6 Top Benefits of TikTok for Business

Posted on January 20, 2022January 20, 2022 by Emory A. Ziemer

If your business is already on Twitter or Snapchat, and you have yet to take advantage of what TikTok offers, you are missing out on a big audience. This is because, since its launch in 2016, TikTok has gained more users than Twitter and Snapchat combined. TikTok is a popular social medium platform that has earned a spot just below Instagram in terms of the number of active users. To help digital marketers maximize the reach of their ad campaigns, TikTok for Business was officially launched in 2020. It offers marketers a wide range of useful resources.

TikTok can benefit businesses because it offers more than just a short video platform. It also gives you an option to use live streaming, stickers, paid ads, and influencer marketing. Through TikTok, your business can generate creative content, improve brand awareness to generation Z, and integrate with social media platforms Instagram and Facebook, among others.

Here are the 6 top benefits of TikTok for business:

1. Reach Lots of People Quickly

Despite TikTok being a relatively new social media platform, it’s the most downloaded app in Apple’s iOS App Store. This means it’s ahead of older social media platforms, such as Twitter, Pinterest, and Snapchat. This does not come as a surprise, considering that TikTok excels at video content.

That is why this platform is the perfect place for businesses to reach an international audience. Because of the large audience already on the platform, and more users that are expected to join, businesses are encouraged to take advantage of this platform and market their products and services.

2. Numerous Influencers

Another appealing aspect of this social media platform is that anyone can go viral. It can happen that someone with a few or zero followers and views can post a TikTok video today and have a million views the next day. So anyone has the potential of having a massive following on TikTok, meaning the platform has an endless number of influencers to choose from.

Businesses targeting a specific group of people in a particular location can easily find well-suited people on TikTok who already have a huge following, and can help them increase brand awareness. Many companies are taking advantage of influencer marketing to increase brand awareness and generate sales. One of the best places you can benefit from influencer marketing as a business is on the TikTok platform.

Because there are so many people with a large following on TikTok, sifting through influencers can be a grueling task. Plus, it also can be difficult to determine if a particular influencer will be the perfect fit for you. That is why TikTok came up with an analytics tool called TikTok Creator Marketplace, which helps brands find influencers to partner with. You will have access to the influencers’ engagement, demographics, views, reach, and a lot more.

3. Creative Liberties

Most of the content on the TikTok platform is entertaining, light, and whimsical. It’s where real people creatively express themselves, and sometimes they do that in silly ways. But just because most content is enjoyable does not mean that serious and authentic businesses offering goods and services cannot use the platform to showcase their brand.

In fact, the serious approach to marketing your business is not the only way to increase brand awareness. If you want to generate sales, you need a creative marketing strategy. Social media marketing has gained a lot of popularity over the past couple of years, and it would be unwise for businesses to miss tapping into this area of marketing and taking full advantage of it.

Most social media users want authenticity and human connection. So even though you mean serious business when running your company, it will benefit you immensely to make potential customers feel more comfortable with your brand.

And this can be achieved by positioning your organization as one that is easy to connect with and conversational. Keep in mind that even though you may have a target market, by being more open to new marketing methods, you might actually end up attracting clients who would not have otherwise considered buying your products or doing business with you.

4. You Can Repurpose Content

TikTok videos are short (capped at 60 seconds), can be customized, and can be repurposed across all the other social media platforms that you are on. For instance, you can send a TikTok video to your Instagram Stories to build your community across multiple platforms. You can even publish TikTok videos that promote your brand on your company website or use them in presentations or onboarding videos.

Yet, it’s important to ensure that the message you are trying to convey is the same on every platform. TikTok videos generally have content that is lighthearted. Therefore, make sure that your message and images do not differ noticeably, as this might confuse people who come across your content on other platforms or visit your website.

5. High User Engagement Rate

Another reason you should consider TikTok for business is because of its high user engagement rate. With an average TikTok user spending 52 minutes daily on the app, it means that businesses have plenty of opportunities to reach potential customers. And one of the main reasons for the high engagement rate is the content variety on TikTok. So no matter what you specialize in as a company, whether you are a transport company or a clothing brand, there’s an opportunity for you to increase visibility for your brand on the TikTok platform. Plus, because of TikTok’s unparalleled delivery algorithms, not much effort is needed to get higher engagement on videos.

6. Cost-Effective

One reason some businesses are still hesitant about investing money and time marketing their services and products on TikTok is that they think setting up campaigns and keeping track of another app’s data may be too demanding. What some businesses may not know is that you can advertise your brand on TikTok and benefit immensely with a budget of any size. This is one of the most appealing parts of TikTok for small businesses.

Compared to platforms that are more established, achieving organic reach while staying within your marketing budget is quite easy, even if you are a lesser-known brand. With some established platforms, engagement is becoming more costly. That is why businesses are encouraged to diversify their media mix and turn to platforms where there is faster potential for growth, like TikTok.

Conclusion

Although teens and young adults make up most TikTok users, and businesses with a target market of between ages 16 and 24 are recommended to launch on this platform, many users in other age groups also spend hours scrolling through the app. It’s is important to note that even though teens and young adults made up most of Instagram’s users when it started, millions of businesses are now on the platform. All businesses are encouraged to take advantage of this social media platform to advertise their brand, no matter what the target market is.

7 Content Marketing Trends to Watch in 2022

Posted on January 20, 2022January 20, 2022 by Emory A. Ziemer

One interesting result of the pandemic has been a growth in the perceived importance of content marketing. In 2021, a whopping 43 percent of businesses saw an increase in their content budget, and 66 percent expect further increases in 2022, according to a report by Content Marketing Institute.

For content creators the world over, the coming year should be a big one. But what other developments are we likely to see in this field? Here are seven of the biggest trends to look out for.

1. Voice Search

In the U.S. alone, an estimated 132 million people use some kind of voice-activated search assistant, according to eMarketer. Gadgets such as Amazon’s Alexa and Google Home Mini speakers are booming in sales, a trend expected only to accelerate in 2022.

As a content creator, you can meet this trend by optimizing your posts for voice search. When speaking aloud, people tend to ask full questions, more so than when typing. As a result of this, FAQ pages are gaining in value. It’s also a good idea to create detailed answers to common questions in all your content.

More natural conversational keywords are also more likely to be matched to voice searches. Focus on words that you know to be spoken most often by your customers when discussing your niche.

2. Video, Audio, and Interactive Content

Another trend surging into 2022 is an audience desire for visuals, videos, audio, gamification, and other interactivity. This kind of content is more suitable for many social media platforms, where attention spans are shorter. It also works better for smaller smartphone screens, where reading is less popular.

As a marketer, you could adapt to this by more often supplementing your written content with infographics, images, short-form videos, and interactive elements. You might even set up systems for repurposing all your published content across the various platforms. Repurposing is a superb way to gain more bang for your buck and reach more potential customers with each piece of content created.

3. Virtual and Hybrid Events

Over the past two years, we’ve all taken a huge leap into the virtual world. People have become accustomed to both virtual events and hybrid events. A hybrid event is one that still has in-person elements, such as a live audience there in the room with the presenters. But it is also a virtual, and usually interactive, element for those attending online.

Every sign shows virtual events continuing to boom in 2022. Consider introducing virtual or hybrid presentations, webinars, and conferences into your content marketing and overall business model. Your funnel of Tweets, posts, videos, and emails might end in a larger, more in-depth virtual event.

4. Podcasts

Podcasts will continue to grow in popularity in 2022. Podcast Insights found that over 50 percent of all households in the U.S. regularly listen to this form of media. Indeed, the word “podcasting” has finally become a true household term that everyone knows, even the older generations.

No matter the industry, small-business owners would be well advised to introduce podcasting into their content campaigns. Few things do more to humanize your brand and build a relationship with your clientele. With podcasts, you have quickly made, high-quality video content to use across various platforms, and podcasts are perfect for slicing and dicing for repurposing as snippet videos, posts, Tweets, emails, and infographics.

5. Artificial Technology

It’s evident that AI will play an increasing role in various aspects of content marketing in 2022. Most significantly, AI is super-charging data analytics, allowing you to know more about your target audience and website visitors than ever before. This, in combination with more in-depth keyword research, will allow the savvy content creator to tweak and optimize content more precisely, for better overall results.

Can a robot write?

An area of fierce debate in this industry is the role of Machine Generated Content. It’s generally agreed that automatic content-creation tools such as Jarvis, Rytr, or Article Forge cannot yet come close to matching the quality of content written by a skilled human.

These kinds of services are, however, being increasingly used to augment content, or at least create drafts upon which a writer can build. And who knows what advancements the coming year will bring?

6. Quality, Quality, Quality

Google’s updates continue to roll out. With each one, the king of search engines is more able to determine the genuine value of any given search result. There’s no doubt that content-marketing success in 2022 will require better-quality content than ever before.

This means meeting Google’s E.A.T. criteria; you must demonstrate Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. The days of spammy content are over. Instead, focus purely on giving your audience the best experience possible. If you can make your visitors happier than the competition, you’ll stay in the lead for longer.

7. Intent-Based Searches

As part and parcel of the push for better quality, ‘intent’ has become a buzzword in SEO. Google increasingly knows the actual intent behind every keyword typed, and it serves up results to answer that intent, even if the entire question was not typed out.

So in 2022, more than ever before, you must also understand the intent behind keywords searches, before creating content to meet that intent. Consider the “why” behind the words. What exactly does the searcher want to see? Are they after information, navigation, commerce, or pre-commerce research? For a deeper dive into determining a searcher’s intent, you can read an excellent guide by Ahrefs at ahrefs.com/blog/search-intent.

With the current roaring growth of content marketing, 2022 should be a very exciting year for publishers. Stay ahead of these seven trends to ensure a year that’s rich with traffic, leads, and growth for your business.

The Beginner’s Guide to Facebook Business Suite

Posted on January 19, 2022January 20, 2022 by Emory A. Ziemer

Marketing your business on Facebook can be time-consuming. As the world’s largest social media network, it offers multiple forms of promotion. Facebook, however, recently launched a new dashboard to help business owners manage all of their pages, content, messages, and advertising campaigns. Known as Business Suite, it will allow you to leverage the full marketing power of Facebook.

What Is Business Suite?

Business Suite is a dashboard that provides access to business management tools for Facebook and its affiliated properties, such as Instagram. It’s the successor to Business Manager. Business Suite is a centralized dashboard from which you can manage your business’s presence on Facebook and its affiliated properties.

There are different places where you can promote a business on Facebook. You can promote in one or more pages, for example, and you can promote it in the social media network’s news feed with ads. Rather than going to each of these places to manage your business’s presence, you can use Business Suite.

Benefits of Using Business Suite

With Business Suite, you can easily manage all of your business’s pages. Facebook only allows users to create a single profile, but it doesn’t limit the number of pages they can create. Whether you have a single page or a dozen pages, you can manage all of them in Business Suite.

Logging in to Business Suite will reveal all of the pages to which you’ve been given access. You can filter and sort the listed pages, and you can load them by clicking the “View Page” button. With that said, you can create posts for one or more pages in Business Suite without loading them. Business Suite features a post creation tool that you use to immediately publish new posts or schedule posts to be published in the future.

In addition to creating posts, you can use Business Suite to create Facebook Stories and Instagram Stories. Stories are visual posts that expire after 24 hours. Standard posts are available to view indefinitely, whereas Stories are deleted upon expiration. Assuming you’ve connected your Instagram account to your Facebook account, you can create Stories for both social media networks in Business Suite.

Business Suite features an Insights section. In this section, you can analyze performance metrics for your pages and Instagram accounts. Business Suite shows Page reach, for instance. Pulling up the Insights section will reveal how many users viewed any content from a page during your selected time period. Other Insights metrics include page likes, post reach, post likes, user demographics, and more.

Other Insights metrics include page likes, post reach, post likes, user demographics, and more.

You can manage your advertising campaigns in Business Suite. It will reveal how many ads are running, as well as how many ads are in review, for each of your Pages. Business Suite offers links to both Creative Hub and Ads Manager. Ads Manager is Facebook’s universal tool for creating and optimizing ads. Creative Hub, on the other hand, is a tool for creating mockup versions of ads.

You can use Business Suite on a desktop or mobile device. Facebook offers a mobile app for Business Suite. The Business Suite mobile app is available on Google Play and on Apple’s App Store. Facebook also offers a Business Manager mobile app, which now redirects to Business Suite. If you prefer working on a mobile device, you can download one of these mobile apps.

Business Suite will consolidate all of your notifications. By default, it will display notifications for your pages, ads, apps, and business. If a user likes one of your pages, for example, you’ll see a notification for this action in Business Suite. If an ad that you recently submitted was approved, you’ll see a notification for it as well.

Getting Started With Business Suite

Business Suite is available at business.facebook.com. You’ll need to log in to the profile associated with your business account. If you don’t already have a business account, you’ll need to create one in Business Suite. Creating a business account is free; you just need to enter the name of your business, your own name, and a work-related email address.

The home screen of Business Suite for desktop devices consists of menu options on the left. In the center of the home screen, you’ll see a list of your pages, ad performance information, and ad alerts.

Most of Business Suite’s tools can be accessed by clicking the menu icon in the upper-left corner of the home screen. Clicking this menu icon will display a list of links. You’ll see a set of shortcut links at the top of the list. Shortcut links include Creative Hub, ad limits per page, account quality, business settings, Ads Manager, and Events Manager. Below the shortcut links are categories for tools, performance reports, and other features.

If you use Instagram to promote your business, you should connect it to your Facebook account. Business Suite will only display information about your Instagram account if they are connected. Start by clicking the shortcut link to business settings. On the next page, select the option to add a new asset. Assets in Business Suite are accounts and pages. When you add a new asset, you can choose your Instagram account.

To view notifications in Business Suite, click the bell icon in the lower-left corner of the home screen. The notifications page will display notifications associated with your pages, ads, apps, and business.

Keep in mind that Business Suite supports multiple users. Not all businesses are owned and operated by a single person. Many businesses have multiple owners. Therefore, Facebook allows multiple users to share the same Business Suite. To add a user to your Business Suite, go back to the assets page and click the “Add” button, after which you can enter the user’s name or email address. The user will receive an invite, which he or she must accept to access your Business Suite.

With Business Suite, Facebook is pushing the envelope to help business owners manage their presence. Business Suite offers a unified marketing solution. By using Business Suite, you can manage nearly every aspect of your business on Facebook and its affiliated properties