Why isn’t your brand on TikTok?
Welcome to TikTok Tips, where we teach you TikTok.
Welcome to the first edition of TikTok Tips by Slope, where we teach you TikTok. Subscribe for tips on TikTok trends, how to incorporate TikTok into your content strategy, and learnings from the millions we’ve spent on the platform.
This week, we’ll be:
Outlining what it takes to win on TikTok and how that differs from the ways in which we approach Instagram ⚖️
Breaking down this week’s top trending sounds 🎵
Offering some ways you can jump on these trends, set the brand page up for success, & bring your content one step closer to becoming a viral sensation 🔥
📱Battle of the Apps: Instagram vs TikTok
Featuring Hero Cosmetics: a skincare brand that sells a range of acne products, most known for their Mighty Patch (a pimple’s worst nightmare!)
1️⃣ Tip 1: Profile Presence
Have you ever looked at the IG vs TikTok pages of a brand? Here are a couple differences -
Instagram 📸
Approach: Keep your friends close and your brand guidelines closer.
IG is all about professionally shot photos and curation. You can tell Hero just launched their Mighty Patch Nose product based on all the orange + nicely gridded images their social team had to create.
Bio: Empowering acne-prone skin. Available now at @target 🎯
Must-have(s): proactive, planned asset creation
Trend cycles move a bit slower here in comparison to TikTok…
Brands typically use professionally shot photos that require longer lead times, hours of coordinating, and a pre-planned 30-90+ content calendar.
TikTok 🤳
Approach: Move fast and break things.
TikTok is a video-first platform, and Hero takes advantage of this. Hero cares much less about uniformity; they prioritize their UGC (user generated content), specifically choosing video covers that highlight the product in action and users’ shocked reactions.
Bio: Got a pimple emergency? 🎯
Must-have(s): at least one team member addicted to TikTok (and subscribed to our newsletter 💡).
More volatile than bitcoin, a key element of content planning and creation on TikTok is embracing the unknown.
Put off picking a sound for your content (trending sound, filter, text to voice, or other in-app feature) until the day before..so you increase your chances of going viral.
Audience: Know your audience and pander to them. Hero clearly appeals to their Gen-Z younger audience with the diversity in representation on the page.
2️⃣ Tip 2: Crafting the Perfect Content Piece
While both platforms rely on getting the users attention relatively quickly, the methods of doing so are a bit more nuanced.
Instagram 📸
IG has lots of content types + styles to pick from - aesthetic photos/videos, educational infographics, memes, animations, now Reels… 👀
Content is generally more polished (like the above) - brands stay “on brand” and metrics like Likes/Comments, shares, DM to friends, and watch time are taken into consideration in the IG algorithm.
TikTok 🤳
TikTok content is much more about entertainment (whether it makes a user laugh, cry, surprised, etc.) - so both the visuals and sounds matter.
Visuals - Content should lead with a strong hook (like Hero does with their cover image), and is much more showing than telling. 🎬
Sounds - the videos that go viral utilize trending sounds (this video got ~2m views..)
TikTok rewards viewership and engagement - likes, comments, shares. Videos that have a high “share factor” and are watched in entirety are prioritized in the For You page.
🎵 Trending Sounds 🎵
Using trending sounds is key to growing on TikTok. Sounds help increase your chance for virality as well as increasing your video’s average watch time. Every week, we’ll round up a couple trending sounds that we think you should pay attention to, and how you can use them in your content.
What this sound is: Extracted from an episode of the hit series “Empire,” this audio is encouraging creators to prioritize self care and “put themselves first” – whether that means hogging the covers at the sleepover, declining unwanted facetime calls, or posting a group photo that only you look good in.
How your brand can use it: Leverage this trend by filming someone selfishly using up the last of your product and hiding the evidence from their roommate/family members/partner. Execution can be simple here – just be sure to include the relevant text overlay for context.
What this sound is: This hashtag and accompanying sound is asking creators to “Show us those moments where you were #Humbled.” Watch as accounts use text overlay to cite their most embarrassing moments.
How your brand can use it: Embrace the opportunity to poke fun at common misconceptions or confusion surrounding your brand. This can include hilarious customer service inquiries or social comments, autocorrect disasters when writing copy, or any other harmless mistakes that had the team cracking up.
Main Takeaways
If you’re just starting out, we recommend doing a deeper dive on a couple brands - notice what content styles are working well, what isn’t, and how their approach differs from IG and TikTok.
Start using TikTok (even if it’s just 2 minutes a day)! Follow a couple brands to have content start populating your For You page
Stay on top of trending sounds and keep an eye on growing ones
If you like what you see, please share with a friend!
Great read! very technical. Where can I view updated weekly trending sounds?