A winning creative strategy on TikTok can mean the difference between sporadic or strong sales. For small businesses, the low cost and barrier to creating on TikTok make it an essential platform for connecting with engaged audiences.

With the right small business TikTok strategy, you can reach new customers, build a loyal community who’ll advocate for your brand, and drive sales — without needing a huge digital marketing budget.

Common creative challenges for small businesses

As a business owner, dealing with competing priorities is typical. Small businesses worry about their ability to create regular, engaging content on TikTok – whether it’s organic or paid. There are many approaches to crafting a TikTok-first creative strategy and what works for one brand might not for another. Common creative challenges include:

1. Uncertainty about what works: Knowing which trends or content formats to follow and how to use them effectively.

2. Limited budget or time: Small businesses often don’t have a dedicated team to create content or manage social media.

3. Fear of content quality: Businesses may feel their videos aren’t polished enough or that they’re not adept at video and should stick to what they know.

Three successful creative strategies from other small businesses

Your creative strategy should be tailored to the specific needs of your small business, but there are data-driven tactics that brands can use to ensure they’re making effective TikTok content.

Consistency is key on TikTok. Regularly posting content keeps your brand visible and builds familiarity with your audience. Additionally, an entertaining always-on approach primes TikTok users when you’re trying to drive leads or conversions: 48% of users said an ad was not intrusive after seeing an organic post from the brand.²

The Analog Company, a Singaporean brand known for their utilitarian bags and handmade accessories, saw success with consistent posts, which helped them grow organically and connect with a loyal community. Through engaging with feedback received on their TikTok videos, they reinvented their design methodology and continuously improved their products to answer consumer demand, building a connection with their audience on the platform in the process. With support from the global TikTok community, the brand saw sales grow beyond the shores of Singapore and recorded a 7-figure revenue in under two years.

One of the best ways to create engaging content without investing too much time or money is by leveraging user-generated content (UGC). When customers share their experiences with your product or service, it feels more authentic and trustworthy.

GetGo is a carsharing service that is on a mission to empower Singaporeans with the freedom to drive via accessible, affordable, and convenient vehicle solutions. They leveraged UGC by working with local creators, using the UGC in their Spark Ads campaign to further amplify their unique value proposition. Through relatable video content showing real-life use cases of their service, the video ads were more compelling and drove 47% increase in sign-ups.

To seek out relevant creators who are interested to collaborate, brands can leverage the TikTok Creator Marketplace to make compelling campaign content. Steer more followers to your brand, and drive consistent momentum for conversations online about your products!

TikTok thrives on trends – tapping into them means your content has a greater chance of being seen by more people.

Experimenting across various types of videos such as skits, street interviews, product showcases and behind-the-scenes coverage, Malaysia-based accessories brand, Masdora Jewellery, leveraged trending sounds and relevant hashtags to improve the discoverability of their content. By applying clear captions on their videos, they also ensure high content quality that is not just user-friendly but also communicates their value proposition clearly. Using their best-performing videos in a Video Shopping Ads campaign, they drove 39x return on ad spend and sold over 2.5K products within a month.

It’s easy to find the current top trends, ads, songs and creative patterns on TikTok through the TikTok Creative Center – there are even tools to filter for your specific industry.

TikTok Creative Tools for Small Businesses

TikTok offers a variety of tools to help small businesses create professional content without a big budget:

• TikTok Symphony Assistant: An AI tool to guide businesses through creating effective TikTok ads. Learn more here.

• CapCut for Business: A free, easy-to-use video editing app with heaps of features for small businesses to try. There’s an AI-powered script generation tool that develops ideas based on a product, unlimited usage of commercial-licenced business templates, a smart tool that converts product URLs or landing pages into ad videos and more. Try it here.

• TikTok Creator Marketplace: Find and collaborate with expert creators to create branded content.

• TikTok Creative Exchange: Get matched with trusted, TikTok expert partners such as agencies for end-to-end support for your creative project.

• TikTok Ads Manager: This tool allows you to test and optimise your creative ideas to ensure they resonate with your target audience. Keep an eye on your video analytics and deep dive into what’s working for pre-defined metrics such as total cost, CPC, CPM with Video Insights. Start using TikTok Ads Manager here.

Checklist for SMBs to Get Started:

TikTok has a wealth of resources on what goes into a creative strategy, but generally, you’ll want to define each of the below for your brand:

✅ Objective: Clearly define your business goal before starting.

✅ Storytelling: Determine what storytelling frameworks you’ll use to steer your content.

✅ Execution: Implement TikTok’s creative best practices and create your video using CapCut or TikTok's native tools.

✅ Review: Ensure your ads comply with TikTok's Ad Policy.

✅ Test and Learn: Create content and run campaigns consistently, adopting a 'test and learn' mindset to improve performance and fine-tune what works.

Related articles:

• How to generate leads for your small business on TikTok

• TikTok Small Business Marketing Guide:Organic Content + Paid Ad Campaigns

• How to measure campaign performance on TikTok

Sources:

1. TikTok Marketing Science Global Retail Path-To-Purchase Study 2021 conducted by Material

2. TikTok Marketing Science Global Organic + Paid Study 2021 conducted by Neurons