Social Media Tools in Use – Tiktok

This blog post is a guide on how to use Tiktok to your advantage. On this page, you can find examples on how tourism businesses can use Tiktok in their Social Media Strategy.

What is Tiktok?

TikTok is a video-sharing app that allows users to create and share short-form videos on any topic. It’s mainly mobile-based, although you can still watch TikTok videos using the web app. The platform allows users to get creative with their content using filters, stickers, voiceovers, sound effects, and background music. (Werner Geyser, December 30th, 2022)

How to get started?

Geri Mileva (December 9th, 2022) wrote and published the following guide on setting up your TikTok account on the Influencer Marketing Hub website:

Creating A TikTok Account

Go to Google Play or the App Store and download TikTok. As soon as you’re done installing and opening the app, it will start displaying videos. In TikTok, you don’t need an account to start browsing videos.

But to start recording and posting videos, you need to create one.

TikTok makes it easy to sign up by allowing you to connect your existing accounts like Facebook, Gmail, or Twitter. You can also create a standard username and password using your email or phone number.

If you decide to use your phone number, TikTok will assign a generic username like user1234567. If you use your email address, you get a personalized ID. Don’t worry—you can always change your username later.

TikTok will also ask for your birthday (you need to be 13 years old to use the app). In the US, users under 13 years old are placed in a Younger Users experience where guardians can monitor their online experience.

Editing Your TikTok Profile

Once you’ve created your account, you can edit your profile. Just tap the icon at the bottom right corner that says Profile. This will display your photo, the number of users you’re following, your followers, and the total number of likes your posted videos received. It also shows the videos you’ve posted and liked.

To begin editing your profile, just tap the Edit Profile button. You can upload your photo or use a profile video. You can change your name and username, write an 80-character bio, and link your Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter profiles.

For influencers with established followings on other platforms, a great way to boost your TikTok account is by associating it with your more popular channels. Linking your other accounts also makes it easier to share TikTok videos across different platforms.

TikTok accounts, by default, are public. Anyone can see your profile and the videos you post. You can adjust this by clicking the three lines in the top right corner of your profile. Select the Settings and Privacy option and toggle the option for Private Account. Remember that when you make your account private, you need to manually approve every user request to follow.

Alternatively, when you start posting videos, you can also set individual videos’ privacy settings to private.

Geri Mileva wrote the entire previous step-by-step guide.

How to utilize the app in tourism business?

TikTok is being increasingly used by tourism business. TikTok is excellent app for marketing and engaging new audience and it can help travel industries to achieve their business goals. The app is also low cost, so you don’t need much money to utilize it. Hashtag #TikTokTravel is one of the most popular hashtags on the platform, with a hugely impressive 20.8 billion views. For example using this hashtag is a fantastic opportunity for tourism and travel companies to get started on TikTok and promote their destinations or activities.

Some tips for taking over TikTok:

1. Don’t start creating content straight away. Instead, take your time to study how TikTok’s algorithm works and see what does and doesn’t work. Check out the most popular travel profiles and see what sort of videos they are releasing. Only start pushing out content once you feel confident with the platform, and of your messaging.
2. Check your social media goals and define your own target group. Also find out who are your competitors. Who do you hope to reach on TikTok?
3. TikTok is different from Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube, so your audience requires unique content.
4. Don’t be afraid to repost other accounts. There will be amazing content out there that highlights your destinations or activities so share it! This can also be a great way to forge some new marketing partnerships that you might not have previously considered.
5. Don’t focus on your number of followers, interactions are the crucial metric to measure. Look at your views, as the TikTok algorithm favors posts that generate high levels of interactions in the first hour.
6. Hashtags are incredibly important on TikTok. Be imaginative in creating your own hashtags, which you can share with your clients upon booking.
7. Choose your music wisely! By choosing popular songs in streaming charts, or fun local tracks from off-beat destinations, you can help your posts gain more traction.
8. Involve your team. People love to see behind the scenes of a brand so consider featuring your employees in posts. Seeing the people behind the company allow your audience to relate with your brand on a more personal level, and TikTok is a great platform for this.
9. Be consistent. In order to succeed on TikTok, you have to post regularly. It is a fast-moving platform and there is a constant stream of fun and unique content. You should have a posting calendar and schedule, but also be flexible enough to react to current trends as and when they are happening.

Read more.

What grabs people’s attention?

TikTok is really popular among young people, but this does not mean that the older generation does not use the application. Really important is to find out what kind of content your target group likes and start implementing something similar.

A hook is the first couple of seconds of a TikTok video that catches the audience’s attention. This can be done through on-screen text, saying something intriguing, or fast movement at the start of the video.

For example:

• I promise you’ve never seen anything like this before! This hook creates a lot of suspense. Your viewers won’t want to miss what you’re about to show them.
• You need this product in your life! You can use this hook to show off a product that you love!
• Come with me to do ___. This hook makes the audience feel connected to you and feel like they are a part of something. You’re essentially inviting them to do something with you, and how could they say no to that! Some of the best content ideas to use with this hook include showing your daily routines, running errands, or showing what you do at work.
• This hack will save you hours on ___.Teach the audience how to save time. They will love it!

…and many more. You can read all the tips here.

How to use AI in content creation?

TikTok automation involves leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) tools to streamline and enhance your content creation process. From generating captivating content ideas to creating actual videos, AI-driven automation empowers creators to focus on crafting remarkable content while handling repetitive tasks efficiently. AI can save your time and effort by allowing you to maintain consistency in posting and engage with your audience effectively. It can also unlock new creative opportunities, freeing you to explore unique concepts and experiment with content styles.

However, it’s essential to tread carefully. Over-automation can lead to losing credibility and authenticity, disconnecting your audience from your content. Striking a balance between automation and genuine human touch is vital to building lasting connections with your followers.

ChatGPT can:

• write video scripts
• summarize your Tiktok videos
• generate content ideas
• craft video scripts

Read more here.

Connect with your audience

TikTok stands out for its unique ability to create real connections with users. To make the most of this it’s important to take a moment to get to know your target audience. Who are your ideal travelers? What are their interests and travel preferences? 

Design your content to resonate with them. Share captivating stories, insider tips, and glimpses of the unique adventures your tourism business offers. Authenticity is the key that unlocks engagement and engagement paves the way for growth.

Transparency plays a crucial role in building trust on TikTok. It’s essential that your potential customers can quickly understand the reason for your tourism business’s presence on this platform. Is it to highlight stunning destinations, share travel advice, or offer exclusive deals? Make sure your bio and content convey your purpose clearly. When users sense your authenticity and understand your goals, they’re more inclined to follow, engage, and ultimately choose your services.

Take full advantage of the opportunity to connect with people. TikTok’s interactive elements such as comments and direct messages are like treasure troves for building relationships. Be quick to reply to comments, engage with questions and encourage conversations. 

These interactions not only boost your engagement but also provide you with valuable feedback and insights straight from potential travelers. By demonstrating that you value their opinions you’ll strengthen your brand’s reputation and loyalty.

What data can you gather by using Tiktok?

TikTok’s creator tools provide advanced features, offering content creators insights and analytics. These tools help creators to understand how their content is performing and engaging with their audience. With creator tools you can access your accounts views, likes, shares, comments, and audience demographics. You can use this data to tailor your content to your target audience and track your progress over time.

You can access the features below under creator tools. Some of these features may not be available in every region yet and some features require to meet specific criteria to access the tools.

Analytics: With analytics creators can see how well the videos are doing, including views, likes, shares, and comments. Also analytics show who is watching the videos and where. You can also access information about your account’s growth over time, such as follower count.

Creator Portal: Creator portal helps creators with learning how to maximise their Tiktok expertise. It offers guidance on connecting with your audience, expanding your reach, and nurturing your growth as a creator

Promote: Promote is an advertising tool within TikTok that can help more people discover your videos, drive traffic to your website, and increase your chances of gaining new followers.

Q&A: Q&A is all about directengagement. You can let your viewers ask you questions directly through your profile or in the comments section. It’s a great way to interact with your audience and build connections.

TikTok Creator Next: Creator Next is TikTok’s way of rewarding creators as they grow their communities. You get access to monetization features and tools to help you thrive on TikTok.

You can find these features on Tiktoks own support website.

Tips for using TikTok

When you open TikTok the first thing you see is For You page where you’re shown a stream of videos according to your interests, making it easy to find content and creators you love. This feed is powered by a recommendation system that delivers content to each user that is likely to be interested in specific kind of content.

Recommendations are based on a number of factors like user interactions such as the videos you like or share, accounts you follow, comments you post, and content you create, video information, which might include details like captions, sounds, and hashtags, device and account settings like your language preference, country setting, and device type. These factors are included to make sure the system is optimized for performance. Due to this powerful recommendation system, every For You page on Tiktok is unique and customized to a specific person. But how to use it to your advantage? Here are a few easy tips to help with that:

• Make captivating videos with good lighting, clear audio, and a strong start.
• Use an appealing profile pic and write a clear bio about your content.
• Switch to a TikTok Pro Account for audience insights and trends.
• Use analytics to understand your viewers and tailor your content to them.
• Post regularly.
• Engage with your audience.
• Use trends, challenges, memes and include popular sounds and hashtags in your videos.
• Grab attention in the first few seconds; shorter videos work well.
• Use analytics to monitor video performance and adjust your strategy.

Staying up-to-date with TikTok’s trends, popular sounds and best practices, you can use the TikTok algorithm to your advantage and increase your chances of success on the platform.

More about Tiktoks #ForYou.

Tourism accounts excelling: Examples of best practices

Here are a few examples of travel and tourism related companies that are on Tiktok and are doing fairly well!

Visit Rovaniemi has pretty successful account on Tiktok with 104.8k followers and 1.1m likes. The accounts most viral video with 6.3 million views and 489.6k likes is of Santa Claus and Rudolf. It is a good advertisement for people wanting to visit Rovaniemi. They used hastags #christmas #santaclaus #rudolf to spread their visibility and catching the attention of their target audience which are those who are interested in seeing Finland and Santa Claus.

Visit finland has 15.8k followers and 83.1k likes on their Tiktok account. The account is a lot smaller than the one before but no less influencal. On of their most popular videos has 802.9k views and 5493 likes. It has Dave Cad starring and talking about saunas in Finland. Cad is fairly popular influencer who is known for being a Britt who lives in Finland and talks about his experiences and does sketches. It is no wonder his presence has gathered lots of interested clicks.

Santas hotels is a family owned chain in Lapland and has turned to Tiktok to further promote their hotels. Their account is pretty small with 216 followers and 2269 likes but they have succesfully managed to make few viral videos. One example is a video where they use a very popular trending sound and partaking in the meme which brought lot of attention to their account. The video has 14.9k views and 306 likes.

Our thoughts

Harnessing the power of TikTok to promote your tourism business can be a game-changer in today’s digital age. By mastering SEO and carefully planning your marketing strategy you can reach wider audiences than ever before.

TikTok’s massive user base and engagement rates offer incredible potential for boosting your business, the way the platform’s algorithms work ensures that your content reaches users who are truly interested in what you’re offering.

Additionally, TikTok’s easy-to-use design welcomes individuals of all technical abilities and age groups. It offers a way to vividly showcase your travel experiences allowing potential customers to feel like they’re already part of the journey with you.

If you want to give your tourism business a fresh boost and connect with a wide range of potential customers you shouldn’t overlook the power of TikTok. Look into the possibilities of TikTok today and witness as your business grows to a whole new level.

We hope that this blog post helped, that you learned something new and realized how you can utilize TikTok as a social media tool to benefit your business!

Thank you for reading!

-Jenna, Noora and Riikka

Some useful links

Here is a link to a site, where you can find instructions on how to set up a TikTok account and how to get started on the app.

Here is a link to a site, where you can learn how to use Tiktok as a tool for your business.