A leaked TikTok for Business deckstated that the average user spends 89 minutes per day on the platform.
Eighty-nine minutes is, inarguably, a long time to spend on an application. However, eighty-nine minutes means that businesses have invaluable opportunities to capture audience attention and generate interest.
If you’re hoping to get in on the action, read on to discover high-quality ideas for content to post on TikTok.
What is TikTok?
As a refresher, TikTok is a social media platform where users can record, edit, and share video content. These videos can be anywhere between 15 seconds to three minutes long, creating ample opportunity for all types of content to take center stage.
What to Post on TikTok
Let’s go over some high-quality ideas and examples of content you can post on TikTok.
1. Day-to-day routine videos.
Daily routine videos give viewers insight into how work happens at your business.
It shares the processes that bring your product or services to life, and it can be a fun way to build a connection through a behind-the-scenes look. If you leverage this tip, it’s a best practice to create a daily routine video that features everyday tasks most related to your business.
Glass Half Full is a small business in Louisiana that diverts glass products from landfills by collecting used glassware and recycling it into sand and glass cullet. It uses TikTok to generate awareness and interest in its business, and the video below demonstrates what a day of glass collection and recycling looks like.
2. Share content that reflects your brand values.
Content that reflects a brand or business’ values performs best on social media and has the 3rd highest ROI of any content type. Customers also care now, more than ever, about the causes that their favorite businesses stand for and use them as a factor in their purchasing decisions.
As such, sharing your brand values on TikTok is a valuable way to connect with your audience. Those who stand for the same causes as you will take notice, and you have the potential to draw them in as a customer.
Ensure that you’re genuine with this practice, though, as consumers see businesses that make false claims as exploitative and opportunistic.
3. Spotlight your employees.
Spotlighting employees puts a face to your brand and shows audiences the people behind the products and services they love. It also humanizes your business and shares an exciting and exclusive peek into your operation.
4. Educate your audience on relevant topics.
You can share information with your audience on TikTok that will educate them on things related to your industry or niche. If you’re committed to always educating and helping, you’ll build authority, and people will return to you as a source of truth to continue learning more.
Jeeves is a dry cleaning service that shares helpful, educational content with its audience. In the video below, an employee explains the importance of separating light and dark colors when doing laundry.
5. Create product campaigns and tease new launches.
Running product campaigns or teasing upcoming launches on TikTok can help you generate excitement. Viewers know that they can expect a big reveal on your page, and they’ll be waiting on the edge of their seats and returning to your profile to see if you’ve released more information.
A pro tip is to combine a product campaign or launch with a related and relevant sound or hashtag to get more visibility from users scrolling through current trends.
6. Share a unique business story.
Sharing a narrative story about your business is an engaging way to connect with your audience, as these videos represent something that they can only find in your business. For example, customer spotlights or success stories, explaining the lifecycle of your products or services, or an exciting story about related industry news all uniquely relate to your business and what you offer.
One of the great things about TikTok is that audiences don’t expect high-production-value from videos, so you can simply generate an idea and turn on the camera and start filming.
7. Answer audience questions.
Answering questions is a great way to connect with your audience and build relationships. TikTokers often ask questions without being prompted, so you can browse your comments and create video replies to questions or leverage TikTok’s native Q&A feature.
A bonus is that answering questions gives you insight into customers’ troubles with your business. If you see the same asks repeatedly, you might learn that you need to update your FAQ page or provide additional information about specific topics on your website.
In the TikTok below, Franziska, founder of Glass Half Full, answers a comment in a video reply about the business’ practices when it comes to throwing products away.
8. Product Demonstrations
Product demonstrations help your audience learn how to use your products in a digestible way. Instead of reading an instruction manual and deciphering pictures or being walked through the process over the phone, they can actually watch someone take the steps and follow along.
9. Partner with relevant influencers.
Influencers have audiences that trust them and their values, so partnering with one related to your niche is a valuable tool for generating brand awareness and building your following on TikTok. These partnerships are also a valuable form of social proof for viewers, which is a big factor in purchasing decisions.
You can leverage this tip and post influencer content to your profile, but you can also have influencers share content on their profiles to expose you to a new audience group.
Small Business TikTok Ideas
As a small business, you may be wondering if it’s worthwhile to create another social media profile on another app.
Considering that 92% of global TikTok users take action after watching a video and are 1.5x more likely to immediately go out and buy something they discovered on the platform, you have the opportunity to really build your brand if you use the app.
The ideas mentioned above are valuable for large and small businesses alike, and you can leverage many of them without a large budget. However, there are specific content ideas that are relevant for small businesses, and we’ll discuss them below.
1. Share your origin story.
Sharing your small business’ unique origin story humanizes your business and helps you connect with your audience. They’ll clearly see how you came to be and why you care about what you offer, and your video can also be a source of inspiration for your followers starting their own business endeavors.
As mentioned before, TikTok viewers don’t demand high production value, so you can tell your story however you see fit.
In the TikTok below, Pierce Woodward explains how his jewelry business, Brand Pierre, began its journey and grew into what it is today.
2. Highlight your production process.
Showing viewers what goes into creating what you offer is exciting because they’ll see how the things they care about come to be. It also shows the hard work, dedication, and care that goes into creating what you offer, demonstrating your commitment to giving value to your customers.
Victoria Adrian is a textile artist who creates custom rugs and embroidery projects. She frequently shares her production process on TikTok, displaying the care and thought that goes into creating her products.
3. Use trending sounds and hashtags.
Using trending sounds and hashtags helps you build brand awareness for your small business as your videos are visible to a broad audience. People browsing through the sound or hashtag will see all of the different videos that were uploaded and have the potential to land on your video, click on your profile, and learn more about what you offer.
4. Duet and stitch videos.
Duets and Stitches are ways to build on existing TikTok videos. With Duets, you add on to another user’s existing video, and with Stitch, you clip specific scenes from another user’s video to add to your video.
As a small business, using these native TikTok features allows you to engage with existing related content and incite conversation with your audience. You can Stitch and Duet videos from anyone on the platform with the feature enabled, so you can even begin conversations with users that may not know you exist.
Jeeves expertly uses the stitch feature to answer audience questions. The video below is a stitch from a video where someone asks how to take care of an item of clothing.
5. Partner with relevant content creators.
Partnering with content creators or influencers helps you gain exposure to a new audience relevant to what your business offers. By working with a content creator, you’re also benefiting from the trust they’ve built with their audience that the products, services, and businesses they work with and use are trustworthy and worth doing business with.
about time coffee in New York City partnered with a group of sisters, sister snacking, who are influencers in the New York Food scene. The business posted the video to its profile, and so did sistersnacking, featuring some of the store’s products to their audience of 147.6K followers.
6. Showcase what makes your business shine.
A great way to get people excited about what your small business offers is to showcase how well you do what you do. This shows viewers exactly what they can expect from you, generating excitement and maybe helping people decide to work with you based on your expertise.
The Pool Guy, Miles Laflin, is a swimming pool engineer in the UK who often posts videos of the pool cleaning process and the effectiveness of his work. He shows a before and after picture that clearly demonstrates how he brings pools from green and swampy to clear and ready for swimming. He shows that he’s good at his job, alerting potential customers he can bring their pool back to life.
Over To You
TikTok was once the app to watch in 2019.
Now, 52% of social media marketers who leverage the app plan to increase their investments in 2022. If you’re hoping to get in on the channel for the first time or improve your presence, the business examples on this list are a great source of inspiration for you to get started.