You’ve probably heard that Gen Z isn’t Googling anymore (I didn’t say that; Google did a whole research and everything. Go look it up.). Yep, they are flocking to the ‘clock’ app to search for tutorials, recipes, and even historical facts. Let’s face it, if you still think TikTok is just another kids’ app for silly dancing, believe me when I say that while it is that… it is so, so much more.
Also, if you really do still think that in 2022, and your Marketing team isn’t trying their hardest to change your mind, hire a new team. No, really – what are you doing if you’re not on TikTok to grow your business? With over 1 billion monthly active users worldwide, TikTok is the place to be to market, sell and profit. So wake up from this slumber and download the app immediately.
You may be thinking, “I already have an Instagram!”. Sure. But try and look at it this way – while Instagram is all about the picture-perfect, sculpted supermodels and professionally photoshopped campaigns, TikTok is where you can be real.
TikTok’s whole allure is the layman’s point of view. It’s your next-door neighbour’s kid finger-painting and getting 300k views. It’s your aunt making her curry recipe and getting 500k views. It’s your sister sharing her favourite lip gloss and going viral until the lip gloss is sold out everywhere. No professional videographers, no scripts – just them and a phone. TikTok views can bring about sales and boost your brand reputation, and here’s how you can start.
First and foremost, the one thing you need to do before you film your first video – research. (It’s okay I’ve already done it for you, just keep reading.)
You have a product or a service. Let’s say you’re a cleaning service and want more people to hire you and your team. What do you do? Share your price listing poster and call it a day. No. You go to TikTok and search for #CleanTok. There is a whole community of people who are into watching other people clean their homes. I know. Weird. But guess what? #CleanTok has 44.1 billion views to date. That’s not a typo. 44.1 billion.
Now, watch the videos with the most views. From there, you’ll see that these type of videos work best:
- ASMR – sounds of scrubbing and washing kitchen countertops and toilet seats
- ‘Before & After’s – a smooth transition from before a clean-up, to after a clean-up
- Point of View – the person recording the video while holding their phone, cleaning things
From here, think about your cleaning service, and have this mantra tattooed in your mind: “everything is content”. We’ll come back to this later.
What can you do with the three types of videos that work? You record your own!
- Film your team working, solely for the sounds – it can be anything from unboxing a new batch of cleaning supplies to scraping a tough stain off of the floor with the #unboxing and #asmr
- Take a ‘before’ video compilation of the area you’re cleaning, and then transition (with your hand) to the ‘after’ video compilation and use the #satisfying
- Get your hands dirty – go and pick up trash one by one put it all in a trash can, tie up your trash bag, and toss it, with the #cleaning
I know all of this sounds bizarre and it can be overwhelming at first, but there are a lot of bizarre things on the internet, and they’re being watched by billions of people, and those content creators are making serious bank on their weirdness. Stay with me here. Focus.
Once you’ve got those three videos ready in your drafts, get ready with a call-to-action as a caption for all your videos, for example, “hire us because we know what we’re doing, check profile for deets” and don’t forget the #CleanTok, #fyp and #foryoupage. The more informal you are, the better. It makes you #relatable.
Next, post all the videos at once so you have something to get started on when people start viewing your profile.
Aha, your profile. I’m going to need you to make sure your entire profile is complete (so that people can reach out to you and hire you, duh!) when you start posting. I’m talking about a short but catchy bio, links to your website, WhatsApp Business contact and to all your other social media platforms. And while your TikTok username can be the name of your business, your profile name, however, can be “let us clean yr house pls”. That will surely catch some attention. This brings us to the next step:
Get acquainted. This means you need to follow all the brands you look up to, including local businesses, and other #CleanTok creators. Like and send a funny (but be genuine!) comment on their videos. That’s right. It sounds taxing but TikTok users scour comments like millennials scour thrift shops. Commenting on other people’s videos will make your account visible. When you’re visible, people will visit your profile. And when they visit your profile, what will they find? Three awesome video links to get to know you better, and they might even give you a follow!
Look, anyone with a social media account knows that followers are not just empty numbers. There are actual real-life people behind those accounts who will want more content, every day. While TikTok is mainly for entertainment, it has also now morphed itself into a form of infotainment. What keeps a follower coming back is the value you add to their lives. And this brings us back to our mantra, that “everything is content”.
As an entrepreneur and a service provider, you have the know-how of a professional. You know more than the average person about your business or service. You belong to a niche, and that niche has so much potential for content creation. Other than all the trendy videos you could do, you could also share cleaning tips. Yes, others are sharing cleaning tips too, but think about what can set your business apart. Your content could be made into something that’s even more personal for the follower, for example, ‘how to instantly remove the odour from your cat’s litterbox’, or skewed to a specific gender, like a video on ‘cleaning period stains in an emergency’.
The possibilities are endless.
You can even post some funny videos while on the job, like falling while you were mopping (without injury, of course) or putting the wrong type of soap into the auto cleaner and now you have foam everywhere. Heart-warming videos of your customer’s reactions to their newly cleaned home. A re-enactment of the types of customers you have. Replying to a comment asking how to clean a couch, with a video of you cleaning a couch.
Everything is content, and the possibilities are endless.
Now that you have this picture in your mind of what your business TikTok could be, you may be thinking, “Whoa, we could even go viral one day!”. Stop right there.
When creating content on TikTok, the goal should never be “to go viral”. What most people don’t understand is that virality is organic. Sometimes, the content creator didn’t even intend to have millions of views. Sometimes, the video was just something they decided to share off the cuff. But that’s the beauty of the TikTok algorithm – anyone at all can have a video that does well, without even anticipating for it to happen. Better yet, you could have a video go very well without even having any followers at first.
TikTok has a feature called the ‘For You’ page. This is where the algorithm starts its work. The videos you like, the people you follow and the videos you loop will help TikTok decide on what you’re interested in, and your For You page will keep showing you videos related to those interests. This is the way TikTok builds its communities, and from these communities are where you will find your customers.
All I’m saying at the end of the day is, just try it out for yourself and see what it could do for your business. If it all doesn’t work out, then well, Instagram and Facebook are still around.
The thing is, you know your business better than anyone else. You’ve done the R&D and have your own set of goals. You know who your customers are, and you know who you want to reach, and what other companies you want to be like. Think of TikTok as a tool for you to build your own brand reputation with its limitless, borderless, international community of prospective customers. Think of how far you can go with just a little bit of TikTok research and value-adding content.
Think of your business as not just an account on the internet, but a lifestyle that your customers can hope to want. By inspiring others with the knowledge that you have about your niche, your brand can be much more than what it intended to be. Remember: people don’t buy dUCk for the quality of their scarves, but for the lifestyle that the brand represents.
What does your brand represent? Go record a TikTok about it.