Using TikTok For Marketing

TikTok is sort of an interesting creature. It's a social media platform where you post short videos; the topic of those videos can be whatever you want them to be, and people definitely take advantage of that. Better yet, TikTok has a rudimentary editing interface that allows a user to edit video recorded by his phone or computer. This makes it great for those looking to get the word out about their writing or associated merchandise and possibly expand their audience.

However, like any other social medium, there are some things about TikTok that you need to remember. TikTok is a visual medium and one that requires some thinking ahead. You need to be thinking in commercial lengths, or no more than two minutes, the shorter the better. This is not a medium for pontification unless you can do it in less than a minute. But let's look at some of the ways you can do take advantage of what it has to offer.

[Disclaimer: TikTok is owned by ByteDance, a Chinese company. While ByteDance has taken some steps to ensure that non-Chinese citizens will not be surveilled by the Chinese government, a number of government offices, including the United States government and numerous state governments, have banned employees from using the app. Bearing in mind that a little paranoia is a good thing but the numbers are too good to ignore, the best advice is the usual: Don't post anything you don't want an employer, an enemy, or anyone else to see.]

Getting the Word Out

With an audience of 31 million viewers daily, TikTok is a great way to get the message out. The platform's use of hashtags ensures that anyone posting anything to the platform can target as general or as specific an audience as they would like, and you can easily look to see which hashtags are currently in use. This ensures that anything you post will be seen by a number of people, and with any luck reposted and spread.

Finding Users with Similar Interests

You need to realize that hashtags are important on other platforms, but they are even more important on TikTok. The platform is designed for those who can use hashtags to effect; the search engine is geared toward hashtags more than any other platform. While regular text still works, it should be used to supplement the hashtags more than stand on their own; in short, get used to using them.

This should not be something that scares you away; you should already be doing it for other platforms, especially if you use Amazon. The idea is to have three or four tags you generally use anyway (#booktok should be one of them, as that's one of the most widely used tags for writers), and then add another couple of tags that apply to the specific video. But don't get too crazy with them; remember that most people use their phones to access TikTok and hashtags use space; you don't want your book hidden by text. So use them sparingly, but definitely use them.

Getting News From Other Users

If you're using this to get the word out, so are other writers. This means that you can follow your favorite authors, your favorite hashtags, and even some discussions on TikTok. For example, if you like fantasy books, then you should be following #fantasybook, #fantasy, and even #swordandsorcery to keep track of what is happening in those genres. You're going to find that the smaller authors are more fun to follow while larger authors tend to be more worried about press releases.

Another Avenue For Creativity 

While you may be thinking solely in terms of getting the word out about your writing, you need to keep in mind that there is so much more to using TikTok well. You can ask questions of your audience, use it as a personal journal, and even offer writing tips or life in general. The idea should not be to focus solely on your books, but take advantage of the platform and share a little of yourself. You'll find that the more you share of yourself, the more successful you will be, i.e., the bigger your audience will be. This may not be ideal for introverts, but it can help open you up a little.

Have Fun

This cannot be emphasized enough. Sure, you can point your camera at yourself and just talk for a minute or so, but that's just scratching the surface. You can create small animations, show the cover of your book, even create fan-casting videos for the cast of a movie based on your book. There is virtually no real limit to what you can do; you have to have 10 minutes; have some fun with it. You can be creative; some reasonably complicated things can be done in shorter.

Even if you don't want to do anything fancy, there is a lot you can do. You show yourself unboxing your books, discussing your book (such as why you had to write it, the basic concept, even go into who you based characters after), or just discuss writing. You can talk about the world your book is set in and why it's unique. You can even muse about life in general. There are no real limits so don't limit yourself; if you want to talk about how to make it big on the Stock Exchange, go for it; it's your channel so do what you want.

You can also use TikTok to gripe, complain, and otherwise share your pain; a pain shared is halved, after all. This also allows you to warn others off of something or offer critique. This can further help you look like someone others can relate to, and that helps your audience grow as well. So share your pain just as much as you share everything else.

It's Easy to Use

Unlike other platforms, TikTok is good for beginners. There aren't as many moving parts as there are for other platforms, you can get feedback sooner, and there's no real barrier to entry. You can sign up in minutes and be posting almost as soon. For someone who wants to get into social media and do it as quickly and painlessly as possible, this is a good way to get your feet wet.

However, keep in mind that there is always a learning curve. While it may be easy to learn and figure out, you still need to figure out what will work for you. There is still figuring out what the stats mean for you, and realizing that instant gratification isn't the best; you still need patience because sometimes the best results won't come for a day or two, or even a week. So get your feet wet, but keep in mind that this is one river that can be as deep as you want it to be.

Just don't keep to the shallows for long.

It's Great During Rendering

Every artist has forced downtime; no matter how much you try to avoid it, you will find times when you need to waste some time. For us writers, that's printing out a copy of the book so that we can look for "issues" or rendering a book into a PDF. Sometimes you could just have some time between deliveries. Opening up the app and seeing what your numbers look like, answering some DMs, and just watching some videos can help that time pass more quickly. TikTok can be one of the best quick entertainment out there.

You Only Need a Phone

With the way technology has improved over the last few decades, it was just a matter of time before our phones combined all of our major functions. In this case, it means you have one object that has your camera, internet access, and some way to edit video. This means that you don't need any fancy equipment to get the job done; you just need the device that keeps you attached to the rest of the world. Provided you have some sort of internet service, you can easily create videos, even do so in-app.

People Share Techniques

Something that's sort of cool is that people like sharing how they do things. It doesn't matter if it's how to carve a sculpture, make dinner, or even build a world, people like showing how they do things. It is just a matter of finding people that are doing what you want to learn to do. This is where you really figure out how hashtags work; they can help you find some of the coolest techniques you would ever want to learn.

On the flip side, this applies in reverse. If you have something others would like to learn, now is the time to figure out how to teach it to others. It may seem boring or "just part of the job", but you would be surprised what interests other people. Look for techniques, but keep in mind that you can do them as well.

Great for Showing Off 

This may be obvious at this point, but you can and should use TikTok for showing off. If pain shared is halved the glory shared is doubled; don't be afraid to show off your new books, great toys, or even share the events that made your day so great. Someone out there needs the boost that you could give them.

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There are a number of advantages to using TikTok as part of your advertising campaign. It can help you boost your numbers by hitting an audience that you may not normally hit. You can also use the videos produced for it for reels on other platforms, such as Facebook and YouTube. Better yet, you can use the smaller videos as germs for longer videos; your small 60-second video can become the basis for a 10-minute video.

For those looking for content on their sites and platforms, this is not a bad start. Given that all sorts of sites, even Amazon, are looking for video content of all sorts, this is a good place to start. Check out some of the tutorial videos that show you how to produce TikTok videos and charge; all you need is a camera and most phones and laptops come with one as part of their basic hardware, so that's not the excuse it used to be. You need to have some sort of internet presence, and this is not a bad place to start.