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5 Essential Strategies for Boosting Your Brand's Popularity on TikTok To create brand awareness, it is crucial to explore trends before anyone else.

By Henny Yeshanew

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Personal branding holds a lot of importance for individuals and small businesses in the modern world. The good thing is, there are plenty of tools that one can use for this purpose. You can create your blog or website and link it with different social media platforms.

But brands are no strangers to social media, be it Twitter, Facebook, YouTube or any other platform. So, as a new entry, you are already facing stiff competition.

There are still pretty good opportunities and platforms available, and one of them is TikTok. Judging by the looks, TikTok might seem like an app developed for the youth who want to go viral with their memes. But as a brand, if you use this platform, it can help you reap some rewards.

Here are five tips for building your brand on this platform.

Related: 5 Ways to Make Your Franchise Go Viral on TikTok

1. Using trends and analytics to feature on the "For You" page

When you sign up for TikTok, you can make a free profile or go for the Pro version. As you are looking to build your brand, it is a better option for you to go for the Pro version. It will allow you to access trends and analytics for this application.

With Pro, you will be able to see insights on who is watching your videos and sharing them. Since there is not much insight into TikTok's algorithm, this information can come in pretty handy.

However, everyone knows that it is essential to be featured on that "For You" page. This page is just like the Discover page in the Instagram app. It highlights posts from various accounts similar to those that a user is already following. Therefore, you are getting exposure because this is bringing your brand awareness. And from here, your future exposure is mainly based on the performance of your previous content or videos. Therefore, if your first video goes viral right away, then it's a pretty good start.

As soon as you post your new video, TikTok will show it to a small number of users. If you get engagement on this video, TikTok will open it up to even more groups of people. In this way, you are gaining organic traffic from TikTok itself.

2. Your geographic location, sound effects and hashtags

Your geographic location is pretty important. As soon as your video goes live, TikTok will show it to the users of your country. This is good news for the smaller brands trying hard to increase their brand awareness in the local market.

You can also use hashtags and popular sound effects to make your videos go viral. With hashtags, you will be able to make your videos appear on the For You page. For example, even using #foryou, or #foryoupage, and even #fyp will help.

Related: 4 Steps to Grow to 1 Million Followers on TikTok

3. All posts must focus on brand awareness and engagement

While creating content for TikTok, engagement and brand awareness should always be the core idea. And there are various trends and features that you can use for this purpose. You can even create your hashtag and link the content to your other social media handles and website.

4. It's always a good idea to advertise on TikTok for maximum reach

Buying TikTok ads can be a great option, as it's an ad that stays live for an entire day. Users will see such an ad when they open their TikTok and open a clickable link.

You can show these ads to your target audience as they are exclusive to the category that you have chosen for your brand.

5. You can create branded lenses and face filters.

TikTok lets brands create different lenses and face filters and brand them. This feature works just like Snapchat. These filters and lenses stay live for ten days and allow users to add them to their content.

Incorporate your branding on these filters and lenses. Users will use these effects, and their followers will see your brand, which will help in uniquely building brand awareness.

Final thoughts

To create brand awareness as a small business or an individual, it is crucial to explore trends and be at a place before anyone else. It's an excellent time to experiment and try out different things. You are way ahead of the competition, even if you face a stiff one on other social media platforms.

Related: 5 Secrets to Growing a Massive TikTok Following

Henny Yeshanew

Marketing Director, Consultant, Investor

Henny Yeshanew is a Top 40 Under 40 award winner and the founder of Lion Marketing Agency, which was awarded Top Agency in Ontario from 2018 to 2020 by Canada Business Awards. He is now an angel investor in multiple startups and provides marketing expertise to non-profit organizations.

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