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

Chefs and Dogs, a pet-focused small business based in Canberra, saw success with consistent posts, which helped them grow organically and connect with a loyal community. Their creative strategy mantra was to have fun and not take themselves too seriously, ensuring their content was entertaining first before delivering a key message. In under three years, they’ve grown their TikTok audience to 2.5 million users – largely through organic means.You don’t need to post daily, but creating a content schedule and sticking to it will help you build momentum. Consistent posting will also help guide your creative strategy as you learn what trends and content formats work for your brand and target audience.

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.

Driva is an Australian financial platform specialising in personal loans and vehicle finance. They leveraged UGC by working with creators from the TikTok Creator Marketplace, incorporating this UGC into their campaign video creatives. The video ads followed the tried-and-tested formula of hook, unique selling point and call to action, but the addition of UGC meant their content felt relatable and authentic.

Using creators means Driva can update content regularly and avoid creative fatigue. Driva’s lead generation campaign incorporating UGC content saw a high 16% Conversion Rate (CVR) and made over 720K impressions.

Beyond using the TikTok Creator Marketplace to make compelling campaign content, leveraging creators can also steer their followers to your brand and drive consistent momentum for conversations online about your brand’s products.

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

Sovereign Hill, a nonprofit tourism business, effectively used trending sounds and popular hashtags to boost visibility. They also made it easier for viewers to consume their content by applying auto-generated captions while editing their content in the TikTok app.

Tracking what performed for them, Sovereign Hill adjusted their TikTok creative strategy when they noticed an uplift in engagement on a behind-the-scenes video of their candy-making process. They spun it off into a series, tapping into the appetite they found in their audience – a perfect fit given their organisation’s overarching aim to connect and share knowledge online. They’ve now recorded a 26K increase in followers.

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