Author: f28admin

I’m going to fess up now… I am OBSESSED with TikTok! It took a while, but now I go to look at the app and 2 hours later, I’m still on there! (Might have overcooked the dinner the other night…!)

It seems that I am not the only one. Studies have shown that 35% of TikTok users say they spend less time watching television and listening to podcasts since joining the platform.

TikTok is popular with teens and Gen Z but there are influencers of all ages on there too. The average age of a TikTok user is between 15-25 years old. If your business is looking to target a younger audience, this is the platform for you.

More and more businesses are now jumping on the bandwagon with captivating and creative videos to get their brand noticed in a new way.

If you’re creative and want to find new ways of engaging a new, younger audience, it’s definitely worthwhile. With 1 BILLION active users, it’s the fastest growing social media platform and one that you should explore as a business.

1. Setting Up and Research

Setting up an account on TikTok is pretty easy. My advice with all of these blogs is to use a profile picture that your customers will instantly recognise.

You’ll be asked if you want to switch your account to a Pro Account and what category you fit into (particularly useful for when it comes to looking at the analytics). The usual fields of website, email address will need to be filled in, along with Instagram and YouTube accounts you’d like to link your Tiktok account to (optional).

If you’re completely new to TikTok, I would definitely recommend doing some research first before posting anything. Resarch your competition, but also what everyone else is doing – what are the latest trends that people are jumping onto? Play around with the editing features and latest filters too.

2. Planning and Goals

TikTok isn’t a social media platform that as a business, you can just post whenever you want saying whatever you want. It needs careful planning and goals set out from the very beginning.

What do you want to get out of TikTok?
What kind of content would you like to post?
Live videos, funny videos, educational, promotional?
Who is your target audience?

A content calendar is a good way of making sure you’re on top of all the important dates you don’t want to miss. Having written those down, you’ll have plenty of time to think about and create a great video.

3. Best time to post

You’ll notice on TikTok that there will be a ‘For You’ page which is personalised to your specific tastes, based on content you’ve interacted with. This means when your followers or potential followers login, they’ll be presented with your content if they have liked something similar in the past.

The For You page means it’s not really about when you post but actually how often. TikTok recommends posting 1-4 times a day which fits in with their algorithms and gets your content infront of more people. Making a video takes time and posting this amount might not work for every business. Make sure you keep an eye on engagement to see if this is right for you.

You are able to tell when most of your followers are online to make doubly sure you’re going to get their attention. This information can be found under your Profile, click the three lines on the top right, Creator Tools, and Analytics.

4. Leave the corporate image behind…

This platform is VERY different to the likes of LinkedIn and Twitter.

TikTok users want to see what a brand is all about. This means bringing the vibe of the company to the fore and being authentic (yes, I know many of you will be going, “ergh” at this phrase, but it’s so true!).

Check out Duolingo’s TikTok page. They make really entertaining and funny videos, going viral everytime they post.

Showing a different side to the company is one that will get you great engagment.

5.  How to tell if TikTok is working for your business

With all social media platforms, you want to know if it’s worthwhile.

You can measure your brand awareness by the following:

• Post Reach – how many people have seen your post since it went live
• Followers – how many followers have you gained over a certain time period
• Mentions – how many people are mentioning your brand compared to the competition

If your goal is to increase traffic to your website, has this happened since joining the platform?

6. Talk to your audience

As with all social media platforms, it’s vital that you are engaging with your audience. People love it when they get a reply from a company they follow, it shows there is a human being behind the posts and shows that you genuienly care about their opinion.

Not only do your followers get something out of this interaction, the business does too. Through this interaction, you’ll find out what content is working best and what they love most about your brand. Having a following that is completely engaged with your business is great for when you are about to launch a new product.

There you have it – some tips on how to get TikTok working for your business.

Check out the other How To blogs in this Social Media series here.

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LinkedIn is bigger than you think… the numbers certainly took me by surprise when researching this blog! As of January 2022, the platform had 722 million users, with 55 million companies listed!

LinkedIn is a great platform to share content about a product, a business and keeping followers updated with all that is going on at the company.

But how do you make LinkedIn work for your business, especially B2B? We take a look in this blog.

(If you have already got a LinkedIn account, you might want to skip the first few points as we’re also focusing on setting up a business page.)

1. Create an account for yourself

Lets start with the basics! In order to create a page for your company, you must first of all set up a profile for yourself. Preferably using your work email address, sign up and then create your business page, making yourself Admin.

When setting up your page, you will be asked what size your business is. You’ll then be asked to add a new profile picture. When doing this, make sure it is either your logo or something your followers will instantly recognise. Create a nice short tagline about your business and you’ve created your page!

2. The nitty gritty

Once you’ve completed the very basics of setting up your page, you can start filling in all the little details such as a banner image (see previous blog on Twitter about this), a Call-to-Action button (this can be Contact us, Learn more etc), fill in the details about your website and where you are based.

3. #’s

When setting up your page, you can choose which hashtags you’d like your business to be associated with. This will not only help reach more people when they are searching for that specific hashtag, but allows you to jump onto a trending topic as your company. All good ways of growing your following.

4. Invites

One of the best organic ways to build your page is to invite your Connections to Follow your page. This will be an option to the right of your page.

If you have employees, ask them to update their profiles to include the company page. When their connections visit their profile, they will be able to click the company name and it’ll take them through to the business page you have created. If they wish to follow, they have the option to do so when they visit.

5. Strategy

No one can set up any social media page without having a strategy in place, otherwise you’re just swimming against the tide.

What is the goal of having a LinkedIn page for your business?
What will you use your page for – maybe recruiting, generating leads, sharing industry news that doesn’t perform as well on other platforms?
How often will you be posting? (Top Tip – try and post every working day in order to build up your page).
What topics will you talk about?

Having a strategy in place will allow you and your staff members to use the platform more effectively.

6. Networking

Don’t forget that LinkedIn is a social network! Not only should you be posting regular content on your page, you should also be talking to other brands and individuals, just like on all social media platforms. This is  a sure-fire way of building your page as well as getting your brand’s name out there.

7. Blogging

LinkedIn is an excellent platform to share content to your target audience. Sharing blog posts (or writing Articles via your page) can further educate your followers about your product, which is the start of the customer journey.

Sharing engaging blogs will help drive traffic to your website, and hopefully turn some of those leads into paying customers.

8. Promote your page

We’re not talking about paid ads (hmm, new blog idea!), but how to grow your page organically. One way is to advertise your business is on LinkedIn via other platforms such as Facebook and/or Twitter. If you’re doing email marketing, share a link to your page in your next newsletter. Adding a LinkedIn button to your website is another good way of directing people to follow your page.

9. What is the competition up to?

If you’re really stuck on what you should be putting out there content-wise, check out your competition, what are they posting? How would you do things differently?

Some tips to get your business page set up on LinkedIn! Take a look at our other How To social media series on our Blog.

Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn to keep up to date with all the latest trends on social media.