Guest Author
How can you make the most out of your small business TikTok presence?
TikTok Shop allows customers to purchase products directly from small and large business accounts alike, increasing their online sales. This is an exciting development for the platform as it expands its reach to social commerce, opening up new opportunities for brands and TikTok creators to monetize their presence on the platform.
Brands, including small businesses, can tap into TikTok’s massive user base and directly promote their products to a highly engaged audience. That, in turn, could lead to significant business growth and increased brand awareness.
Let’s explore how small businesses can leverage TikTok’s potential to achieve their goals.
We’re SocialBee LABS SRL, part of WebPros. We use the information you provide to share relevant content and product updates, as outlined in our Privacy Policy. You can opt out anytime.
Short summary
- Join TikTok trends regularly by monitoring the For You page and competitor accounts. Put your own creative spin on popular challenges, sounds, or formats to attract more views.
- Collaborate with micro-influencers who align with your niche. Research relevant hashtags, vet influencer engagement, and reach out with personalized collaboration proposals.
- Use a mix of trending and evergreen hashtags in your captions and descriptions. This improves TikTok SEO and helps your videos stay visible over time. Tools like SocialBee can suggest hashtags automatically.
- Run TikTok ads like Spark ads for budget-friendly promotion or branded hashtag challenges to drive user participation. Start with a TikTok Ads Manager account and choose the format that fits your goals.
- Repurpose content from other platforms by editing existing videos into 15–60 second vertical clips. Add music, effects, or trending sounds to refresh the content before sharing it on TikTok. Use scheduling tools like SocialBee to maintain a consistent posting rhythm.
Why is TikTok good for your small business?
TikTok is a discovery engine where users actively engage with brands and make real purchases.
Here’s why TikTok is important for small businesses:
- Users are ready to buy: According to TikTok Insights:
- 34% of TikTok users purchase food or beverage products they discovered on the app.
- 39% visit external websites to buy things they saw on TikTok.
- 78% have purchased a product after watching a creator talk about it.
- The audience is broad and diverse: With over 1.6 billion users globally, TikTok helps you connect with niche communities and reach new customers, whether you’re in beauty, home decor, wellness, or tech.
- High engagement means higher chances of discovery: Features like Duets, Stitches, comments, and native sharing encourage interaction, which helps small brands get noticed even without a big budget.
- Real results from small brands: Australian brand Beysis used behind-the-scenes videos, creator-style content, and in-feed ads to drive awareness and engagement. The result?
- +5,000% increase in video views
- 1.1% CTR (above industry benchmark)
- Over 5.7M total views
5 top small business TikTok marketing tips
As a small company owner, TikTok’s vast reach may help your brand recognition substantially.
Here are some TikTok tips for small businesses:
- Switch to a TikTok Business account
- Open a TikTok Shop
- Participate in trends
- Leverage micro-influencer collaborations
- Take advantage of relevant and popular TikTok hashtags
- Run TikTok ads
- Repurpose your videos and share them on TikTok
1. Switch to a TikTok Business account
If you’re serious about using TikTok for marketing, switching to a TikTok Business Account is one of the easiest first steps you can take. It gives you access to features that help you better understand your audience and optimize your content strategy.
With a Business Account, you’ll unlock tools such as:
- Analytics that show video performance, follower demographics, and engagement trends.
- Commercial music library with royalty-free tracks you can safely use in branded videos.
- TikTok Business Suite, which allows for easy content scheduling and ad creation.
Using TikTok’s built-in business tools can help you move from guesswork to strategy and set a solid foundation for growing your brand on the platform.
2. Open a TikTok Shop
TikTok is no longer just a place for viral videos; it’s also a growing e-commerce platform where small businesses can drive real sales. By opening a TikTok Shop, you can sell your products directly through your videos, LIVE streams, and a dedicated storefront on your profile.
Once your shop is set up, you can tag products in your TikToks so viewers can purchase them without ever leaving the app. This makes the shopping experience seamless and natural, especially when you’re creating engaging content like tutorials, product demos, or behind-the-scenes videos.
You can also host LIVE sessions to showcase your products in real time, answer questions, and even offer limited-time deals to boost urgency.
Another benefit of having a TikTok Shop is the ability to collaborate with creators through affiliate marketing. This means influencers can promote your products in their own videos and earn a commission, helping you expand your reach without a large ad budget.
3. Participate in trends
One of the most effective ways to gain visibility on TikTok is to participate in popular trends. From dance challenges to comedic skits, these viral videos are guaranteed to capture the attention of millions of users worldwide.
To be able to join trends on TikTok, it’s important to stay active on the platform and keep an eye on the latest challenges and viral videos. Pay attention to the “For You” page to see what content is gaining popularity and what the current trending sounds are.
Following TikTok accounts from similar niches and competitors and engaging with their content can also help you get a sense of what’s trending in the TikTok community. Once you know which trend to jump on, create video content that aligns with it. You can follow the trend to the letter or, better yet, put your unique spin on it.
Here’s how Taco Bell jumped on a popular TikTok trend, a playful format where a person or brand shares different versions of their name depending on who’s using it, creating a humorous or relatable contrast:
You can add your personal touch via unique editing techniques or a witty caption to help you gain attention and make your videos more memorable.
4. Leverage micro-influencer collaborations
Micro-influencers are social media personalities with a smaller, yet highly engaged following, typically ranging from a few thousand to tens of thousands of followers.
For small businesses marketing budgets, forming partnerships with these micro-influencers often proves to be a more cost-effective strategy than engaging with larger TikTok influencers or celebrities.
Here’s how to leverage TikTok influencer marketing in your strategy:
- Research hashtags and trends: Begin by exploring popular hashtags and trends relevant to your industry on TikTok. This approach helps pinpoint users who are already producing content that resonates with your niche.
- Evaluate influencers: Carefully assess potential micro-influencers by looking at their follower count, engagement rates, and the quality of their content. This evaluation is important for understanding their impact and ensuring they align with your brand values and target demographic.
- Initiate engagement: Reach out to potential micro-influencers with a personalized message. Express your interest in their content and propose a collaboration that benefits both parties. Alternatively, consider using an email finder tool to obtain their contact details and follow up with a thoughtful email proposal.
Incorporating TikTok influencers with smaller audiences but high engagement into your video strategy can significantly amplify your brand’s visibility.
Look at how Frame, a small fashion brand, collaborated with @paola.ochoaa, to promote their clothing through a simple “get ready with me” video where she shows off her outfit of the day (with Frame items, of course). Not only will they reach a part of her 40k+ followers and beyond, but they also get user-generated content they can reshare on their socials or even use in short video ads.
5. Take advantage of relevant and popular TikTok hashtags
Hashtags help TikTok understand what your content is about and who it might interest. Used strategically, they can improve how your videos perform in search and recommendations.
Here’s how to approach hashtag use more effectively:
- Choose hashtags your audience follows: Instead of using only trending ones, include hashtags your specific audience actually engages with. For example, a local bakery could use #smallbiztok, #bakerytok, or #supportlocal rather than just #foryou.
- Research before posting: Manually check what hashtags show up on trending content in your niche, or use tools like TikTok’s Creative Center or third-party platforms like Hashtag Expert or TikBuddy.
- Mix popular and niche hashtags: A good mix helps your video show up in both competitive and more targeted feeds. For instance, combine broad tags like #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt with niche tags like #plannercommunity.
- Add hashtags in your captions, not comments: TikTok’s algorithm uses the caption for categorization. Include 3–5 relevant hashtags in your caption, not your comment section.
- Review your analytics: If you have a TikTok Business Account, check out how many people found your content through hashtags to figure out whether your hashtag strategy needs to be adjusted.
A good hashtag strategy is part of your TikTok SEO, as it improves your chances of appearing as a search result related to your niche.
Check out these hashtags used by digital planning agency The Werk Life to improve its small business TikTok account growth:
With SocialBee’s Hashtag Generator, your TikTok post captions automatically trigger hashtag suggestions, no need to enter keywords manually. Just start writing your post, and let the tool recommend hashtags that match your content.
Want to keep your favorites? Add them to a hashtag collection for quick access later.
6. Run TikTok ads
TikTok provides different types of ads that businesses can use alongside their organic content to effectively reach their target audience and promote their products or services. All you need is a TikTok Ads manager account to start running your paid advertising. You can use it to create individual campaigns or an ad group.
The power that ads hold when it comes to increasing the growth of your brand on TikTok shouldn’t be underestimated. In fact, even 3 weeks after exposure to an ad on TikTok, 72% of TikTok users agree that they find the brand memorable.
Bears with Benefits, a Munich-based vitamin and supplement company, achieved a 10% lower CPA, 12% higher ROAS, and 4% lower CPM for product sales on TikTok compared to their web conversion campaigns through TikTok ads.
The most popular paid ad format is the Spark in-feed ads, which appear seamlessly in users’ content feeds as they scroll through the app. These ads usually last up to 15 seconds and can be in the form of videos or images with captions.
Here’s an example of how in-feed TikTok ads work:
Spark TopView ads, on the other hand, appear at the top of the For You TikTok feed and can be up to 60 seconds long.
Brand takeover ads, meanwhile, are short, snappy images or video ads that last at least three seconds. These TikTok for business ads give brands a 100% share of voice on the day they’re featured.
That means no other brand takeover ad will appear before a user on the day, making these ads powerful marketing tools.
Here’s how businesses on TikTok can spread a brand takeover ad:
Remember what we said about how popular and relevant hashtags can boost your content visibility? Well, there’s another type of hashtag you might want to use, this time, in TikTok advertising: the sponsored hashtag.
You can create your own hashtag and start your own branded hashtag challenge. Encourage TikTok users to participate by creating videos and using the sponsored hashtag.
Guess is an example of a brand that leverages this type of TikTok video ads for their denim product line. It’s not a small business, but you can take a cue from its popular sponsored hashtag challenge, #InMyDenim.
As part of your TikTok advertising, you can also create your own branded effects. Make your own branded stickers or filters that users can incorporate into their own content in order to build excitement. You can also integrate this type of ad into your branded hashtag challenge.
Of course, you still need to consider your budget before setting up your TikTok ad campaign. From all these ad formats, TikTok Spark ads are probably the best for small businesses that are starting out with limited budgets.
Check with TikTok’s advertising platform or contact a TikTok for business consultant for specific pricing details and options that align with your budget and business goals.
7. Repurpose your videos and share them on TikTok
Repurposing existing videos can save you time and effort in content creation. When you don’t want to create content from scratch, you can give a fresh spin to your existing videos. Download vertical videos from another social media platform, whether they be Instagram Reels or YouTube shorts, and then share them on TikTok.
Here’s how to refresh your existing videos for TikTok:
- Use video editing effects: Experiment with various video editing effects to find what best suits your brand’s style. Popular choices include slow motion, time-lapse, and thematic filters. These can transform the feel of your video, aligning it more closely with your aesthetic and the expectations of your TikTok followers.
- Incorporate music: Considering that 50% of users find TikTok videos with music more engaging, integrating trending sounds from the commercial music library can significantly increase the appeal of your content. Audio adds a layer of fun and can make your videos stand out in the feed, attracting new viewers and potential customers.
- Decide which types of video content to repurpose: Look into repurposing bits from webinars, podcasts, or live events. Such content, when edited into shorter, more engaging clips, can provide valuable insights or entertainment to your TikTok audience.
- Adjust the size/length: TikTok videos should ideally be short and to the point. Aim for 15 to 60 seconds to keep your audience engaged. Ensure your repurposed content fits within these parameters, trimming or segmenting longer videos as necessary.
- Reshare frequency: It’s a must to strike a balance. While resharing popular content can improve engagement, doing so too frequently may lead to audience fatigue. A good rule of thumb is to wait several weeks or even months before resharing, depending on your content volume and variety.
By exploring different ways to repurpose your content, you don’t just save resources but also create opportunities to present your brand in a fresh light.
Using a social media management tool like SocialBee allows your small business to plan, create, and schedule posts across all popular social media platforms, ensuring your content strategy remains uninterrupted, even during the busiest periods.
Frequently asked questions
Ready to use TikTok for business success?
TikTok is an essential platform for small businesses because of its enormous user base, creative format options, and engagement and interaction features.
As such, TikTok can easily help small businesses enhance their digital marketing efforts and reach a broader audience.
You learned five tips for marketing on TikTok to follow for the best results. Now it’s time to put them to work. Continue to create engaging content and stay true to your approach. With time, your small business TikTok profile and your small business will reap the rewards.
Because consistency is key when building a TikTok presence, you’ll need a tool to ensure that your posting schedule and your content strategy are always up-to-date. Start your 14-day SocialBee trial today and bring your small business closer to TikTok success!
Create posts, publish, analyze, engage and collaborate, all from SocialBee.
About the author: Owen Baker is a content marketer for Voila Norbert, an online email verification tool. He has spent most of the last decade working online for a range of marketing companies. When he’s not busy writing, you can find him in the kitchen mastering new dishes.
