I have consulted with top DTC brands and businesses to help them with social media. Here's how top brands are using TikTok to generate more brand awareness and sales.

Beginning with TikTok Ads

TikTok is a trending platform; it's in a growth bubble. In this stage, TikTok ads can generate a lot of word-of-mouth more than other social media platforms. A current TikTok ads report shows that users on TikTok are 37% more likely to purchase than other platform users.

Here's how to get the most out of TikTok ads!

1. Dropping Cost Cap

With TikTok ads, you need to first test your ad sets like Facebook or Google Ads. To figure out your best CPA with current demographics.

When you have found the best ad set, run an ad with an accelerated budget like $1k. Then, lower your cost cap to the lowest possible means at a rate where your ad can run!

What will happen? With this, TikTok will try to spend as low as possible and deliver the same results.

This works very well but sometimes ads stop due to a really low CPA setup. Then, try to raise CPA by a little budget raise!

2. Why Keeping CPM low on TikTok is the best strategy?

It's because of the audience definition. It's a growing platform, and the new users are joining, and they have undefined interests that the algorithm might not have defined. This happens with most platforms in the beginning. That's the reason most of the advertisers in the beginning got the best results in the beginning of Facebook, Instagram, and major platforms.

Setting a low CPM is not a bad idea and it generates more brand awareness.

When your average ad CPM starts to rise, you should try to create a brand new pixel and switch the old one. This worked for us and it's a great tactic.

3. Never download and run videos by creators about your brand as ads

The best process is to reach out to the creator about using the content and use Spark Ads to get the most out of the organic reach and paid ad spending. Uploading creative from your own TikTok account or your partnered influencers is the best thing to do to get more out of Spark Ads!

Creating UGC Content That Works

1. You need to train creators about your Brand’s content formats. It seems like a small world when reaching out to creators, until you talk to them and realize they don't have same trends and products on their feed that you want them to create content for. That's why you need to train them.

Train them what? You have done your market research and know your audience and competitors. The creator is unknown to all these things. That's why you need to educate the creators about your competitors and content formats supposed to go viral.

I recommend creating an influencer kit to help the creator with content creation for you.

Second, Angles and timelines, to get more out of one-piece of UGC content. Edit the content in CapCut or any desired editor. Have at least more than 2 versions of an ad with the same content with slight changes in transitions or timelines.

Third, Don't ask creators to replicate their most viral piece of content because that might not work for you. Most of the time, it looks not real and connecting to the audience.

Last, Real UGC connects with users with a storyline and copy that makes them buy. Storyline and copy depend on you, but the tone of your story is in the hands of creators. Both need to have a positive approach!

Doing Organic Growth On TikTok with No UGC

Achieving 1,000 followers on TikTok is really important for anyone looking to sell something to the audience because you can't add a link in your profile before reaching that milestone.

Here's how to reach your first 1k, 10k, and then 100k TikTok followers!

1. TikTok has a user-friendly feed, not creator-friendly: That means focus on CTAs. What I mean by not creator-friendly is that most users don't leave a follow sometimes due to the fast pace of the content and short attention span of users. That's why focus on adding "Follow for more" or "watch next part" these type of CTAs in the end!

2. Consistency: Try to be more consistent with your content and build a consistent loop of content to hook people to follow you for a certain type of content.

You can study if a platform rewards consistency or not by looking at the stage of theme pages on TikTok. Movie theme pages are growing everyday with replica content. That means you will have an advantage because you have consistency + original content.

Using Hooks To Make People Stop and Watch!

You need to sound relatable to Gen-Z to make them follow you and buy your product. That's why use Hooks that might make them stop. Here are a few Hooks that worked for me and you can use them too!

1. I wanted to gatekeep this, but it's too good not to share.

2. My Toxic Trait is X and this X product fulfills it.

3. Name something you recently found and wish you knew earlier!

4. Here's a lazy hack to get things done (+ product link) or another similar hook is how I get more done as a lazy designer or marketer (+ Product linking).

5. I'm not gonna lie, this might be the best product on Amazon or TikTok!

6. You may not know this, but it's actually possible!

7. Start with your hook with Why. It's the most effective, but you need to give an effective "Why" to make them stop!

Use any hook, make it relatable by using a popular Hook format like one from above and that will make people watch! Not this: "Stop scrolling" and "Stop this" or that! That doesn't work and is annoying.

TikTok lives are a great way to grow followers and sell products!

It's all about making them more interactive by guiding your audience to launch emojis and do this interactive action to connect with you. These lives show randomly on many feeds, and they are organic. It's not limited to just your followers. That's why try to go live more and more to gain new followers and build engaged following!

Importance of Adapting to Niches

When you are on TikTok, you are not just on TikTok. You are living on a part of the platform that's unknown to other people. That's why when creating content for a niche, you need to adapt to keywords and content style used more often in your niche than others. For example, if your niche has trendy content with words like "seasoned" or “algorithm” going viral. Then, you should adapt to those words to increase chances of going viral!

Ending with Trends I have noticed with TikTok

I have tracked TikTok updates for the last 6 months. It's going to be the best platform for DTC brands and e-commerce brands. The Chinese version of TikTok is filled with product integrations that will make TikTok the best when launched. Apart from that, TikTok has launched many new tools for advertisers like Attribution manager for TikTok Ads and Creative Tools to help advertisers find trending content on TikTok within their niches with a single search.

I hope you liked this TikTok Guide, can't call it a guide. I tried to keep it short and valuable.

A Bonus Tip from Reddit

I posted this guide on reddit and u/roxypompeo blessed the community with a replu filled with value. You can read it below:

Our brand invests heavily in TikTok ads (~$1M/yr budget or $100k/mo). Although relatively top level, I can attest that a lot of what you shared here is pretty spot on for a starting point and can be really useful for someone brand new to TikTok.

A few more pieces of advice if I may add: Run your ads with the objective of VTR as opposed to CPA. TikTok’s algorithm allows it to have the potential to be a huge awareness driver. Getting a bunch of eyeballs on your ad and your product plays into the increased likelihood of virality. You don’t need to pay to get people to click a link. Create an awesome piece of content that people find entertaining and valuable, and they’ll go find your product themselves.

You mentioned working with creators, but I just want to make the clear distinction that if you plan to use UGC as an ad on your channel or Spark Ad on the creator’s channel, you must pay them a separate fee to cover advertising rights on their asset. This seems basic but may be new info for those starting out.

The best advice I can give directly from the TikTok partners we work closely with on a weekly basis: MAKE TIKTOKS, NOT ADS. The assets you put paid behind on TikTok should look completely different than any other kind of advertising you’re doing. The ads that will perform the best will be 100% native to the platform.