TikTok is one of the few platforms in the social media industry that managed to grow with incredible speed and still keeps on growing. Marketers immediately fell in love with this short-form video platform and even today, they are finding new ways of promoting their brands and products. While TikTok influencer marketing is a very common approach and is almost a separate field in digital marketing, many professionals struggle to get started with it.
We designed a guide that intends to provide everything that you need to know about influencer marketing on TikTok:
- How to create a TikTok influencer marketing strategy
- Where to find influencers on TikTok
- How to choose the right TikTok influencers
- What are the tools that can help you with the strategy
The Basics of TikTok Influencer Marketing
TikTok influencer marketing is a very new and complicated topic for digital marketers. Many concepts are still unclear, for example, choosing high follower-base influencers or high-engagement ones is a question we still have no answer for.
TikTok has a complex algorithm that is very different from other social media platforms, such as Instagram and Facebook. The app chooses to display content not according to the number of followers or views but based on users’ behavior analysis. If you observe closely, you will notice that often TikTok will display a video that has very few likes and the account that posted it may not be an influencer, at all. Hence, marketers struggle to find appropriate content and appropriate influencer profiles on TikTok.
One thing that is clear for every marketer is that you need to find a TikTok account that covers topics, products, or ideas very similar to your brand. This is the only guarantee that you will reach your target audience. However, if you are looking to increase your brand reputation or awareness, you can work with generally popular TikTok profiles.
How Effective Is Tiktok Influencer Marketing?
Are you wondering if investing in TikTok influencer marketing is worth it? Here are some benefits you need to know about.
Benefit from viral trends
It is a fact that short videos have a greater chance of becoming viral than long ones. This is the key advantage that TikTok has over its competitors, such as YouTube (except for YouTube Shorts). Furthermore, as we already mentioned, the TikTok algorithm does not care if you have 10K followers or only 15, if your content is likable for the algorithm it will get the same exposure as the popular TikTok channels.
The average length of videos that TikTok influencers post is 15 seconds. This is another challenge for marketers as they have to come up with video content that fits all product/service benefits in such a short time. Moreover, the video must be catchy from the very first second, it must use viral sounds, and effects, or participate in a viral challenge to join the trend.
Reach your niche audience.
Hashtags are nothing new to marketers. Instagram has long been using hashtags, as well, as Twitter. But these elements have a different purpose on TikTok. The platform pays a lot of attention to hashtags and prioritizes videos that have relevant hashtags for the viewers. Digital marketers create a separate strategy for hashtag usage on TikTok as it can influence the success of the campaign greatly.
You can guess how hashtags can help you find suitable influencers on TikTok. When researching the videos using the relevant hashtags you will find creators who most often use those specific keywords. You can create a list of accounts and profiles associated with your hashtags and start converting them with your influencer marketing strategy.
Easy to grow your brand on TikTok
Many social media sites give prominence to people or brands with a vast following. This isn’t the case with TikTok, as the platform allows all creators to grow. If you are looking for a social media platform to get started and grow, there is no better option than TikTok.
One thing that creates a dilemma for marketers though is the unpredictability of the platform. Some creators become influencers overnight with just a single video posted on TikTok while others spend weeks on producing video content and still get little to no exposure. Taking it into account, marketing professionals find it hard to choose influencers – is it worth trusting an account that just became viral or going for a more consistent option with less visibility?
How to Find the Right TikTok Influencer for Your Brand
Before you send your collaboration email to influencers you need to have the right recipient. You can spend ages developing strategy, creating influencer email collaboration templates, doing influencer outreach, contacting thousands of influencers, and posting content, but still receive no value. So the most significant part of your influencer marketing strategy is finding the right influencer for your brand. Here are some things to consider:
Niche
You need to collaborate with an influencer whose audience matches yours if you want to reap the benefits of influencer marketing. Understand the needs in your industry and niche, as well as the audience. How is your audience interacting with the content on TikTok? What is the type of content that your niche audience loves and engages with? After you have answers to those questions you can start finding an influencer that ticks all those checkboxes.
One of the key Tiktok trends you should pay attention to when choosing a niche is the Tiktok subculture. These usually have their niche content and hashtags. Examples include #Foodtok (for food lovers), #FitTok(for fitness enthusiasts), and #BookTok(for book lovers). You can check out such hashtags to see if your business can fit in one of them.
Use keywords
TikTok also doubles up as a search engine. Studies indicate that 51% of GenZ women use the platform to find products and services. We already mentioned the power of hashtags for finding influencers – the same applies to keywords. Check the videos and users that pop up to see if you can find any potential influencers.
Don’t forget about using keywords yourself when creating a collaboration strategy with any influencer. We do not know much about the search engine algorithm of TikTok but there is no way that the platform ignores keywords in search processes.
Check the trending hashtags.
By using TikTok trends, you can easily discover trends. Find out the most popular hashtags to find influencers using those hashtags. You can find the trending hashtags by looking at:
- The For You page: this will show some of the new content. Look at the hashtags on this page and find out if there are recurring hashtags.
- Use the TikTok search icon: you can search for the keywords we mentioned earlier.
- Perform an organic search: you can search in Google for keywords and use “site:tiktok.com” before your search query. This will filter the results that come from TikTok.
One resource you can use to find influencers in your niche is Google. You can easily find a list of the top TikTok influencers in 2024. You can also find information on where these influencers are based, their popularity, content niche, and more.
Adjust your search according to metrics such as follower count, location, and content type. You will be given a list of influencers to review to determine if they match your needs.
Perform competitor analysis
Never forget about competitors. Yes, these are the people and agencies competing with you but they can involuntarily provide very useful and powerful information for your growth. You can see what works for them, who are they collaborating with, what are the results of their collaborations, and use these insights for your next influencer marketing strategy.
It can also help to find the influencers your competitors are working with. Identify at least three brands in your niche. Go through their profiles and review their activity on the app. Check if there is any influencer collaboration they are doing. While you may not work with the exact influencer your competitors are using, it can give you an idea of the influencer you can partner with.
Use a free Tiktok influencer search tool.
Several influencer search tools can help you find the right influencer. Here is a list of the top 5 free social media influencer search tools.
- Upfluence: this is a Chrome plugin that enables brands to analyze an influencer profile.
- Kitly Business. This is a great platform that will connect brands with influencers. They can help cut out middlemen as they provide users with the latest contacts of influencers.
- Hype Auditor: this tool will show you the top influencers in your niche. It analyzes the top influencers through the top engagements and quality of followers.
- Storyclash: this is a free Social media influencer search tool that will show you influencers who are talking about your brand.
- Influence.co: This tool has a social network and an influencer marketplace with over 300K members.
Work With An Influencer Marketing Agency
If you do not want to go through the hustle of finding an influencer, consider working with an influencer marketing agency. Therefore, it is a great choice for a start-up influencer marketing program. As the name suggests, this organization connects influencers with brands. Therefore, in this case, you will be paying the influencer marketing agency to create and operate the influencer marketing campaign for you.
What does an influencer marketing agency do?
No one can tell you that influencer marketing for TikTok is easy. On the contrary, it is very time-consuming and complicated, especially for beginners. It requires a lot of time, effort, and often financial means, which is why brands consider third-party help. There are a lot of agencies that specialize in TikTok marketing or influencer marketing and can help you with your strategy creation or execution.
Make sure that you read reviews online as many fraudulent companies work online who take your money but never deliver the results. Do your research and find companies that have positive feedback from customers. You can look for brands in your industry or niche and find out if they have worked with any marketing agencies specializing in TikTok and influencer marketing.
What does an influencer marketing agency do?
Some of the roles and responsibilities of an influencer marketing agency include:
- Product placement – this involves an influencer incorporating a product or service in their content, either as an image, video, or story.
- Building a TikTok following – the TikTok influencer may, in this case, focus on increasing the popularity of a brand’s channel.
- Creative campaigns – this involves creating challenges relating to a brand.
- Contest & giveaways – in this case, the Tikok influencer marketing agency may create a contest to promote a brand.
- Themes and hashtag campaigns – brands collaborate with an influencer to share content around the central theme.
Final words
Influencer marketing can be a good TikTok for business marketing method for your brand at an affordable price. If you are wondering where to start with Tiktok influencer marketing, our guide will help you with everything from finding an influencer to understanding how to collaborate with them for the best results.
