TikTok TIPS

TikTok has gained traction as a valuable marketing tool. Sherrie Emery reveals how you can use it to boost your beauty business

TikTok has become an essential tool for any marketing team worth their salt. If you haven’t jumped on the train yet, you’re being left behind! According to social management platform Later, 73% of Gen Z use TikTok daily, making it an invaluable tool for your beauty business to tap into a huge consumer market.

Consulting firm Deloitte reported that brands using social media for commercial marketing see a £15 return on investment for every £1 spent. Beauty is the top-selling category on TikTok Shop, making up 32% of all sales in the UK, according to Statista.

With all those facts and figures, starting a TikTok for your brand should be a no-brainer. Here are five ways you can make the most of the platform.

1. Introduce the team

Consumers like to know who they’re buying their products from. Creating content about your team can effectively humanise your business, capturing an audience invested in your products and your success. It’s important to prioritise authenticity and leave the polished adverts to other platforms.

Content that shows a human face performs 12% better than content that doesn’t, making it vital for you to get yourself and your team in front of the cameras. Some of the most viral beauty businesses have highly visible founders who feature constantly in social content, putting their face to the name. This ensures that when you buy their product, you know who it’s coming from.

To further humanise your brand, keep the conversation going in the comments. Answer questions, respond to followers and comment on other videos. Engage in meaningful conversations with your consumers and be present in other comment sections to further increase brand visibility. Use your team to build a sense of community and make your audience feel heard.

2. Utilise SEO

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) has always been key for brands to increase traffic and visibility, and it’s just as important when it comes to TikTok. Quickly becoming a popular search engine, consumers use TikTok to find everything from the best restaurants and travel destinations to outfits and skincare and everything in between. In fact, 58% of users state they use TikTok as a source of shopping inspiration and 55% have bought something from a brand just after seeing their products on TikTok.

When clicking onto the TikTok search bar you can see trending auto suggestions, showing you what hot topics are being searched for right now. Start to search for a term that describes your niche to test it out.

There are lots of ways to incorporate SEO into your TikToks, including text overlay, accurate captions, including them in your script and, of course, hashtags. To find SEO relevant to your company niche, just begin typing a hashtag and TikTok will tell you how many times it’s been used. Then just use the most popular ones relevant to your company and the video you’ve created.

3. Mix it up

TikTok is the perfect place for punchy, organic videos and simultaneously the ideal platform to advertise and post sponsored content.

Don’t forget to keep tracking your content to see how it performs. What does your audience like to see? Make sure you’re constantly iterating on the content that performs best and listen to what the results are telling you about who your audience is.

You can also track the success of your TikTok and help narrow down on who your audience is by using unique codes and discounts for your TikTok viewers only. This will help you determine how many sales are generated from your videos, and what demographics are being influenced by your content.

In February 2024, 81.3% of TikTok Shop sales came from repeat customers, according to Earnest Analytics, which is a pretty strong incentive to know your audience and do your best to keep them around.

4. Jump on trends

Trends are a great way to increase views and (hopefully) go viral. Keep an awareness of trends by scrolling socials and following brands and figures that create the kind of content you’re impressed by.

Creating trending videos is the perfect way to increase engagement and brand awareness, whilst keeping your content fresh and fun to follow. Trends are another great way to showcase brand personality and even incorporate organic product placement.

Following trends can help your brand stay relevant, but only if the content posted is relevant too. Lengthy approval processes can mean a concept trending in April is finally ready to be posted around Christmas... at which point it’s no longer relevant. Stay on the pulse of trends by creating short videos that don’t require lengthy approvals.

5. Know your audience

As a brand, you’ve spent a lot of time getting to know your target market in the industry. It’s important you target the same consumers on TikTok that your business does. It’s no use having thousands of followers (well, maybe some use), if none of them will ever be converted to sales because they’re not the right demographic. Use the same principles you implement to market your products to create your videos on TikTok.

Use your analytics features to determine age, gender and location of your followers so you can make sure you’re staying on track. Pay attention to important metrics like saves, comments and watch time, as well as engagement and conversion rates. Analyse the information to help you make datadriven decisions to refine your strategy and optimise your content.

Do your own research to see what kind of content your competitors are making and how it resonates with your target audience. Ultimately, your videos should not only generate brand awareness but also drive conversions. Tailor your content to your chosen audience and start seeing those results.

Using TikTok is integral to boosting the profile of your business; don’t wait to take advantage of what has become the ultimate growth environment for beauty brands. Don’t wait to start creating or enlist the help of a marketing agency to start growing your presence.

Sherrie Emery is founder of Lucky Seven Marketing, which provides solutions to SMEs. She has over 19 years’ experience leading marketing, sales and brand-building at brands including Elemis, L’Oréal and Estée Lauder.