Unless you have been living under a rock for the past few weeks, you cannot have missed the news that US President Trump intends to ban TikTok from operating in the USA.
His reasons for this ban are both personal and disputed.
Only one other country in the world has ever banned TikTok, and that was India, as part of a trade embargo triggered by a border clash between Indian and Chinese soldiers, where India had 20 casualties.
The proposed US ban has yet to be replicated in any other country in the world which operates a free press.
For freelancers who operate or seek customers in the USA, it means one possible avenue of marketing could be about to get switched off.
However, US federal judge issued an injunction temporarily blocking Trump’s order to bar downloads of the video app.
A broader ban is still set to take effect on Nov. 12 that would render the app effectively unusable.
But until then TikTok is seeing it’s busiest time and so right now is a great time to find and grow an audience.
You can then invite this audience to follow you to whichever is the next hot app.
From now until Nov 12th I am going to publish a series of articles to help you get the best out of your TikTok use, and grow your business.
This week – Hashtags.
Using The Best Hashtags For Your TikTok Content
Like other social media platforms such as Instagram, TikTok uses hashtags.
Hashtags are very important if you want users to discover your videos on TikTok so it is very important that you use the right ones.
For marketers on the TikTok platform there are a number of ways that you can discover good hashtags which we will explain in this article.
It is a good idea to use the correct hashtags to relate to previous posts you have made on the platform.
Why Hashtags are so Important on TikTok
There are a few reasons why using the right hashtags is very important on TikTok.
The most important of these is to extend your reach and get more views for your videos.
The best approach is to use a hashtag related to the content of your videos.
By doing this other TikTok users will begin to trust you are more likely to follow you.
Some TikTok users use misleading hashtags to try and get in on some trend.
Usually this results in TikTok users staying away from their content after experiencing videos that had nothing to do with the hashtag used.
Don’t do this with your content.
Being successful with TikTok is all about driving engagement.
There is nothing wrong with using hashtags from trending topics on the platform as long as your video relates to it.
With more views you are likely to get more likes (hearts) and more followers.
A lot of TikTok users search for specific videos on the platform. When you use the right hashtags you can help them find your content.
Relevant hashtags are always the best as TikTok users do not like anything that is misleading.
How do you find the right Hashtags?
One of the best ways to find the best hashtags to use for your content is to really know your audience.
Find out what hashtags your audience follows and then use these in the right situations.
Never be tempted to just use random hashtags or you will end up with a low number of views to your videos.
After establishing yourself on the TikTok platform you can start to create your own customized hashtags and let your audience know about this.
If you are new don’t start out by doing this as you will run the risk of nobody finding your content.
Have a good look at what your competitors are doing with regard to hashtags.
Identify their popular videos and see what hashtags they used.
The best marketers on TikTok always know who their competitors are and what they do to increase the number of views to their videos.
There are many TikTok influencers who have millions of followers.
You can look at their videos and see what they have done to become successful on the platform.
Again look for some of their most successful posts and note what hashtags they used with them.
With competitors and influencers you can also learn by their mistakes.
Identify some of their posts that didn’t do very well and see which hashtags they used.
You can also watch their videos to see if there are any clues to why they failed.
External Hashtag Suggestion Tools
There are a number of external tools that you can use which will suggest hashtags for you.
They usually work on the basis of you typing in related keywords for your niche and then presenting you with hashtag suggestions.
Two of the best tools for this are Seekmetrics and All Hashtag.
