ads that appear in users’ feeds, hashtag challenges, special effects, and shopping ads for products or services.
• Creative Support: It provides ideas and advice to help create ads that capture attention and engage the audience.
• Performance Tracking: The tool gives instant access to important data about how the ads are doing. Users can see metrics like the number of views, clicks, conversion rate, and cost per action, making it easy to understand and improve the ads’ performance.

TikTok Shop

This feature is part of TikTok’s ongoing effort to integrate e-commerce capabilities, providing brands and creators with tools to showcase and sell products for the TikTok community, allowing businesses to leverage their TikTok followers as a direct market for their products. This creates a seamless in-app shopping experience. Here’s how TikTok Shop benefits businesses:

• Live Shopping: Businesses can conduct live streaming sessions to present their products in real time. This interactive format allows them to engage with viewers, answer questions, and facilitate purchases directly during the broadcast.
• Product Showcasing: Companies can set up a digital storefront on their TikTok profile, creating a space to highlight their products. This enables users to easily browse, learn more about the products, and make purchases.
• Shoppable Videos: Brands can create in-feed videos that directly link to products. Users can shop by tapping on the video’s product link or basket icon.

Creator Marketplace

TikTok Creator Marketplace is the official collaboration platform to connect brands and creators on TikTok. With Creator Marketplace, creators can collaborate with brands on branded hashtag challenges, product reviews, or other creative campaigns.

Analytics

TikTok for Business offers a robust analytics platform that provides businesses with crucial insights and data, aiding businesses in evaluating their content performance, comprehending their audience, and refining their TikTok marketing approach. it includes:

• Content Insights: analytics for each posted video, including views, likes, comments, shares, and average watch time.
• Follower Insights: access to demographic and behavioral information about their followers, including gender, age, location, and times of activity
• Live Video Analytics
• Campaign and Ad Group Performance: impressions, clicks, conversion data, and spending.
• Trend Analysis
• E-commerce Performance: product views, clicks, and purchases

Email Contact and Website Link On Profile

TikTok for Business enhances brand visibility and user engagement by including an email contact and a website link directly on the profile, which simplifies communication, enabling potential customers, partners, or collaborators to reach out directly and driving TikTok traffic to the website. This is crucial for e-commerce platforms, content creators, or any business aiming to convert TikTok’s vast user base into potential customers or subscribers.

Post Scheduler

This tool enables TikTok Creators and Business accounts to plan and schedule their posts to go live for up to 10 days. After scheduling a post, you can view and manage it on both TikTok’s web and app versions.

Commercial Music Library

The Commercial Music Library is a distinctive feature of TikTok for Business, distinguishing it from personal accounts. It grants businesses access to a large selection of licensed music and soundtracks, ensuring they can enhance their TikTok videos without copyright concerns.

With over 100,000 songs available, businesses have a wealth of options to choose from, allowing them to produce content that is not only engaging but also has a professional touch.

Who Should Use TikTok For Business?

With its various useful features, the TikTok Business Account is a good choice for:

• Businesses that want to engage consumers in an entertaining way.
• Businesses are looking for more commercial-focused tools.
• Anyone whose primary goal on TikTok is to promote their business (either a product or service)
• Small businesses who want to reach a larger audience
• Independent sellers who wish to sell their products through live-streaming
• Content creators or influencers who sell their own merchandise or do affiliate marketing
• Restaurants, shops, and other local businesses that need to connect with the community

TikTok For Bussiness Successful Stories

TikTok for Business has been a game changer for many brands, leading to numerous success stories across different industries. Here are a few examples:

Slate & Tell’s Astounding Journey on TikTok for Business

When Slate & Tell, an independent, personalized jewelry brand, decided to embark on a journey to enhance their brand awareness and drive sales, little did they know that TikTok for Business would be their golden ticket! Specializing in crafting meaningful jewelry pieces that allow customers to tell their stories, Slate & Tell aimed to boost product consideration and sales in the lead-up to the crucial holiday season.

The brand turned to TikTok for Business, leveraging the Smart Video Creative Tool to create captivating and engaging content for its spring promotions. They ingeniously launched a series of In-Feed Ads that flawlessly integrated into users’ For You feeds, ensuring their brand was not just seen but truly noticed.

Slate & Tell’s TikTok campaign was nothing short of a triumph, reaching an astounding 4 million TikTok users and achieving 1,000 single-session add-to-carts. They didn’t just meet their goal of a 2X return on ad spend; they smashed it within the desired timeframe, showcasing the unmatched potential of TikTok for Business.

Isaac Gad, the visionary CEO of Slate & Tell, shared his enthusiasm and success:

“We see endless potential on TikTok and wanted to get in early to start building our presence this summer in preparation for the peak holiday season. We’ve met our ROAS goals within days, whereas it’s taken months on other platforms. We’re excited about experimenting with creatives and growing on the platform.“

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Lipton Ice Tea | Billion Dollar Boy Campaign

Imagine a 60-year-old brand making waves among Gen Z and becoming the talk of the town. That’s exactly what Lipton Ice Tea achieved with its innovative and vibrant TikTok campaign in collaboration with Billion Dollar Boy. With an aim to refresh its image and connect with a younger audience in Australia, Lipton Ice Tea embarked on a journey to make the brand synonymous with joy and spontaneity.

For over a year, Lipton Ice Tea has been establishing its presence on TikTok under the handle @liptonicetea. The campaign revolved around a catchy and original ‘sunshine anthem’ created by Australian comedic music creator Matt Storer. The music served as a backdrop to ‘sip-sized’ moments of joy, with creators from across the market bringing their unique touch to the content, all while maintaining local relevance.

Billion Dollar Boy kicked off the campaign, focusing on driving video views to raise awareness by utilizing Spark Ads to amplify the content from creators’ channels to a broader audience. This strategic move, along with showcasing TikTok superstars on Australia’s biggest digital out-of-home screen in Melbourne, brought the online campaign to life in the physical world.

The results were nothing short of spectacular. Lipton Ice Tea reached 100% of 18-35-year-old Australians active on TikTok, with a remarkable 23.9% view-through rate and a cost per mile at a stellar £1.93. The brand made its mark on TikTok and saw a 15% sales uptick in Australia during the campaign.

Victoire Binet, Global Digital Marketing and Brand Engagement Director at Pepsi Lipton captured the essence of this success:

“TikTok is a key strategic platform for Lipton Ice Tea, globally as much as in Australia. It’s the most important channel at the moment for us to reach our Gen Z consumer, allowing us to bring to life our true brand personality: cheeky, uplifting, spontaneous.“

These success stories are not just about numbers; it’s a testament to the power of strategic advertising and the unparalleled reach of TikTok for Business. Slate & Tell and Lipton Australia’s success is an inspiring reminder that any brand can connect with millions, drive sales, and achieve phenomenal success with creativity, innovation, and the right tools. Who knows, your success story could be the next one we’re all talking about!

Wrapping Up

It’s clear that TikTok Business offers a treasure trove of opportunities for brands looking to connect with a dynamic and engaged audience. Remember, the key to success on TikTok lies in consistency, creativity, and engagement. Don’t be afraid to experiment with different types of content and strategies to see what works best for your brand. Utilize the analytics tools provided by TikTok for Business to monitor your performance and make data-driven decisions. And most importantly, have fun! 

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