11 Ways Small Businesses Can Use TikTok in Their Marketing

11 Ways Small Businesses Can Use TikTok in Their Marketing

Small businesses are always looking for ways to use their marketing budget as efficiently as possible. One of the many strategies is to incorporate TikTok, the fast-growing social media platform.   But how can you use TikTok in your marketing? Should you pay for ads? Should you create content? We’ll outline just some of the ways to use this platform in your marketing. What Is TikTok?   TikTok is a social media platform that lets people share short videos. Videos can use music in the background or just use the voice. There are also numerous memes and challenges on TikTok contributing to its popularity. Experts estimate that as of February 2021, there were more than 1.1 billion monthly active users. In other words, a sizable proportion of your target audience is on TikTok.   With that in mind, here are some of the best ways to use TikTok in your marketing. #1 Pay for Ads   The most obvious option is to pay for ads on TikTok. The ads will appear before and after videos on the application. You can choose from several ad formats. You also get to choose the audience that you want to target. This prevents you from wasting your marketing budget.   Common Advertising Formats   The ad formats you can choose from on TikTok include:   In-feed videos on the “For You” page of your audience. Hashtag challenges that show up on the discovery page. Sponsored AR content, such as stickers, lenses, and filters for your audience to feature in their videos. Brand takeovers that show full-screen video ads when your audience opens the...
How to Use YouTube to Market Your Small Business

How to Use YouTube to Market Your Small Business

Have you been sleeping on YouTube marketing? If the answer is yes, you’re not alone. It’s easy to dismiss YouTube as the place where teenagers and young adults make silly content, whether they’re sampling weird fast food mashups or doing stunts. The truth is that YouTube is the world’s second-largest search engine. Only Google sees more traffic. People who watch videos on YouTube are always looking for new content to watch and there’s a big opportunity for small businesses like yours to find a whole new audience with video marketing.     Show Off Your Products Do your customers know how to use your products? More importantly, do they know the best ways to use your products? If they don’t and you can help them get the most out of what they buy, then YouTube is the perfect place to do it. Let’s look at an example. Luxy Hair is a company that sells a full range of hair extensions. They have attracted over three million followers on YouTube thanks to their styling videos that show customers (and potential customers) how to wear their hair extensions and style them. The videos include practical demonstrations plus recommendations of styling products to use with extensions. You can use this technique to connect with your customers on YouTube. Think about how you can help your customers get the most out of your products and then, produce a series of short videos showing them how to do it. Film and Share Customer Testimonials Insert Customer reviews and testimonials provide powerful social proof when a potential customer or client comes looking for the services...
What Will Digital Marketing Look Like in 2021?

What Will Digital Marketing Look Like in 2021?

As 2020 winds down in the next couple months there are still a lot of questions that we can’t answer. How soon until there’s a vaccine to Covid-19? When will the pandemic end? When will we return to business as usual? For small business owners, that last question looms large. With COVID cases spiking across the country and the probability that we’ll be back to only essential businesses opening their doors to the public, it’s crucial to take a long view of the marketing landscape. Because there are so many unanswered questions, the marketing trends for 2021 have a slightly different focus than might be the case in a typical year. Here’s what’s on the horizon. Focus on Customer Retention I’ve talked a lot before about how much less it costs to retain customers than to win new customers. In 2021, it’s going to make a lot of sense to put your marketing budget into customer retention. Holding steady in a global crisis qualifies as a win. Social media and email are the best tools you have available to drive customer retention. By encouraging existing customers to follow you on Facebook or subscribe to your list, you’re gaining the ability to stay in touch with them. You can offer special deals, keep them informed, and remind them of why they chose your product or service in the first place. Product and Service Availability as a Priority We’ve all experienced issues with product availability as well as with delayed deliveries due to the pandemic. The key to customer retention is ensuring that your customers have access to your products and...
The Best Type of Content To Create To Stand Out In Today’s Saturated Market

The Best Type of Content To Create To Stand Out In Today’s Saturated Market

Just about every smart entrepreneur and marketer is creating content now, which means you have more competition than ever for the attention of your audience. That’s why it’s critical to keep in touch with which content formats are currently getting the highest engagement so you can put your effort into creating content that will get and hold attention. Here’s what you should be producing now! Long-form video Here are some incredible stats about the state of video in today’s market: 85% of US Internet Users Watch Online Videos 88% of People watch at least one video a week 6 Out of 10 People Prefer Online Video to TV People stay on pages with video nearly 3 times longer The average retenton rate for video is 52% across the board Over 500 Million People Watch Facebok Videos every Day 71% of B2B Marketers User Video 50% of People Research Products With Video Before Buying Source: Supplygem While the far majority of videos being produced now are very short, long-form videos that take the time to educate and entertain more thoroughly get incredible engagement and create deep relationships with your audience. There are also more channels for distributing longer videos as well. Youtube still dominates of course, but Facebook Watch and IGTV have both become very powerful distribution channels as well. Video ‘stories’ On the opposite end of the spectrum from long-form videos are video ‘stories’. I’m referring to videos that are posted on the Instagram Story and Facebook Story channels. Stories are seeing incredible engagement and growth, and video is what works best. In fact, social video generates 12 times...