How to get Shoutouts for your Brand on TikTok

With TikTok growing at an extraordinary rate in 2020, brands of all sizes have flocked to the platform in hopes of capturing the attention of the app’s young user base. With 41 percent of TikTok’s users being between the ages of 16 and 24, this is the ideal place for brands to get their product in front of millennials and gen-z’s.

Getting a shoutout for your brand on TikTok can be a big deal, especially considering how good the TikTok algorithm is at getting your videos in front of thousands of eyes, this type of free organic reach is hard to come by on any other social platforms these days. We recently wrote about how Nerdy Nuts, a small peanut butter company based out of South Dakota was able to scale to $500k/month in sales using TikTok. The small businesses explosive growth was sparked after they received a couple shoutouts from some TikTok creators.

So how does one go about getting a shoutout for their brand on TikTok, and better yet, having that shoutout go viral, as was the case with Nerdy Nuts. Let’s take a look at the steps you can take to get a shoutout for your brand on TikTok.

Identifying Your Audience

The very first step you should take before even thinking about approaching anyone regarding a shoutout, is identifying your ideal audience. Let’s say you’re selling kitchen appliances and your main demographic is moms in their 40’s, you wouldn’t go ahead and solicit shoutouts from a teenage dancer, because that’s not your audience. Although things may not be as black and white as that example, you need to understand who you are looking to get your product in front of first and foremost.

Chances are, if you’re running a business you probably already have a good idea about who your target demographic is, and if you don’t you should use whatever data you have to figure this out before moving forward.

Finding TikTok Creators

Once you’ve got a clear idea of the direction you will go in terms of what kind of audiences you want to appeal to, the next step is going to be finding creators on TikTok that would be relevant to your product and willing to give your brand a shoutout. This is something we cover extensively in our ultimate guide to TikTok for brands in 2020.

It is important to remember that nobody is going to give you a shoutout just because you asked nicely, there needs to be some reciprocated value from your end as well in order to have a creator actually give you an authentic shoutout to their audience. This sort of reciprocated value can come in many forms, but the easiest way to get a creator interested in your product is simply by reaching out to the right creators in the first place.

So, what is considered the “right” creator? Well in short, this is someone who is serious about making quality content for their audience, and they should also be someone who is likely to have purchased your product regardless of you reaching out to them. That last point is extremely important, it is something that helped the multi-million-dollar teeth whitening giant, HiSmile, get to where they are today.

Finding these creators on TikTok will take some time, you’re always going to have to do some due diligence on any creator, simple things like scrolling through their feed, checking comments and followers, etc. This gives you a good feel for who the creator is, how they interact with their audience, and what kind of engagement they are getting. This sort of vetting process can get very tedious, we try to make it as easy as possible with our creator marketplace. In Collabstr’s creator marketplace you are only show high-quality opted-in creators, and you have a direct line of communication with them to sort out details. The other alternative would be manually searching for creators through TikTok, which works, but can be tedious at times. Keep in mind, you will most likely be looking for micro-influencers, anything larger than this will most likely cost you a larger sum of money.

Setting Expectations

Once you have found a few creators that you like, and you have started the communication process whether that be through Collabstr or via DM’s, you need to set expectations and ensure that everybody is clear about the terms. One topic that is bound to come up is compensation, you will have to decide on how you plan on providing value to the creator, especially if you expect them to be providing value back. Compensation does not mean cash payments, although that is sometimes necessary, it’s not a requirement.

Hopefully you have done enough due diligence to the point where you are only speaking with creators who are actually highly relevant to your brand, like we mentioned earlier, we ideally want people that would be likely to purchase the product without you having to reach out. If this is the case, you may be able to get away with simply providing the creator with free product as compensation for their content.

Aside from compensation, it is important to discuss the reason you reached out and what your goals are in terms of this relationship with the creator. This conversation should include details about what kind of content you’re expecting, and if you have any guidelines that the creator should keep in mind. While doing this, keep in mind that you should not impose unfair guidelines on the creator, they have a specific style of doing things and trying to impede on this may lead to a poor collaboration.

Long Term Relationships

The reason we don’t use the word shoutout much when it comes to working with creators is because it is a very transactional word, whereas relationships with creators should be long-lasting and strong. When you’re looking for shoutouts for your brand on TikTok, you need to get in the mindset of looking for a creator that you can build a long-lasting relationship with, a person you would be comfortable having as an ambassador for your brand.

Building relationships with creators will ultimately result in a strong network of content creators that have an emotional connection to yourself and your brand, this is great if you are looking to do more promotional activities in the future. Creators love long-lasting relationships with brands as well, since this means more consistent work for them, so it’s a win-win situation.

Final Thoughts

Getting a shoutout on TikTok, or any social media platform for that matter, is not something that happens naturally in the beginning. As we discuss above, you will need to work for these shoutouts in the beginning, and although it can get a bit tedious it is well worth the long-lasting relationships you will build with content creators along the way. Once you get the ball rolling, you may be able to trigger a network effect that gets other creators posting about your brand as well.

If you still feel a bit overwhelmed in regards to this whole process, consider giving Collabstr’s creator marketplace a shot, we’re able to streamline the process of finding TikTok and Instagram influencers so that you can focus more on your business.