Dance challenges, teenage crooners, pranks, and quick entertainment.
That’s what you think of when you mention TikTok.
So, why is it important to learn how to use TikTok for business?
Why does it matter how many TikTok followers you have, and why do you want more TikTok followers?
Well, for one, it provides a new way of reaching a vast target audience.
But if benefits like increased brand awareness, higher search rankings, more traffic to your website, and greater customer engagement sound like your key performance indicators (KPIs), then you’ll understand why you need to grow your TikTok followers.
Here’s how to get more TikTok followers for free, and paid, in this useful guide.
How To Grow Organic TikTok Followers, Faster
TikTok is a hot digital marketing channel right now.
What makes TikTok such an addictive app for your target audience is its highly personalized “For You” feed. This is tightly governed by its algorithm.
So, the challenge in generating followers on TikTok is how to get your content in front of your target audience on their For You Page (FYP).
Here are the basics on how to grow your TikTok followers and work with the algorithm, not against it.
First, Get Real Clear About Who Your Audience Is
Defining your target audience applies to all things digital marketing, so I’m not going to elaborate too much on this.
Let it be said that not every TikTok user is your niche audience.
Creating content for the sake of growing followers might just result in a peak in vanity metrics and not in metrics that move the needle.
Explore what your target audience is doing on TikTok, then you can create TikTok videos that are uniquely and specifically attractive to them.
Upgrade Your TikTok Account To A TikTok Pro Account
It might be worth upgrading your TikTok account to Tiktok’s pro account if you’re serious about getting more TikTok followers.
In addition to adding a link to their TikTok profile, business accounts allow brands to track how their videos perform in a bid to obtain more followers.
Take Advantage Of TikTok Trends
TikTok has many trends, of which songs and music are often at the heart.
This is because record labels often work with TikTok to push their artists’ songs in the app, as it can help increase their sales and boost the likelihood of the song topping the charts.
It is fairly easy to use a trending song on your video; TikTok will recommend it!
Using trending songs in your content is a good strategy for increasing your TikTok followers, as it enhances your chances of your content being served to (or sought out by) new users.
Educate Your TikTok Followers
We find that top TikTok content for companies and individuals is usually a mix of educational and entertainment.
Packaging your value and products in cleverly-produced content is a great way to inform and educate your audience about how you can make their lives a little bit easier.
Use The Right Hashtags, The Right Way
Not only does TikTok work with record labels, but it also frequently partners with other types of companies.
It uses hashtags and sound as a foundation.
Leveraging trending and relevant hashtags will give your content a better chance of being moved into your target audience’s FYP.
Explore trending hashtags in-app or with this hashtag generator tool.
Or, when you create the captions for the video, simply hitting # will produce relevant hashtags suggestions from TikTok. Use these.
To Get More Followers, It’s All About Timing
As with most other social media platforms, you need to know when it is a good time to post your content.
Aim to post when more of your ideal viewers are on TikTok in order to get views quickly, which usually produces more TikTok followers.
Try early morning (commute), lunchtime (work gaps), and late evenings (couch scrolling), as these are typically when TikTok users are on their phones.
Essentially, upload videos when your target audience is online.
Lighting Matters
Aside from good video quality for TikTok users to enjoy, the platform needs to know that your videos are safe for all viewers.
For this reason, use good lighting in your videos.
Create And Join TikTok Challenges
TikTok challenges are a very popular format on the app and often make up a good chunk of trending content at any given time.
If you want to grow TikTok followers organically, consider taking part in the TikTok challenges your target audience is taking part in.
Use Stitch To Work With Other TikTok Creators
In late 2020, TikTok introduced a new feature called Stitch, and it is a great way to rapidly grow your following.
The idea of stitching is to use a few seconds from another person’s video as part of your own video to inform, grow conversation, or expand on a topic.
Plus, because Stitches are still relatively new, TikTok favors stitches in the FYP above regular videos.
So, collaborate with other TikTok creators and get stitching!
Cross-Promote Your Videos To Get More Followers
There is more to marketing than just TikTok.
I know you know this, but just a reminder to have a full-funnel, multi-channel digital marketing strategy that includes other social media platforms too.
You already make use of your brand’s other social media platforms, like YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc., to reach specific target audiences with unique messaging.
Now, you can use these platforms to share your TikTok videos.
In this way, you cross-promote your TikTok videos on your other social platforms.
This will let your target audience know the brand has an active TikTok profile and thus get you more followers.
Use User-Generated Content
Over time, you’ll start to collect a decent collection of user-generated content (UGC) on TikTok.
This can help grow brand trust, increase user engagement, as well as improve reach, and get more followers.
To escalate UGC, why not start your own challenge, host a competition, or begin your own hashtag trend?
Use TikTok Growth Tools
You don’t have to handle all the admin yourself when it comes to nurturing free TikTok followers.
Consider connecting with your target audience through third-party TikTok growth tools.
These tools automate the day-to-day tasks of getting more followers on TikTok.
For instance, following and unfollowing other users, liking and commenting on posts, and all the other tasks involved with growing your account.
Engage With Your Users
A surefire way for TikTok creators to gain followers is to engage with their current followers on TikTok.
Like, comment, and respond to comments.
All of this works towards relationship-building with followers as well as other content creators.
Paid Strategies For Increasing TikTok Views and Followers
Struggling to gain free followers?
TikTok ads – be they in-feed or in-stream add-ons – allow you to reach a wider audience, get more TikTok followers, and grow interactive engagement.
Here’s how to side-step the algorithm and grow your followers on TikTok and views with paid media.
Use TikTok Ads
Use TikTok Ads Manager to access an entire planet full of TikTok users.
To do this, you need to create a TikTok Advertiser Account.
You have a variety of ad management tools, such as targeting, custom audiences, ad creation, and insight reports to maximize ad results.
You can choose ad options such as in-feed ads, TopView, Brand Takeover, Brand Hashtag Challenges, and Branded Effect, all depending on your budget and your target audience.
Promote Your Videos
You can use Promote to reach your audience, increase website traffic, and build a following with your organic TikTok videos.
It is worth noting that the only videos you can promote are those that use original sounds or sounds that are suitable for commercial use.
Include A Strong CTA
As with all things digital marketing, you get a better result if you tell people what to do next.
Whether it is to follow, buy, sign up, or comment, your results hinge on the use of effective calls to action (CTAs) in your campaigns.
Closing Thoughts
The best way to grow your followers on TikTok for brands and individuals alike is to first know who you want to connect with.
This is true with all social media platforms.
Then, to get more followers to your TikTok profile, create videos that resonate with your ideal audience and that leverage trends such as trending music, challenges, and hashtags on the platform.
There are no shortcuts when it comes to appearing organically on the FYP to get more followers, so do the homework, do the work, and enjoy the results.
However, if organic is too slow for you, then you can upgrade your TikTok account to a Pro TikTok account and buy views through TikTok’s own ad services.
As with all campaigns on your social media platforms, do remember to include a strong CTA so that your viewers become loyal followers.
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Featured Image: Roman Samborskyi/Shutterstock