Best Practices for Advertising on TikTok

With over a billion users worldwide, TikTok offers the potential to build your community and grow your reach higher than ever before. There are a couple things the best ads on the platform have in common. From the length of the video, to closed captioning and so much more, here are some best practices to improve your efforts…

Best Practices for Advertising on TikTok

Great Quality

Shooting your content in high-res should be your first priority. The quality is the first thing a viewer notices, so it’s important to make sure it’s the best it can be. Bad quality is a huge turn-off, no matter what platform you’re posting on.

Keep it Brief

According to TikTok, “1 in 4 top-performing videos have a duration between 21 and 34 seconds and see, on average, a 1.6% lift in impressions.” The key is not too short, but not too long. Too long of a video will lose the attention of your viewers. Consider the message you’re trying to get across and summarize it the best you can.

Go Full Screen

More than 98% of the top-performing videos on TikTok utilize full-screen with their videos. Compared to the ill-fitting videos with the cropped sizing and empty space, videos which use the full 9:16 aspect ratio see a 60.5% lift in impressions.

That’s a big difference!

Always Include Audio

Over 93% of top performing videos on TikTok include sound. This one’s a given as a musician on the platform. Back in 2019, we announced our partnership with TikTok which allows our clients to deliver their tracks onto TikTok for its millions of creators (you, included) to use in their videos.

If you haven’t already gotten your music on TikTok and you’re a Symphonic client, this post tells you exactly how to make it happen.

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🧠 Learn more about TikTok…

How To Interpret Your TikTok Analytics

Best TikTok Hashtag Strategy for Musicians

How Do TikTok Streaming Royalties Work?

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Use a Vertical Format

Having to turn your phone to watch a video in the right format seems like a small ask, but trust me, it isn’t. If a user has to make the effort to adjust themselves to watch a video, they aren’t going to watch it. Statistics have shown, “Videos shot in vertical format see a 40.1% lift in impressions compared to videos using a square or horizontal aspect ratio.”

@symphonicdistribution🙋‍♀️ Did you jnow Symphonic was the first independent distribution to offer advanced royalty analytics for TikTok to our clients?♬ original sound – Mossbot

The best performing videos on the platform are shot in vertical format, which means TikTok users don’t have to rotate their screen to watch the next video on their For You Page. Be sure you’re doing the same!

Captions

Adding captions/text on screen is a MUST on TikTok. Posts that include this have shown a 55.7% lift in impressions compared to ones that don’t add anything additional on screen.

Hype Up Your Offer

Whatever you’re trying to advertise, make sure you’re really emphasizing it’s benefit to users. If you’ve got a new song out, blast it, show off exactly how good it is and where to stream it. If you’re advertising a discount on your latest merch, make sure it’s obvious that that’s what you’re offering in the video. Clear, concise marketing is the key to engagement when it comes to  short-form video.

To wrap it all up…

There’s no denying the immense power TikTok holds and the opportunities it fosters for artists looking to gain international recognition. With your music available on TikTok, optimized content, and your finger on the pulse of what’s popular on the platform, you’ll open up a whole new avenue of discovery for millions of potential fans.

Don’t forget to follow our TikTok to learn about music distribution, playlisting, how to collect royalties, and more music marketing hacks you don’t want to miss. ✨

You got this!