Bulletproof Guide To Unleash Your SMB Growth On TikTok 2022.
TikTok can be life-changing for your Small Business.
Going "viral" is easier than you think.
Spoiler - Alert: The gold pot is building an audience of like-minded people who love what you do. The likes, followers, website visits, and juicy sales that come with that are collateral effects.
So Kathia, How Do You Know That TikTok Can Be Life-Changing?
On September 9th of 2019, a customer's girlfriend from my previous startup posted a TikTok about our product. And, it blew up! The tsunami of exposure took us by surprise; the video achieved 5.1M views, caused out of stock within minutes, created and filled a waiting list, and changed the entire trajectory of our company.
TikTok catapulted our sales and gave us the happy problems that every SMB owner wants! It led me to create TikTok organic campaigns with +74 M views without a budget... But that's a story for another day.
Today I want you to walk out with 3 things figured out:
Is TikTok is right for your business?
How to slash the barriers to growing your Tiktok account
4 Actionable Steps To Unleash Your SMB Growth on TikTok
Is TikTok Right For Your Business?
Well, it depends on what you do, of course. But here is a rule of thumb that I like to use:
If 10,000 interested people from different cities find out about what you do at this exact moment, would you be able to sell them something?
If the answer is yes, then TikTok is definitely worth the time investment.
In what cases is not? Products or services that require physical contact or being nearby, a catering service, gardening, or a pastry shop. In that case, you should use TikTok because you are passionate about what you do, not as a marketing strategy.
TikTok's organic reach right now is quite frankly insane.
No other social media platform has offered this kind of opportunity before. And there's a chance it'll never happen again. Consider this your signal to act upon this opportunity.
2. How to slash the barriers to growing your Tiktok account?
I have my own experience, but I created a quick survey to collect primary data to find out more. I posted it amongst entrepreneur/female founder groups.
BTW, If you were reading this and you were one of the ones who answered: This research wouldn't have happened without you! Helping the community makes a difference, so THANK YOU!
30 outstanding entrepreneurs answered, and here are the significant findings:
86% have a TikTok account for their business, and it's operated internally.
But, 65% said they either haven't posted anything yet or admitted that they don't post frequently.
So, What's The Biggest Struggle When It Comes To Doing TikToks?
I clustered answers by words and sentiments, and these are the results:
Pain Points For Creating TikToks
#1 Confusion about how the app works, skills needed, and anxiety about what content to upload.
#2 Strong perception that making TikToks is complicated and time-consuming.
#3 Lack of commitment & accountability to the platform. (I don't have time for this... type of thing).
#4 Concerns about content reach & performance (having low views and few followers).
#5 Feelings of being too old for the app.
If you have felt one of those pain points, congratulations, you are not alone! We're here to slash that with a ninja sword.
3. 4 Actionable steps to UNLEASH growth for your SMB on TikTok
Understand TikTok
Set The Right Mindset And Goals
Experiment, Test & Let Your Creativity Fly
Commit To It, Measure And Repeat What Works
Understand TikTok
This is perhaps the most critical step; without it, your efforts are going highway to trash so, please don't underestimate it and don't dare to skip it!
Download TikTok and spend a couple of hours watching your TikTok's Home. You'll begin to understand what makes TikTok so unique, what trends are about, and how many viral TikToks are not fancy or produced.
After understanding the basics, pick your niche. If you sell, let's say candles, go to TikTok, tap on the discover tab, go to the search tool, type in Candles, and start watching TikTok's of your niche.
Spend free time on this: on a waiting line, your commute, or a Sunday afternoon - Watch as many videos as you can.
This step is called '" warming up the algorithm" the more content of your niche you watch, the more you show TikTok that you are interested in this type of content and will start offering this to you organically.
Save the videos of your niche that you like, download them to your phone or save them in your favorites inside TikTok. (trust me, you'll need them later).
How TikTok Algorithm Works:
The first thing you have to understand as a content creator/brand/small business is that no one cares about who you are and when you post a video. The algorithm (TikTok) wants watch time and likes.
So, how do we get those precious watch time & likes?
Well, people want high valuable content; this can happen in three significant ways:
Education
Entertainment
Inspiration
Going back to the example that you sell candles, it would look something like this:
Education - How to distinguish a good quality candle from a cheap one?
Entertainment - The process of you making a candle.
Inspiration - The story of why and how you started a candle business.
Learning how to create valuable content is a valuable skill that will be helpful with other platforms because you can always repurpose your content.
What happens after you HIT the scary button to post a video on TikTok?
The TT algorithm will judge the "quality" of your content by showing your video to a small initial group of people. If the video is engaging enough, it will pass the test and be sent out to a slightly bigger group of people, and this cycle will repeat itself. If your video keeps passing the test, it will be exposed to more and more people. BOOM, you have a "viral" video.
How will TikTok judge if my video is engaging or not?
These are the metrics that will tell the success of your video ranked by importance:
Watch-Time
Shares
Saves
Comments
Likes
As you can see, the crucial metric is watch time; the algorithm prioritizes watch-time above the rest because they want to keep people engaged in the app (which makes sense).
Watch-Time metrics that your video will need to be pushed out to more eyeballs and more people:
15-second video or less - 100% watch time
16-30 second video - 75% watch time
31-60 second video - 50% watch time
If your video teaches, entertains, or inspires other people, they will watch it, share it, save it, like it and comment on it; there’s no work around it.
2. Set the right mindset and goals
Knowing how TikTok works can feel overwhelming because now your expectations are high, and for every TikTok that you post, you will have expectations that it should go “viral”. It is a deadly trap because you can quickly get discouraged for the 50 views that your video got and threw everything into the trash.
The Right Mindset
When your video gets 30 views and you are discouraged by it, think about this way:
"Sure, 30 isn't a lot, but if 30 people walked through that door, right now to come look and see what I was doing right now, I would feel overwhelmed."
This mindset helps us shine a different light on our expectations, makes us feel grateful for those 30 views, and encourages us to keep going.
Goals
The first goal should be creating and posting content; that is the first rule of the game. It is not a small step; it's essential because you need to get familiar with editing, posting, brainstorming ideas, etc.
Goal #1 - Post 3 TikToks a day for 2 weeks
Commit only to that one single goal. Don't forget to document where you started (how many followers, videos, likes, shares, and comments you had). After week one, compare it trust me, you'll be pleasantly surprised.
Would it be easy? Of course not, but it will be worth it!
After that, these are my go-to goals for the next two weeks:
Goal #1 - Post 3 TikToks a day for another 2 weeks
Goal #2 - Have one video with 10k views
Goal #3 - 3x the followers that you had
You can mix and match metrics and goals as you like; the important part is progress over perfectionism, so the more TikTosk you make, the better.
3. Experiment, Test & Let Your Creativity Fly
The first couple of months are about learning how to do TikToks and experiment, try different types of content, hop on trends if you want to and most importantly, have fun!
My recommendation is to find a TikTok partner, a friend, your sister, cousin, coworker, another fellow entrepreneur. It will make it more fun, and you can always bounce ideas and have company on the journey.
You don't need a lot of production for making TikToks. In fact, most of the videos that perform well are low production.
4. Commit To It, Measure, And Repeat What Works
Without commitment, you won't have content to measure, so you must do the work. Once you do it, measure it, go into every video, think about how you would improve it, what worked and what didn't, and most importantly, why?
Once you analyze it, come up with a hypothesis and test again. Experiment with different content types, find out what performs well, and repeat.
Don't overthink it and just post it; you can always make it better next time, and remember that practice makes the master.
Repurpose your TikToks and other platforms (IG reels, YouTube Shorts, Pinterest, etc.)
Thank you for taking the time to read this! If you find it useful, let me know in the comments below, I'd love to hear your thoughts and what topics would you like to read next?
Happy TikToking!
Kathia Marroquin