Is TikTok a good communication channel for a B2B brand?

Do you publish your content on LinkedIn, send newsletters, and occasionally post something on Instagram and Facebook? Likely, your brand has already reached many interested users in your niche on these channels, making it more difficult for you to “break through” to new users. In addition, people are increasingly experiencing oversaturation with traditional communication formats and simply no longer want to read more emails sent as newsletters.

If TikTok is a place your brand hasn’t been yet, it’s high time to change that! The number of active TikTok users is growing steadily year on year. According to Statista, there are already 1.7 billion users this year! Among them are certainly people who are of interest to you in the context of marketing communication – directors, managers, business owners, and employees in decision-making positions in the context of B2B cooperation.

Source: House of Marketers

The number of users is one thing, but TikTok has another considerable advantage. Due to its highly advanced algorithm, which heavily personalizes content for users, it simply “draws you in” for a long time. The chart below shows the results of a study conducted in the US on the time users spend on social media. TikTok clearly wins in the 18-54 age group, making it an excellent channel for competing for users’ attention.

Source: Emarketer

1. Large reach without significant financial outlay

TikTok’s algorithm rewards valuable, engaging content, which is why even small accounts can often stand out and gain thousands of followers with a single viral video. On other platforms, reaching a broad audience organically is no longer so easy and requires a larger advertising budget. Even if the leads don’t start coming in right away, you’ll already be building brand awareness cost-effectively.

2. Building an authentic image

TikTok is an excellent platform for showing the “human face” of your business. While LinkedIn is a platform focused on business jargon and success stories, on TikTok, many companies also share their failures, showing that people are behind the business. This is your chance to be remembered by users and potential customers as an authentic brand that approaches business collaborations with attention and understanding.

3. An opportunity to sneak in educational content

Is your industry quite complex? Or do you often get the same questions from potential business partners that you have to answer over and over again? TikTok is the perfect platform for engagingly publishing educational content. You can record answers to frequently asked questions in a Q&A format, or explain aspects of your business that may raise doubts. Educating and helping people understand how your company works can help generate leads!

1. Tailor your communication strategy to your target audience

Not every piece of content you post on TikTok has to go viral. It is much more important to tailor it to your audience’s needs. When planning your strategy and preparing your content plan, consider what business owners, managers, or specialists would like to see in your industry and business. If you have an idea for a video in line with the current TikTok trend, that’s great. Once in a while, such content will be acceptable and show that you have a sense of humor, too. However, it should not be the predominant part of your content.

2. Focus on conveying value

TikTok is more likely to promote content with a high engagement rate, meaning viewers are more likely to like, comment on, save, or share the video. And when do users do that? When they decide that the content will be helpful to them later, that it contributes something interesting, and that it is worth sharing. That is why you should prioritize the usefulness of your content to provide real value to users.

3. Choose engaging formats

Various interesting stories work great on TikTok, so be sure to weave storytelling into your communication. You can tell a “Storytime” about your business, perhaps about the beginnings of your company, or some difficult situations that you ultimately managed to get through unscathed.

Users are also attracted to case studies – by showing how your company helped another business solve specific problems and achieve success, you can create a need for your product in potential customers. Real stories have a much greater emotional impact than just a dry offer with a range of services.

4. Get your employees involved

Ask your employees to help with employer branding. TikTok is a good platform for showcasing experts who can humanly explain complex issues. By showing that your company is a larger, more committed group of employees, you can increase trust in your brand.

• Transferring your LinkedIn communication style without adapting it to the new platform. TikTok has its own rules, and “stiff” LinkedIn communication will not be effective here.
• Lack of strategy. Posting random trends once every few months won’t yield the results you want. You need a specific strategy and, above all, regularity in your posts.
• Too salesy tone. If you start promoting your offer in an unnatural and overly sales-oriented way, it won’t work. Users will decide for themselves whether it’s worth working with your company based on your overall image as an expert.
• Ignoring analytics. Some of the formats you think should be great will not deliver strong engagement. And there is nothing wrong with that! Testing and adjusting your strategy to what users actually like to watch on your channel is the key to success.

Shopify 

Shopify is a popular e-commerce platform that allows businesses to set up an online store and sell digital products conveniently. How did they succeed in communicating on TikTok? They focus on smaller business owners, give practical advice, and mix it with fun content, showing, for example, a day in the life of an e-commerce store owner. They are definitely worth following!

Sage

Sage is a company that provides financial and accounting software for businesses. How do they promote their brand on TikTok? They showcase the benefits of their solutions by recording content with satisfied customers, allowing them to show others honest reviews in video form. In addition, they report on brand events, conduct interviews, and provide valuable industry content. Note that they have a TikTok verification badge, which also inspires greater trust among viewers.

HubSpot

HubSpot is a platform that combines various marketing and sales tools with a unified CRM database. In its communication, HubSpot focuses primarily on humor, and it’s excellent! They even sneak in educational content through trends, and do so with great sensitivity, which is why it definitely works for them!

What about advertising campaigns on TikTok? It is worth noting that TikTok is not only a tool for creating organic virality but also an advanced advertising platform with many possibilities. When preparing campaigns in TikTok Ads, you can target users not only by demographic characteristics, but also by interests or behaviors.

If you need support in this area, we are happy to help! We will prepare a campaign tailored to your industry and ensure optimal use of your budget to help you acquire new, valuable leads.

If you decide to communicate on TikTok, also plan how you will measure the effectiveness of your actions.

Start by setting goals. These can be specific reach, engagement, reaching the right target groups, or acquiring leads. How to measure it?

With commitment, it will be easy – TikTok provides creators with a dedicated TikTok Analytics panel, where you can check how your videos are performing, who you are reaching, and which content works best.  Based on this, you can conclude, for example, that you should change your communication style a little if you are reaching an audience that is too young. Similarly, when running advertising campaigns on TikTok, the tool provides comprehensive analytics, including lead-generation metrics.

What about the rest? You can monitor referral traffic from TikTok to your website by linking your domain to your profile. In addition, simply talk to customers who submit inquiries to you. Ask them where they heard about your brand, and speak to your salespeople as well. Maybe customers mention that they saw the brand on TikTok?

The short answer is yes, as long as you familiarize yourself with the specifics of this platform and adjust your strategy accordingly. TikTok is a place where many people spend over an hour a day, and as the data shows, it’s not just teenagers. Put yourself in the shoes of a potential customer of your company, think about what content could be valuable to them, and get started! Remember to focus on the emotional aspect, humor, and storytelling, and you will see users eager to view your content. Don’t miss this opportunity—take advantage of the potential to reach customers through a new channel!