A Guide to Ace B2B TikTok Marketing Strategy in 2023

Although TikTok is a relative newcomer to social media, launched only in September 2016, it’s already gained widespread use. Due to its visual style and features that allow content creators to collaborate, TikTok has established itself as an effective marketing tool in B2C.

However, for most B2B companies, the platform ranks low compared to other social media marketing platforms. LinkedIn is the site most associated with B2B networking and building professional relationships.

While the arrival of TikTok hasn’t changed that, its skyrocketing popularity and
1 billion active members worldwide have made it a worthy contender for new B2B strategies.

Here, we take a closer look at the importance of a B2B TikTok marketing strategy.

TikTok Demographics?

The platform is sometimes dismissed as exclusively by Gen Z. However, statistics show that the user base is much broader than you might have initially thought: over 30% of members are 25-44 years old, and about 40% are between 18-24 years old.

The same study shows that 74% of 21-40-year-olds are actively involved in buying decisions for their businesses and already have a digital strategy for B2B sales.

These numbers show unequivocally that B2B marketing still has plenty of room to reach more mature users on TikTok, and now may be the perfect time to leverage its power. Just because the platform isn’t teeming with B2B marketers doesn’t mean it will stay that way.

Benefits of B2B TikTok Marketing Strategy

1. Brand Awareness

A popular criticism of assumptions about B2B marketing strategies is that emotion has no place as the emphasis of a campaign. However, according to LinkedIn’s B2B Institute, emotional B2B marketing strategies greatly outperform “logical marketing” techniques.

While rational marketing in social media centers around telling your audience why they should use your product, emotional marketing focuses on the “who,” increasing brand awareness exponentially. Leading with an emotional element encourages building connections, something TikTok excels at. In this way, TikTok is particularly suited to helping you attract more leads at the top of your sales funnel.

A great example is TikTok’s ad solution to boost brand awareness. TikTok’s newest advertising option is called Branded Mission and allows brands to specify their advertising needs, after which creators can submit original videos that meet those needs. The brand then accepts and promotes its preferred video through increased ad traffic.

It’s a win-win: creators can reach new audiences with boosted content, while brands can leverage high-quality content from the TikTok community that aligns with their goals. Any growth of the creators’ audiences as a result also helps to feed into the success of follow-up campaigns.

2. Cross-Platform Appeal

Creating a multichannel experience means that your users have access to the same information regardless of their platform. TikTok makes it easier for users to share content within and between platforms.

If you already have informative videos, you can use TikTok to promote them. Shorten longer videos you have distributed on your blog, website, YouTube, and other social networks into consumable pieces that focus on solving specific problems. You might also format a transcription of the audio from a video into written content if needed.

Through this promotion, not only will you expand your audience, but you’ll also secure a greater ROI by reusing content that’s already been created. Doing so helps to establish you as a thought leader, offering your industry expertise. Viewers who see the shortened version may also click through to the full video on your website, driving more high-quality traffic.

3. Lead Generation

With lead generation advertising on TikTok, users can share information about themselves anytime without leaving the app. This process is automated and thus simplified. The user experience is not interrupted by lengthy forms or waiting for landing pages to load.

Instead, Tiktok offers an instant form option that can be accompanied by a video and information about products or the campaign being run. Implementing lead gen in this way allows marketers to take full advantage of the mobile-first advertising that TikTok promotes. This is very helpful when targeting potential buyers, especially Gen-Zers and Millennials, as users from these age groups prioritize mobile over desktop.

TikTok lead gen also integrates seamlessly into your CRM, allowing you to maintain complete oversight of any leads captured with the platform, making it a perfect addition to your
lead generation campaigns.

4. Leveraging User-Generated Content

You can also generate a large amount of user-generated content from duets or creators that duplicate your audio (if you create your own). This can increase brand awareness and bring more visitors back to your site.

Additionally, TikTok’s large user base and fast-scrolling video style make it easier for others to see your content. The likelihood of reaching the right audience and going viral increases when you optimize your content for the algorithm (more about that later).

5. Demand Generation

An important aspect of a successful demand generation effort is facilitating engagement with your audience, and TikTok is the perfect platform for that.

The strength of TikTok’s algorithm is what most people find interesting. It generates a captivating and enjoyable experience based on responses to material that keeps users on the platform.

As a result, it has a greater user retention rate than most other social media sites. Indeed, a
2021 study by Kantar shows that 35% of TikTok users claim that after downloading the app, they watch less other video material overall.

TikTok isn’t merely detracting from other social media platforms. Fewer people are turning to television and streaming services, and more are instead preferring TikTok’s visual content feeds. It also offers a few engagement features, such as:

Q&A

TikTok’s question-and-answer feature turns every video into an engagement opportunity. TikTok identifies comments designated as Q&A questions, making it easier for you to identify and respond to them.

Broadcast to Your fans on TikTok Live

You can also engage your followers in a live discussion. Livestreams, unlike TikTok videos, do not have a time limit. Your most loyal followers will be notified when you are live, allowing you easily gain a snapshot of how many are engaging with your content regularly.

B2B Brands Using TikTok Successfully

TikTok is a rapidly expanding platform, and marketers slowly recognize its potential. Some of the biggest brands in the B2B world have already jumped on the bandwagon and are making the most of this platform, including:

Adobe Creative Software

The world’s largest design software brand uses TikTok to demonstrate its capabilities and build awareness of its brand. They also use the platform to showcase their brand’s personality.

Shopify

It mainly uses the site to share consumer tips and techniques and to promote videos created by other users as part of its hashtag campaigns.

Grammarly

follows the same strategy as Adobe and Shopify, which means they use the platform to showcase their products and engage with their community and to use videos created by their users as part of their hashtag campaigns.

How to Establish a Successful TikTok Marketing Strategy

1. Identify Your Audience

Your available audience will be different when you’re making content for a platform like TikTok. Yes, you should aim to address a B2B audience, but you should target the personas connected to or directly on the buying committee.

TikTok is about exchanging ideas, views, and experiences for the B2B community. As a result, your marketing should speak to the individuals in charge of briefing their teams on the information.

Identify the important decision-makers in your sector who are likely to engage with Tiktok and base your content strategy on them and their interests.

2. Use Tools

One of the most time-consuming parts of social media is tracking and scheduling posts, particularly when orchestrating campaigns across multiple channels.

That’s why using tools such as SocialPilot, a social automation and scheduling tool for publishing and sharing content on social media, can be invaluable. It also allows you to dive into social analytics from each platform in one place, giving you a better overview of overall campaign performance.

3. Collaborate With Influencers

TikTok influencer marketing is an effective type of social media marketing that focuses on promoting businesses or services through the platform’s popular content creators. Typically done through challenges such as dances, cosmetics, and hashtags, this snowball marketing seeks audience engagement to produce trends and figures.

According to Adweek,influencer marketing outperforms typical banner ads by 11 times. You should also consider using micro-influencers, who have a niche but more committed and engaged audience. They are also substantially less expensive than top-tier influencers, which can lead to a higher ROI.

4. Optimize for the TikTok Algorithm

The TikTok algorithm controls which videos appear on the “For You” page. It shows each user content curated to the preferences and interests they have indicated through their behavior on the app so that they can find and watch more TikTok videos they like.

Here are some TikTok algorithm recommendations to help increase the visibility of your content.

Select Appropriate Hashtags

Hashtags help TikTok’s algorithm recognize the context of your videos and show them to relevant people so you can reach your target audience.

Make Sure You Use High-Quality Video Footage

To better optimize your content for the TikTok algorithm, be sure to create high-quality video material. You don’t need fancy equipment for this. Your phone and good lighting will do the trick.

Use Trending Audio

Because the TikTok algorithm favors videos with popular sounds and their trends, be sure to identify and capitalize on trends and audio before they lose relevance. Following accounts that discuss trends is one way to find trending audio.

Conclusion

TikTok is a fantastic social media outlet that many businesses have underestimated and overlooked since it was created. If you don’t develop a strategy specific to your company goals, you benefit from its numerous advantages.

It can give your business access to an audience other platforms do not have. Investing time now in establishing your audience and following will undoubtedly pay off in the future with regular effort and great content. If you choose to use it for your business, using it in conjunction with Linkedin is worthwhile.