TikTok Brand-Building: 4 Ways to Tell Your Story

Storytelling on TikTok is one of the most effective methods you can use for your business’s digital marketing strategy. The power for growth and reach on TikTok is enormous and can help your business get a massive increase in awareness overnight!

This article will cover 4 ways to tell your brand’s story on TikTok. If you’re interested in learning how to use TikTok for your business, keep reading. 

And if you’re looking for help with your social media strategy, schedule a complimentary consultation with one of the Hire a Writer experts!

4 Ways to Tell Your Brand’s Story on TikTok

Branding is all about expert storytelling. And there are many ways you can do this, even on a video-based platform like TikTok.

1. Lists 

List-style videos are great for two reasons. Firstly, they perform really well. Secondly, they’re easy to make. This is because they can be formatted using an established template. 

And while they may not seem like stories, they all employ a narrative structure that internet users can’t seem to get enough of. The formula is simple: Hook, problem, solution.

To make a list video, start by writing out a simple script that looks a bit like this:

1. Hook/problem: “Having trouble training your new puppy?”
2. Summarize: “Here are 5 strategies for training a dog.”
3. List: List each option and offer a brief explanation.
4. Call to action: Invite your viewer to follow for more information. 

If you want to engage your viewer even further, include on-screen text in the form of headings or captions. This will help hold their attention to the end.

You can also hint at the beginning of your video that the last tip is the most important—so long as your last tip is really fantastic, this will work well to increase your view time!

2. Trends and Memes

If you’re trying to use TikTok for business, don’t forget about trends. Trends are important for TikTok’s algorithm and you should include them in your content strategy. 

While they may not seem like they have storytelling potential, when done correctly, they are one of the most powerful storytelling tools available to social media marketers. This is because they come equipped with an advantage: The trending sound offers context that many users will already understand. This makes it very easy to tell a complete story in as little as a few seconds. 

If you want to make sure your trend video tells a story, make sure it follows a narrative structure: hook, problem, solution. 

So, let’s say you’re trying to promote a new dating app. You find a trending sound and make a trend video that addresses the problem of getting ghosted, but then immediately matching and moving on with someone new. 

3. Origin Story Videos

This is an extremely effective way to increase your brand awareness on TikTok. Create a few different videos about your brand, what you do, and the problems you want to solve for your audience.

This type of video doesn’t typically do as well organically on the For You Feed, but it’s important to have a few different versions of your business’s story in your drafts folder. This way, if and when one of your videos goes viral, you can immediately post your brand’s story to your profile. 

Then, as more people visit your page from the viral video, they will see the story video and have a good understanding of who you are.

4. User-Generated Product Success Stories

UGC (or user-generated content) is quickly becoming one of the most important elements of any brand’s digital marketing strategy. But as the popularity of the medium grows, generic formats can get quite stale. 

That’s why it’s important to draft unique scripts that address your audience’s pain points. Follow as many different narrative styles as you can and track your analytics to see what kind of stories perform best for your audience.

You can ask your UGC creator to do a mini-vlog, a list video, a product review, a story-time, a tutorial, a GRWM video, or a comparison video. Just be sure to follow the hook, problem, solution narrative structure!

Additional Tips for Storytelling on TikTok

• Use text on the screen. Whether you use captions or on-screen headers, text on screen is a great way to increase watch time. Use it as a tool to expand your narrative.
• Start a series. If you have a more complex problem to solve, create a series describing the steps in depth—just be sure to make a playlist on your profile of all the videos in the series.
• Harness the power of sounds. TikTok is a sound-based platform. Even if you have a talking-only video, try to use a trending song in the background that enhances the mood of your video. Just make sure the song is quiet enough that your speaker’s voice is at the forefront.
• Follow best practices. Read this article on TikTok content strategy.

More Ways To Use TikTok For Your Business

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