How to Use TikTok to Start Promoting Your Products Online Today

16 min read

Have you ever found yourself asking, “What is TikTok?”

This social media platform allows users to create short videos on just about every topic imaginable. TikTok offers short videos like fuzzy puppies running upstairs to how to fix your pool pump. They have motivational videos, poems, tips, and highlights of all your favorite sports and events.

If you can think of it, TikTok probably has a video on it. With over 1 billion monthly active users, you can see why TikTok is a great place to connect with potential consumers.

We know that learning how to sell online can be intimidating; that’s why we have created this guide to get you started. At Ecwid, we want you to feel empowered and supported as you charge ahead, selling your incredible products to your people online. This blog is written to show you how to utilize the app to increase sales and help your audience using social media tools like TikTok.

Why TikTok?

TikTok has become a leading mobile app, surpassing competitors like YouTube and Netflix, with over 1 billion active users, predominantly aged 10-29.

Its personalized and engaging format makes it a popular platform for learning, discovering, and shopping, with 40% of Gen Z preferring it over Google for searches. Users spend up to an hour daily on the app, presenting significant marketing opportunities. TikTok marketing feels authentic and can be effectively executed through influencer partnerships and creative, entertaining content.

Build your audience and community. Utilizing TikTok’s tools and data allows you to explore existing content and see what professionals in your niche are focusing on. Understanding your audience helps tailor your content, while features like filters, communities, and sponsored hashtags enhance online engagement and loyalty.
Grow your online presence. To engage viewers, share easily digestible and entertaining content that fosters a relationship with your audience. Capturing attention in seconds is key, and high-quality, useful creations are more likely to be shared. As your content gains traction, TikTok will promote it on users’ “for you page,” increasing visibility.
Tools and analytics. The Sounds library on TikTok enables creators to incorporate music and dialogue from popular media. TikTok Pixel helps track customer journeys and should be placed on websites, stores, and ads. Additionally, TikTok provides a resource center with webinars and success stories to enhance user understanding and connection.

Types of TikTok Accounts

Personal accounts are for viewers, the people you are getting to look at your products, consumers looking for your unique approach to their pain points.
Creator accounts are for daily posting, growing your audience, including detailed analytics about your viewers and their habits online. With the creator account, you can monetize views after 10,000 followers. This is run through a program known as the Creator Fund.
Business accounts are a bit different. While there is no creator fund for business accounts, you still get all the analytics, performance tracking, engagement data, and advertising opportunities.

How to Start Promoting on TikTok: 6 Vital Steps

Getting started on TikTok is very easy. Your first task is to download the TikTok app on your phone and create a new account.

Next, you want to

Open your profile and tap on the hamburger menu in the top right corner.
Navigate to Settings and privacy → Manage account.
Tap on Switch to Business Account.
Choose the category that best describes your business.

You want to optimize your profile so it aligns with your brand identity and comes up in searches. Make your account look professional and real. Add a logo as your profile picture, enter your business name and username, and create a short, compelling bio.

Finally, add your URL and social media accounts, such as Instagram, Facebook and YouTube. Depending on your strategic goals, you could link out to your website’s homepage or pick a specific landing page or blog.

When creating a business account and setting up ads, you will need to connect with a TikTok rep to confirm your account. Once you’re set up, start exploring the app to get a feel for it.

Step 1. Getting Verified

To get verified, your account needs to meet certain criteria. These include:

Having logged in within the last 6 months
Having a complete profile with at least one video
Following TikTok’s community guidelines and terms of service
Having 2-step verification turned on

You can apply through TikTok’s verification request form by providing proof of identity and popularity, such as a business email and media coverage.

Getting verified on TikTok is shown by a blue checkmark next to your account name. This shows TikTok has confirmed your account is authentic and belongs to a genuine business.

Step 2. Utilize Your Bio Space

Your TikTok bio allows you to introduce what you do, your brand, your store, and your products to your people. Because your bio is the first place most people check out when they drop by your page, you will want it to be on point. Keep it simple, use your keywords, and make it accurate.

You can add your website or a direct link to your ecommerce store. Remember to try to match your business name on all of your social media handles. Don’t forget to do profile pictures and connect your Instagram and YouTube.

If you’re looking for a free but powerful link-in-bio tool, check out Linkup. It lets you easily create a mobile-friendly page with links to all your social profiles, work, content, and even products. This is especially beneficial for brands, artists, content creators, and influencers, as your followers can easily buy your products or merch directly from your TikTok link in bio.

Link in bio example

Step 3. Work out a Content Strategy

Next is to create content that aligns with your brand and will resonate with your target audience. But that can’t happen without a proper roadmap in place.

In other words, you need a TikTok content strategy.

Here are a few things to consider when developing a content strategy for your business:

Learn from the crowd: First, familiarize yourself with the platform before you go into content creation. Find out how everything works — which button does what — and check out popular creators in your niche. Look at what your competitors are doing and understand what makes your audience tick.
Look at trends: TikTok trends are always changing. Look up trending hashtags, music, challenges and content formats, and put your own creative spin on them.
Keep it authentic: Don’t go formal and scripted. TikTok is a playful, active and constantly evolving platform. Emulate TikTok’s vibe in your videos and, specifically, make them very human. Be surprising, entertaining — show your audience “life behind the scenes” or “how to do something cool” to get their interest.
Use TikTok’s video editing tools: Take advantage of TikTok’s many creative editing tools to make your content stand out. Play around with eye-catching transitions, effects and filters to give your videos that cool edge. Use trending music to make your content more engaging and subtitles for added accessibility.

Decide when and how often to post: Make a habit of monitoring your audience’s behavior to determine the best times to post for maximum engagement. When are they online? What days of the week? Based on what you find, create a content calendar and schedule your posts when they will have the greatest impact.

Step 4. Advertising options

Self-service ads are ads in the feed; they blend in and don’t look like clunky advertising or sales pitches. They will appear on the users’ “for you page.”

Ad manager on TikTok is for business accounts. With the ad manager, you can start building your campaigns right away. This option includes branded hashtags, challenges, brand take over, branded effects, and what TikTok calls “TopView” ads. You can set a goal for your business like increasing brand awareness, website and store traffic, interactions, or sales. Narrow down your audience with filters for age, gender, hobbies, and interests.

You can also pay for ads or partner with influencers to help support your store by sponsoring content on their pages. Use sponsor branded hashtags, and be sure to make videos connect to your online store so your customers can buy directly from your videos. Remember to add your TikTok feed directly on your website and utilize all of your links.

Also read: Advertising on TikTok from A to Z

If you use Ecwid by Lightspeed for your online store, you can synchronize your product catalog with TikTok to create ads showcasing your products. Discover more about advertising your Ecwid products on TikTok.

Step 5. Create Useful, Entertaining, and Valuable Content

Yes, you can and should use hashtags—search hashtags related to your content or business and evaluate how these people are connecting with their audience. The use of popular hashtags and sounds that are already gaining traction can get you tens of thousands of views on your products.

User-generated content (UGC) is created by the viewers on the TikTok app. These are the people that make the videos go viral. These people are organically using your products or services and sharing their experiences with other TikTok users. Be creative with your content and encourage people to share their personal experiences with your products and services.

Creating challenges or other interactive content will help your customers connect to you and each other on a deeper level. Adding a call to action will help direct viewers on the next steps. Dropping in some discount codes or sales in your bio can help drive conversions. Let your creative juices flow.

Influencers are people who already have a large following. Connect with and hire these people to help make your brand or store more accessible to your target audience without feeling like a used car salesman. You are looking for genuine, organic interaction between you and your customer.

Step 6. Get Personal With Your Audience

Don’t be afraid of emojis. These can be an easy way to increase conversions in your online store because they are fun, colorful, and draw attention to your products and services. Livestreams and videos that have educational or valuable content will resonate better with your TikTok audience. Recent industry reports suggest that the younger generation of customers has an aversion to direct advertising and sponsored ads, so focus on helping rather than selling.

Engage, communicate, interact. TikTok offers a unique algorithm that allows pages with minimal to no followers to still go viral. Put out good entertaining content, and the readers will come.

Use Your TikTok Analytics

TikTok analytics is a tool that provides data and metrics on how content performs on TikTok. It can help you understand your audience, what content they engage with, and when they are most active. This information can be used to grow an audience, increase engagement, and maintain a current following. Analytics will give you the following metrics:

Video views, play time and completion rates
Traffic sources (e.g., For You page, hashtags, sounds)
Likes, comments, shares and profile visits
Follower growth and peak activity times
Audience demographics like age, gender and location
Song uses, link clicks and video downloads

You can compare the performance of different video types, formats, lengths and distribution tactics to identify what resonates best with your audience. This will give you trends to help you with content creation and when to post what. According to TikTok, as you post more videos, the numbers, stats, and graphs in your analytics will paint an image of the impact you make and the people you reach every time you share your ideas, creativity, and voice on TikTok.

Selling on TikTok

In addition to running ads, you can directly sell your products within the app using a TikTok Shop and shoppable videos.

A TikTok Shop is a dedicated section where users can browse and purchase products without leaving the app. This is a huge advantage as it eliminates extra steps for potential customers, making the purchasing process more seamless.

Shoppable videos are another way to promote your products on TikTok. These are short video clips that feature your products in action with a direct link to purchase them.

This is how TikTok shops look like. Video source.

If your online store is powered by Ecwid by Lightspeed, you can seamlessly sync your product catalog with TikTok. This integration allows you to add a Shop section to your TikTok profile and make your videos shoppable, enhancing your ecommerce reach.

To begin selling on TikTok, connect your Ecwid catalog using the M2E Multichannel Connect app (for both the US and UK) or the TikTok Shop Connector app (for the US only).

Grow With TikTok Today!

We hope we’ve helped you navigate the initially complicated questions of exactly “what is tik tok?” At Ecwid, we want your sales on TikTok to feel effortless and look flawless, so we have designed a platform for exactly that. We understand that technology can be overwhelming and complex.

Because selling everywhere is crucial for your business to thrive in the future, we help you set up selling with ease on all your platforms and locations.

Whether it’s in-store, at marketplaces, or on social media, we keep all of the channels and platforms you are selling on neatly organized and managed. If you are ready to get started selling on social media platforms like TikTok, let us help you get started for free today!

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Aug 1, 2024

About the author

Max has been working in the ecommerce industry for the last six years helping brands to establish and level-up content marketing and SEO. Despite that, he has experience with entrepreneurship. He is a fiction writer in his free time.