Did you know that TikTok ads have been shown to increase brand awareness by up to 34% and drive sales by up to 30%?
Or that users spend an average of 52 minutes a day on the app?
With such a captive audience, advertising on TikTok can be a game-changer for your business.
With over a billion active users, this fast-growing social media platform has become a hot spot for advertising. But like any new platform, TikTok has its own set of challenges.
From creating engaging content that resonates with the platform’s unique audience, to effectively targeting and measuring the ROI of campaigns, the process can be a tricky one. But don’t let these challenges discourage you.
With the right strategies and techniques, you can overcome these obstacles and drive real results for your business on TikTok.
In this article, we will be sharing the top five problems faced by TikTok advertisers, providing tips and tricks to help you create effective campaigns and achieve your business goals.
Whether you are a beginner or a seasoned marketer, this guide will give you a clear picture of how to navigate the platform and make the most out of your ad spend. So, let’s dive in and discover how to make your TikTok ad campaigns a success.
How to fix the most common Tiktok issues
In this section, you will find the most effective ways to address the most common challenges of advertising on Tiktok.
However, a word of warning: as usual, content is king.
And to solve the vast majority of your TikTok issues, it’s enough to take a hard look at your content. Creating engaging content for an appropriate audience is the best way to increase your ROI.
It’s essential to study a meticulous content marketing strategy if you want to be a powerhouse on the social media platform. Not only a good strategy will save you money and time, but it will basically guarantee success.
Let’s delve into the common issues that arise with TikTok advertising, and how to solve them to make your campaign as successful as possible.
#1 Content that is not compelling
More than one billion videos are viewed each day, according to TechJury. With such a huge pool of content, users can choose from, it’s imperative that your video can steal the viewer’s eye within the first three seconds.
Should you be able to immediately engage with the viewer and have them interact with your content or ad, the social media’s algorithm will immediately start pushing your visibility up.
Although this isn’t by any means a complete list, some of the best ways to make your content more compelling within the first three seconds are:
- Using humour (a viral example)
- Using beautiful visuals, sounds and psychological triggers (example: Daexo)
- Using good video-editing skills and a fast-paced camera movement to compliment the “bite-sized” nature of Tiktok videos (example: Zach King)
- Use filters and special effects
Bonus tip: TikTok’s algorithm is designed to prefer fresh content. So, if you are running an ad campaign, changing the video every week will maximise its performance.
#2 Using a generic social media strategy
The way you manage Facebook and Instagram campaign and the way you manage a TikTok one are completely different. This is because TikTok’s algorithm works in a completely different way from other social media platforms.
The main difference is that Facebook’s algorithm prioritises user engagement and relevance to an audience.
TikTok, on the other hand, is a lot simpler: it will push your content forward if its algorithm believes it has a high chance of being shared or going viral.
Facebook and Instagram rely on engagement metrics such as likes and shares to measure the relevance of an ad, which also makes it very simple for performance marketers to adjust ad spending and optimise results.
However, TikTok’s algorithm only focuses on the potential virality of content, which uses a fairly advanced machine learning model to predict which type of content is more likely to go viral.
Furthermore, the way Tiktok captures user data is a lot different from Facebook.
While Meta’s giant relies on nearly all aspects of a user’s actions to target them with relevant ads, TikTok focuses on interests and watch history to send them more content they are likely to engage with.
What this means for marketers is that content popular on Facebook and Instagram may disappear into TikTok’s content jungle, wasting all of that precious ad spend.
A strong TikTok social media advertisement always starts with visually-driven and entertaining content that resonates with a unique audience likely to share.
Understanding the platform’s relationship with filters, music and other effects will allow you to create a strong, TikTok-specific content campaign with an increased likelihood of going viral.
#3 Not taking algorithm speed into account
Every time you publish something on TikTok, the algorithm collects your data to understand how your content should interact with the audience.
TikTok’s algorithm is therefore a bit slower than Facebook, whose targeting is optimised by an improved data capture feature that makes the platform so infamous.
What this means for you is that your content will likely be presented to a broader audience before being able to “niche down” and only present it to very specific people.
This is not normally a huge deal, but as performance marketers, this goes against everything we stand for: saving time and money.
To beat the algorithm and immediately target the right audience on TikTok, we like to start small, targeting maybe 50 people at a time, so that the algorithm can learn our behaviour without the need for huge ad spending.
After that is optimised, we can then launch a campaign at full force and optimise the entire sales funnel.
#4 A poor hashtag strategy
A common TikTok problem that many marketers face is not having a real hashtag strategy. This lowers your reach massively!
Using generic hashtags such as #mood and #love instead of niche-specific ones can lead to your content getting lost among a sea of other posts that are using the same hashtags as you, even if they are not relevant to your content.
This is why performance-centric agencies like to use specific software such as Keyhole or Hashtagify to optimise hashtag research and find low-competition, high-traffic opportunities to get you discovered by your target audience in no time.
You could even create your unique branded hashtag. This has been done by brands of all sorts, from Coca-Cola’s #Shareacola to #LikeAGirl by Always.
Once your TikTok page is popular enough, take it a step further by creating a branded hashtag challenge, where users are required to post some sort of specific content using your hashtag in exchange for a prize.
#5 You are not collaborating with influencers the right way
Influencers are an extremely powerful tool to use on Tiktok!
They are the perfect way to reach a large, already engaged audience on the platform. Partnering up with popular TikTok creators allows you to gain access to a highly targeted group of users who are likely to be interested in your products or services.
One of the main benefits of TikTok influencers, however, comes under the form of content – their ability to create authentic content thanks to their deep understanding of their audience allows influencers to create a message that resonates with your target audience.
Like clockwork, this increases brand awareness and sales.
However, there are some challenges to consider when working with influencers – admittedly, costs are a huge obstacle for many businesses out there.
Partnering with influencers can be expensive, and you need to be prepared to invest significant resources in your campaign, should you choose to work with macro-influencers.
Recommended read: Micro vs Macro influencers: which one is the best for my business?
Additionally, there is always a risk that the influencer will not align well with your brand, which can lead to an ineffective campaign (and a huge waste of money).
TikTok influencer marketing is incredibly effective – but inaccessible to most due to the significant investment of time and resources.
This barrier can be fortunately overcome by working with reputable agencies like topflight. With a comprehensive influencer marketing service and a list of trusted partners suitable for any budget, we offer the best way to navigate this landscape and get the results you want.
How to contact Tiktok about a problem
If you’re having trouble with TikTok, here are a few ways you can get in touch with them:
- Submit a request through the TikTok Help Center. You can find this by going to your profile, then “Settings and Privacy,” and then “Help and Support.”
- Use the in-app reporting feature. You can find this by clicking the “…” button on the video you want to report, and then “Report.”
- Hit them up on social media, like Twitter or Facebook.
- Send an email to [email protected]
- Leave feedback using the form in the app.
Just a heads up though, before you contact support, you might want to check the Help Center first, as the answer to your problem might already be there.
Conclusion
TikTok is a powerful platform with a vast, varied audience that you can easily reach through a sound digital advertising strategy to reach new heights.
For sure, it does come with challenges posed by an algorithm that is different to other social media platforms.
By understanding the common problems that arise with Tiktok advertising and learning their solutions, businesses just like yours have created highly effective campaigns with massive results.
To make the most out of your ad spend, consider seeking out professional agencies that specialise in TikTok marketing such as ourselves. Our performance-centric mindset and ability to develop a highly effective campaign on a “pay per result” model make us the perfect partner for businesses looking to succeed on the platform.
So don’t hesitate to reach out and learn more about our services and how we can help you achieve your business goals on TikTok.
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Alex Grossi
