Whether you’re a creator trying to build your platform or a business ready to take your social media strategy to TikTok, there’s a lot to learn about content strategy. With TikTok, you’re at the mercy of the algorithm, but a detailed content strategy can keep your platform (and your followers) continuously growing. Here’s what you need to know about TikTok for business and TikTok growth.

Step 1: Figure Out What Your Purpose on TikTok is

Whether you’re a creator or a business, the first step to a successful content strategy is figuring out what your purpose on TikTok is. For instance, if you’re a business, building your presence on TikTok probably has to do with promoting your product. The more people who find your business page means more people who could potentially buy whatever you’re selling.

The same goes for artists or musicians. It’s not unusual to see both popular and underground musicians promoting their new songs or asking people to stream them on Spotify. Artists who own Etsy shops or their own websites may showcase videos of their art as a way to promote their shops and earn new sales.

For creators, you may not have a physical product to promote, but you are still promoting something  – yourself. If your goal is to build your page until you’re big enough to attract brand deals, your purpose on TikTok becomes promoting yourself as someone worth watching (and following).

So, before you start reeling out videos, take a little bit of time to reflect on what your long-term goals for TikTok are. Is it to promote your business? Is it to promote your art or your music? Is it to promote yourself so that you can attract brand deals?

Step 2: Find Your Niche

Once you’ve identified what your long-term goals for TikTok are, the next step is figuring out exactly what videos to post  – which means finding your niche. If you take a look at the TikTok FYP page, you’re likely to find a variety of content  – there’s comedy videos, popular trends and filters, storytimes, dancing videos, and even educational videos.

You’ll notice that many of TikTok’s biggest creators have specific niches or types of videos that they publish  – some creators may only talk about TV shows while others exclusively post business tips. Even creators that seem like they can just post anything and get views likely started from a specific niche.

If you’re trying to promote your cookbook, you may post cooking videos where you make recipes from the book. Or, if you’re a musician promoting your new songs, you may regularly post popular covers that draw people’s interest.

If you’re stuck for ideas on what to post, you can get inspiration from creators or businesses in the same field. Type your niche into the search box on the Discover page, and you should find plenty of videos of people trying to promote similar things.

The FYP page is another great place to draw inspiration from  – popular trends (or trends within your niche) are likely to pop up on your “For You” page.

However, you almost never want to base your content completely off trends  – it’s hard to create a consistent content strategy based on fleeting trends that people may not even remember in a couple of months. Instead, aim to keep around 30% of your content timeless and evergreen, and 70% based on trends.

Step 3: Use The Right Hashtags

You may have created a masterpiece in sixty seconds, but creating the right content is only part of the process  – the next step is making sure it reaches the right people. To do this, you’ll need to find and use the right hashtags for your niche.

On the Discover page, search for your niche and check out the relevant hashtags  – it’s a good idea to look for tags that have between 300,000 and 2 million views. Any more than 2 million views and there’s a good chance that your content is going to get lost in the mix.

If you’re using hashtags that are less than 300,000 views, the right people may still find your content, but it may not happen immediately. If you’re posting videos in a super specific niche, you can use less popular hashtags  – but aim to use a few that still fall within that two million range.

You may notice that some creators use general hashtags like “#fyp” that have billions of videos attached to them  – while this won’t stop your video from reaching people, these ultra-popular hashtags probably aren’t doing you any favors either. Most people aren’t searching “#fyp” and sifting through billions of videos to find yours.

Step 4: Schedule Your Posts

The final step in finding your niche and identifying your hashtags is scheduling posts. There’s a reason why your videos may do better when they’re posted at noon rather than three in the morning. Ideally, you want to publish your posts at times when more of your audience is online or active on TikTok.

The best way to find this out is by looking at your TikTok analytics. The data from this tool should give you a good idea of when most of your followers are active on the app throughout the week. If you can, try scheduling your posts to publish an hour before most of your audience is online.

You’ll need a Creator Account to check TikTok Analytics, and if you’re not sure which type of account you have (or how to change to a Creator Account), here’s what you need to do:

• On your profile page, click on the three dots in the upper-right corner
• From there, navigate to Settings and Privacy and look at the type of account listed
• If it says you already have a Creator Account, you’re already good to go. If it says you have a Personal Account, you’ll need to click on “Switch to Pro Account” and follow the prompts to set up a Creator Account

If you’re extremely new to TikTok and you haven’t garnered much of an audience yet, you can always aim to publish your videos when most people are generally online  – this may be early in the morning when they wake up, in the evening when they’ve gotten off work, and later in the evening when they’re heading to bed.

Bonus Tips to Keep Your Account Trending

While the above steps can help you set up a consistent content strategy, here are a few additional tips to boost your engagement and views.

• Post consistently: You may get a ton of views on your videos, but if people see that you only have a couple of videos on your page (or that you only post once a year), they tend to be less likely to follow you. Posting consistently gives you more opportunity for people to see you, and it allows your followers to learn more about you and get invested in your content.
• Share Behind-the-Scenes Videos: If you’re a business looking to engage more with your audience, BTS videos that show your process or how it happens can be a great way to forge a closer relationship with your viewers.
• Use trending sounds: Even if you’re making how-to or educational videos, using trending music and sounds in your video give people another chance to discover your content.
• Share your videos on other platforms: TikTok loves the share button, and when people share your content, TikTok tends to reward your profile with more views and engagement. Whenever you post, it’s a good idea to share your own content on other social media platforms. Not only will you draw traffic from other sites that you share your profile on, but the algorithm may boost your video once it’s been shared as well.
• Tease viewers: Whether you’re sharing business tips or telling your viewers a story, there’s a reason why so many creators post their content in multiple parts (or tell viewers to check back for part two). Once you’ve got your audience hooked, they’re more likely to come back for more or check your profile to see if you’ve already posted the next part of the series. If you can’t break up your content into multiple parts, another way to tease viewers is by posing a question and not providing the answer or offering sneak peeks at interesting content that’s yet to come.

Getting popular on TikTok can feel a lot like the luck of the draw. While the algorithm and what your audience likes can be unpredictable at times, a solid content strategy can mean the difference between consistent growth and random growth. Even creators or businesses that seem as if they post random content or got popular overnight usually have a subtle content strategy behind their behavior.

Regardless of what your goals on TikTok may be, your audience is out there  – it’s just a matter of finding them!