TikTok has revolutionised the way many businesses engage with their audience. And now, with its latest feature, the platform offers small businesses a unique opportunity to tap into a massive market with the TikTok shop function.
Now, if you’ve been following our blog, then you’ve already seen our step-by-step guide on how to get started with a TikTok shop for your business, In this guide, we’ll explore how TikTok is changing the e-commerce game and provide more actionable tips for making your TikTok shop successful.
How TikTok Is Changing the E-commerce Game
TikTok’s format of short videos and bite-sized content is perfect for several things:
Showcasing products
Demonstrating the way products can be used
Highlighting USPs (unique selling propositions) quickly
Capturing viewers’ attention in seconds
Part of the reason all of these things work so well on TikTok is that the platform thrives on authenticity. Given that many consumers now seek authenticity themselves, this marks TikTok content particularly appealing – it’s both credible and easy to consume!
The key here is to remember that users often trust content more when it comes from creators instead of the brands themselves. If you leverage that trust, you can use it to build brand credibility and loyalty.
What’s more, TikTok trends can and often do go viral. That’s why it offers opportunities for savvy e-commerce marketers to use the platform for campaigns.
How to Make Your TikTok Shop Successful
To make your TikTok shop successful, here are some signature tips for success on the platform. With the right combination of these, you may well hit upon a game-changing shop strategy for your brand.
1. Choose the right products to sell
This should be obvious, but it’s still worth stating for those new to the platform: match your offerings to the audience you’re likely to find on it.
TikTok’s audience is largely young, trend-focused, and interested in items that can go viral because they’re unique, visually appealing, or just plain quirky. So, list products in your shop that fall into those categories.
And of course, don’t just stop there. You should also ensure that your product listings tick most of those boxes too, all while staying clear, concise, and appealing! That means choosing the right images, the right text, and so on.
2. Create engaging content
This is virtually a given whenever we talk about marketing on social media. Platforms run on engaging content! As such, Invest time in producing high-quality, attention-grabbing content like videos.
To that end, we advise using TikTok's creative tools, effects, and music to enhance your content. It can actually take a middling video to the next level, giving it the flair it needs to become “good”.
With the right product videos, you can easily grab people’s attention. Entice them into visiting your profile and eventually shopping the products you showed off in the content!
3. Engage with your audience
If you have social media content, you also need a content engagement strategy. This is the way you interact with and build relationships with your audience.
There are many ways to do this, of course. There are classics like responding to comments, reacting to content mentioning you, and so on.
You can ramp it up a notch by using other options too, such as TikTok Lives, which have become increasingly popular. Another great idea here would be to host actual live streams or Q&A sessions to interact directly with your audience.
By engaging your viewers, you’re more likely to keep them invested in your content and brand, and that’s how you keep eyes on your TikTok account and shop.
4. Collaborate with TikTok creators
We already talked about audiences trusting content creators more than brands on the platform. This tip shouldn’t be a surprise, then!
Influencer marketing is one of the best tools to add to your TikTok toolkit. It can be a powerful way to reach a wider audience, boost your brand’s credibility, and quickly promote products.
The key here is to stick to influencers or creators whose audiences are not only highly engaged but fall into your own audience demographic. Moreover, don’t hamper them with too many demands on what the content should be like.
This is because you want the content they produce for you to remain as authentic as possible. With authentic content, people are more likely to trust the creator and by extension, your bran
5. Try TikTok advertising
TikTok advertising isn’t actually a requirement for a small business marketing strategy on the platform, but it can definitely help most brands. It’s particularly good at boosting a TikTok shop’s visibility.
Consider running ads for that reason. The nice thing about the platform’s ad options is that you can use targeting options to reach specific demographics or interests related to your industry/products.
6. Track and analyse performance constantly
TikTok has analytics tools for you to monitor the performance of your videos and shop. Take advantage of them!
The idea here is to identify which content and strategies are driving the most engagement and sales for your TikTok account and shop. You can use the numbers to figure out which marketing or ad methods are worth investing in or need tweaking.
Don't be afraid to iterate and experiment on new things, by the way. Since you have actual data on the results right at your fingertips, you can test and refine your strategy until you get optimal outcomes.
Get the help you need to make your TikTok shop a success
All of this should get you started on making your TikTok shop the success you dream of. Of course, there’s much more to doing that than this, but these are the most important steps!
Now, if you do happen to need guidance with any of these tips or want further help taking things to the next level, just talk to us. We can go over what your brand may need and what we can do for your TikTok shop (as well as other marketing platforms).
Contact us for a chat for your digital marketing needs today!