TikTok has now overtaken the giants to become the most downloaded app in the world. Tiktok is currently one of top 4 most popular social media in Vietnam and at this growth rate, it will soon become the no.1 platform in this market. As a matter of fact, TikTok has a huge number of users and therefore, businesses are trying to make the most of it.
As a new foreign brand tempting to approach Vietnam, you can’t afford to ignore Tiktok. Since it is still new to Vietnamese compared to Facebook, Youtube or Instagram, now is the good time to start your marketing on Tiktok.
What Tiktok Marketing is and how it can help your business
TikTok marketing refers to the use of the TikTok platform for promoting individual brands or businesses, products or services to consumers. TikTok marketing uses a variety of tactics including influencer marketing, TikTok advertisem*nt or creating viral content without spending.
TikTok marketing can bring many benefits to individuals and businesses, including:
- Increase brand awareness to the right audience
- Create a strong, tight-knit community.
- Increase sales and revenues
- Receive feedback from customers about products and services.
You may find that TikTok marketing has been heavily invested by many local and foreign companies, but they don’t know how to exploit to the maximum its features to reach and convert potential customers. This is your opportunity to start growing your business and dominate the consuming market on TikTok. Keep reading!
Steps to create a TikTok marketing plan
You need to create a TikTok Marketing strategy that is appropriate for your business in order to make your TikTok advertising campaigns effective and reach as many customers as possible.
#1 Get to know TikTok
It would be wrong to use the same marketing strategy for TikTok as other social media channels such as Instagram or Facebook. TikTok’s content display algorithm, which is based on user behavior, is completely different from other social networks.
You should first explore the features on TikTok and look closely at the effects, filters and trending songs right now. Observe Branded Hashtag Challenges to see how other brands are doing. TikTok’s Duets feature is also worth checking out!
Understanding how TikTok ranks and displays videos in the “For You” section can provide insights into your content, user preferences, and engagement strategy.
#2 Define your target audience
What audience are you trying to reach through TikTok? Find out about the user personas and decide if they are likely to be interested in your products or services. These are the steps to determine your target audience for your TikTok Marketing campaign:
Step 1: Do some research on your audience on other social media platforms. Then, look for similarity on TikTok. You can also consider smaller audiences that share relevant/similar interests if your audience isn’t already on TikTok.
Step 2: After you have defined your audience, find out what content they enjoy and engage with. Only then can you start to think of content ideas for your company.
#3 Competitor Analysis at TikTok
Are your competitors on Tiktok? What kind of content do they offer on TikTok? How are their strategies? Research the content of your competitors. You can then develop related contents that will allow you to compete with your current competitors.
If your competitors do not yet use TikTok, you can create a competitive advantage to be there first. You should still look for at least 3 to 5 similar brands and organizations to your company, and then observe their activities on TikTok. Analyze the strengths and improving points of their marketing strategies and apply the lessons to improve yours. You can also use the S.W.O.T method to determine your competitors’ strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and challenges if they are already appearing on TikTok.
#4 Establish goals that are in line with your business goals
Set goals for your advertising campaigns and strategy to ensure they are aligned with your business goals.
Whether your goal is to build a TikTok Marketing strategy to reach new audiences, improve your brand image, develop customer relationships, or increase sales, what matters most is that it must still support your business goals. You can refer to using the S.M.A.R.T model to set goals for Marketing activities on your TikTok channel.
S.M.A.R.T means:
- Specific
- Measurable
- Achievable
- Relevant
- Timely
#5 Posting contents frequently
A content plan and close following are keys to a successful social marketing strategy. Plan different activities such as Livestreaming beside uploading new videos. TikTok Scheduler is one of the many tools that can help you get started.
#6 Monitor, analyze, evaluate the performance
TikTok’s marketing efforts include the analysis and evaluation of the effectiveness of your strategy. This will help you determine if your strategy is working. It is important to regularly check the progress of activities and compare it with your goals.
If your marketing strategy fails to achieve the desired goals, it is time to modify the plan. You can track your progress online with social reporting metrics.
TikTok Analytics also offers analytics for business accounts, just like other social media platforms such as Instagram and Facebook. These are the steps to access TikTok Analytics:
- Step 1: Go to your profile page and select the “3 dots” in the upper right.
- Step 2: Click on Creative tools, then click on Analytics.
- Step 3: Explore the Overview and find metrics you can use to measure your performance
#7 Try different plans
There is no one way to make a viral TikTok video. To increase your chances of success, follow those steps above.
TikTok Marketing strategy should be flexible enough to allow you to experiment, create and keep up with the latest trends. Don’t give up if your plan fails. Keep improving and testing. Continue to create similar contents if your brand have some that become viral.
Explore the most effective marketing strategies on Tiktok
Many brands, big or small, local or foreign, have created their own channels and collaborated with influencers to share their content to a wider audience.
You can find more information on how to do this on TikTok.
1. Build up your own TikTok account with creative videos
This is the basic way to do TikTok marketing, but the job also requires a lot of work. With this approach, whichever brand can create more viral content will win. Going viral here means that the videos are viewed, cared for, and attracted a lot of interaction.
It is difficult to create a short video for TikTok that has impact. Original videos require people to put in time and effort to be able to think of new ideas and then execute them. In other words, in order to effectively promote your brand or products, you must first create awareness through your uploaded videos.
In the first month, use the same hashtags for all videos of your business so that Tiktok can identify the content type and topic of your channel.
In the videos, pay attention to the first 3s – 5s to attract viewers and to keep viewers on your videos longer
In the first week, actively upload videos at least once every day on the same topic to make viewers understand your Tiktok channel. Those videos should be between 15s-45s
2. Partner with Influencers (Influencers marketing)
TikTok’s large user base means that it has its own influencers and KOCs. These people have millions of followers and have an extensive reach. These people can be used to run marketing campaigns for your company.
It is crucial to identify who your target customers often follow on TikTok. Contact them to discuss how to corporate on TikTok.
This approach will help you build trust with your target audience fast. Research shows that up to a third of consumers trust the opinions and recommendations of Influencers and KOCs more than what brands themselves say.
There are two options for Influencers Marketing on Tiktok:
- Option 1: Pay Influencers/KOLs/KOCs to recommend and promote your products and brands based on the content you have given.
- Method 2: Provide ideas to influencers/KOLs/KOC, and let them create content and videos.
3. Boost your campaign with TikTok ads
TikTok currently supports the running of ads on its platform. TikTok allows you to invest in advertising if you have the money.
In Feed Ads
In Feed Ads are 5 to 15 second videos. These videos will be shared naturally among TikTok videos as users are browsing the app. This type of ad can be used to increase views and engagement on the promoted video or to redirect users to the landing page.
Feed Ads can be divided into 2 types: One Day Max and Brand Premium.
- One Day Max: Ads are shown for 24 hours only. Businesses with a low budget or running a test should use this.
- Brand Premium: Ads are shown frequently. Businesses that have used One Day Max and found it effective should invest in this type.
Brand Takeover
Brand Takeover is a type of advertising that uses videos, gifs or brand images on TikTok. The ad will be displayed immediately after the user opens the app.
Your ads are limited to 5 seconds for videos or gif and 3 seconds for images. This will direct users to the braned hashtag challenge. Brand Takeover is today’s most popular form of advertising. However, businesses will need to work with TikTok in order to implement this type.
Brand Takeover comes in two packages:
- First-view Takeover: The ads is displayed first when the user opens an application. This package is best used if you have the ability to create impressive, creative videos and a large budget.
- Regular Takeover: Ads appear among the first 80 videos. This package is for when your video is viral but you have a low budget.
Hashtag Challenge
Hashtag Challenge is a user-generated content (UGC) advertising campaign. TikTok users will be encouraged to join the challenge and attach hashtags into their videos.
This approach exploits the users’ video assets and creates a powerful viral effect. The probability of success is higher when Influencers/KOLs take part in or encourage users to do so.
There are two types of Hashtag Challenge:
- Free Hashtag Challenge: Anyone can create a challenge without paying.
- Paid Hashtag Challenge: TikTok will place a challenge introduction banner in the TikTok Discover section, with a link to the challenge page or a list of videos that have participated in the challenge.
You should consider using the paid version if you want your campaign to go viral and increase views and engagement.
Branded Lenses
Branded Lenses are an advertising format that allows users to use custom-designed stickers, filters or effects such as AR, 2D, 3D created by brands. It helps connect your products and services seamlessly with the most memorable moments of customers.
Ads will appear in the “hot” or “trending” sections for the first 5 days of launch and can last up to 10 days. There are additional interactive features like CTA (Call-to-action) and QR code.
The purposes of using branded lenses are to encourage more engagement from users with businesses and increase brand awareness.
4. Take advantage of TikTok shopping features
Data from TikTok shows that 49% of users (or 500 millions) search for and discover new brands and products while on the platform each month. 89% of users purchase spontaneously while surfing entertainment videos on TikTok.
Up to 44% of users desire content that is entertaining and fun, while 1 in 3 people claim that happy emotions can be used to generate shopping behaviours.
Two outstanding features on TikTok that support the Shoppertainment trend are TikTok Shop & TikTok Live.
TikTok Shop, a new shopping feature is now available. TikTok Shop allows content creators and retailers to showcase their products and sell them directly via video, LIVE and product introduction tabs. TikTok Live will allow TikTokers to attach shopping cart links to their livestream content to encourage viewers to buy.
Branded Effect and Hashtag Challenge on TikTok offer interesting ways to incorporate brands and products in videos using filters, stickers, or dances, prompting users’ curiosity to perform actions like searching, shopping, purchasing, etc.
TikTokers have seen huge sales for just a few hours on Livestream. TikToker Pham Thoai sold 100 electric toothbrushes in 5 minutes. This brought in a total revenue of over 3 billion VND. In the case of Hoa Minzy, a female singer, all lipstick products in her warehouse were sold out within a matter of seconds after she opened the livestream on Tiktok.
Tips to make your Tiktok videos on trend quickly
These are the top tips to quickly make your TikTok videos popular.
Upload your videos at the right time
The number of viewers directly depends on the time you post your TikTok videos. TikTok reports that you should upload your videos during the following times:
- Morning between 7am and 9am: This is when users get up, have breakfast, and then browse TikTok to entertain themselves.
- Noon between 11:30 and 13:30: This time is for resting and eating lunch.
- Evening between 19:00 and 21:00, and 10:00 to 0:00: These are the hours when people relax and try to entertain themselves.
Use trending hashtags and celebrity hashtags
Unlike the method of searching through queries on Facebook, TikTok uses hashtags to filter content faster. This is also an indispensable element in any video present on TikTok.
Use effective hashtags to increase the number of views and impressions of your videos. You should be able to select and add the right hashtags to your videos.
There are 3 main types of hashtags you should use when creating videos:
- Your brand’s hashtags: For instance, #dior or #aeon.
- Trending Hashtags: These hashtags are displayed on your homepage. You can search for and select the most relevant trending hashtags.
- Celebrity Hashtags: These hashtags can greatly increase your reach. Examples: #HaAnhTuan and #BinZ ,…
Engage with TikTok users who are your target audience
You should look for channels that have a similar topic to yours, and follow them. Then, interact with those who follow those channels. These followers will be the type of users that you want to target.
Follow 300-400 people each day. You will gain about 30 new followers every day with a following-back rate between 10% and 30%. They may get excited about your videos and engage with them.
Hopefully this article helps you understand TikTok Marketing and how to create a TikTok marketing strategy for Vietnam market. We can help you if you have any questions or need to build a marketing strategy on TikTok Vietnam. We have many years of experience with the implementation of marketing plans in general, and TikTok specifically.
Contact us now!
