if you’re being a hero with your tiktok content and insisting on organic reach… stop. There is nothing wrong with boosting a post with tiktok’s boost feature. even the best of us need a helping hand sometimes, like that time I got stuck inside a pair of jots in the gap.
Not to be “peer pressure” on you, but nowadays every social media platform has some sort of paid boost option. you can boost posts on facebook, instagram and linkedin with just a few taps and reach audiences far beyond your own organic network.
in this post, we delve into everything you need to know to make tiktok’s promote feature work for you. consider this a “booster shot” of social ads, if you will. (I’ll show myself outside.)
what is tiktok promotion?
tiktok promote feature allows you to turn your existing tiktok videos into ads with just a few taps.
the promotion feature is available for all tiktok accounts, right in the tiktok app. tailor the promotion to your budget, schedule and target audience… and then sit back while tiktok distributes your video lengthwise and widthwise.
Promoting can help you get views, traffic to your website or generate more followers. basically, if you have a few bucks to spend, promoting is a shortcut to boosting your reach on tiktok.
when your campaign is over, you canaccess all sorts of juicy analytics about the performance of your promoted tiktok video. metrics like:
- views
- I like it
- actions
- comments
- website click-through rate
- age and gender of the audience
- the promote feature on tiktok only works for public videos
- You can’t use promotion on videos with copyright protected sound. (You’ll need to create your soundtrack from tiktok’s commercial music library of over 500,000 sound clips. Or, obviously, original songs and sounds are fine too.)
- videos may be rejected for promotion if they violate tiktok’s guidelines (more on that below!)
- Go to your profile and tap the three horizontal lines in the top right corner. this will open a menu at the bottom of the screen: tap on creator tools.
- it’s time to promote.
- here, select one of your videos under the “promotable videos” heading and follow steps 3-6 above.
- reach more users
- reach targeted and targeted user demographics
- gain new followers
- gain likes, shares, comments
- drive traffic to your site
- Your ad makes an exaggerated or misleading claim.
- The ad contains spelling or grammatical errors.
- your ad has distracting capital letters or uses symbols instead of letters.
- poor quality video, image or audio.
- the products or prices in your video are not consistent with what you are actually selling.
- the website promoting your video does not work or does not follow local regulations
- your ad has a logo from an unauthorized third party
- shocking, sexual, gruesome or graphic content
Before you start hitting that promote button, please note that there are some restrictions on the type of videos you can promote.
using a little bit of that boost magic on your tiktok content isn’t cheating at all, it’s just common sense.
There are many other ways to advertise on tiktok or improve your tiktok organic marketing, but tiktok promotion is the best of both worlds. Promote takes the creative and engaging tiktok content you’ve already created, and uses the power of tiktok’s powerful algorithm to help drive a new audience on the page for you.
how to promote on tiktok
the tiktok promote feature is pretty intuitive, but i’ll walk you through it step by step anyway. (I’m a real sweetie despite what those people in the gap say about me.)
before you start: if you have an android phone, you can pay for your tiktok promotion with a credit card, but if you have ios, you’ll need to upload your tiktok coins first.
1.make a video and post it on tiktok. new to the app? read here how to create a tiktok video and then come back for step 2.
2. watch the video and tap the “…” icon with three dots on the right side. this will open the video settings. tap the promo icon (it looks like a small llama).
3. choose your objective to promote the video: more video views, more website visits or more followers.
4. choose your audience. tiktok can choose for you, or you can customize yours, based on gender, age range and interests.
5. set your budget by choosing how much you would like to spend each day and how long you want the promotion to last. as you adjust any of those numbers, you’ll see your “estimated video views” change.tap next when you’re happy with your budget.
6. On the overview page, you’ll have one last chance to review your options before implementing your campaign. your video will then be submitted for approval.
Another way to access the tiktok promo is to find it in the creator tools menu.
how much does it cost to promote tiktok?
You set your own budget for tiktok promotion and choose how much to spend for a set number of days. the minimum spend for a tiktok promotion is $3 usd per day, and the maximum spend is $1000 per day.
tiktok will give you a range of estimated video views as you set your budget and schedule. as a broad benchmark, tiktok says you can get up to 1000 views for as little as $10.
That said:Keep in mind that the specific audience you’re targeting can affect your reach.
You’ll be able to reach many more people if you target more broadly (eg, all women ages 13-54), but if you focus on a very specific audience (eg, men over the age of 55 and over who are interested in beauty and personal care) your estimated views may be slightly smaller. (However, in that case, you’ll probably get quality, even if you don’t get quantity.)
is it worth promoting tiktok?
the beauty and curse of social media: you never really know what’s going to click.
The fact is, nothing is guaranteed. you can memorize everything about tiktok algorithm. you can post at the best time every day. and you can do everything you can to optimize your organic reach… and still come up short.
so if you can’t seem to figure that out for your page and want a little help, then yes, tiktok promotion is worth it.
depending on your specific goals and specific audiences, tiktok promotion can help you:
threadbeast, for example, promoted a video announcing a giveaway and reduced its cost per acquisition by 13%.
meanwhile, augmented reality app wanna kicks increased the reach of a demo video and received 75,000 app installs over the course of the campaign.
by spending a little money directly in the app to improve its content, you can ensure that you get more views from real users. (Paying for comments, likes, and followers of sketchy third-party sites, on the other hand, is not a great idea.)
the promotion feature obviously can’t promise that people will like what they see, but at least you’ll know they’ve seen it.
reasons why tiktok may not approve your promotion
just because you went through the not-so-rigorous six-step process to promote your video, doesn’t mean tiktok will approve it.
There is a review process that every promoted video must go through before it starts appearing in people’s feeds. if your campaign is not approved, it could be due to one of the following reasons:
source: tiktok
you can find more details about tiktok’s advertising standards here.
how to cancel a promotion on tiktok
Changed your mind about promoting your video? no problem. you can easily cancel your tiktok campaign.
it’s like setting up tiktok promotion, but in reverse.
Simply go to your promoted video, tap the three dots in the bottom right and tap “close promotion”.
You will only be charged for the number of days your campaign ran.
We’ve had a lot of fun here today, learning about how to use the promo and remembering why I’m banned from the gap. but if you remember one thing about tiktok promotion, it’s this: promotion is just a tool to give more reach to your content; You can’t force people to like or interact with your video.
connecting with your audience starts with great content. learn more about how to make tiktok videos with authentic impact here.
grow your presence on tiktok along with your other social channels using hootsuite. Schedule and publish posts for the best times, engage your audience, and measure performance, all from one easy-to-use dashboard. try it free today.
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