How to Sell on TikTok in 7 Simple Steps

With more than 100 million active monthly users with an average daily view time of 68 minutes in the US, TikTok is a place you should promote your business. Now, it just became easier to sell on the platform with the announcement of TikTok partnering with Shopify to launch in-app shopping. Learn how to sell on TikTok using our guide below.

1. Choose the Right Products

Selling on TikTok starts with learning about the platform, its users, and which products sell well.

Research Your Target Market

Before creating a TikTok account, you need to find out if your target market is using it. As of March 2021, teens account for a quarter of US TikTok users, while those aged 20 to 29 are at 22.4%. If your market focuses on millennials and Gen Z-ers, TikTok is the perfect channel for you to spend time on.

If that’s not your target market, however, don’t cross out TikTok on your list just yet. A significant number of US TikTok users are between 30-49. TikTok is a channel where you can promote brand awareness and connect with a potentially huge audience.

Learn Which Products Sell

TikTok doesn’t provide a list of allowed sellable products, but it lists prohibited items. A quick look at trending videos can give you an idea of what types of products are an excellent fit for the platform. You can look at TikTok’s successful business case studies and explore the #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt hashtag for ideas.

Since TikTok Shopping is currently limited to select countries like the US and UK, it might not be a good fit if your market is outside these areas. If you’d still like to explore adding social media networks as sales channels, try selling on Facebook or Instagram.

2. Create a TikTok Account

Once you have an idea of which products to sell, it’s time to start playing with TikTok. You can create an account by going to its website or downloading the app from the App Store or Google Play.

From the TikTok website, click on Log in to create an account.

Click on Sign up. Create an account using a phone number, email address, Facebook account, or Google account.

Enter your birthday. According to TikTok’s terms and conditions, the minimum age requirement for users is 13. Once you click Next, you will see your TikTok feed. You are officially signed up.

If you are using a mobile device to sign up for an account, tap to open it once the app is installed on your phone. Tap Me in the bottom menu bar, then click Sign Up. You can register with your phone number, email address, or an existing social media account.

3. Switch to a Business or Pro Account

Once you create an account, you are automatically tagged as a personal account. You need to switch to a business account. Aside from being able to sell products, switching to a business account enables you to access the following:

• Performance and audience data: Get insights into what your audience prefers when it comes to content
• Business content guide: Advice on everything from choosing a video topic to picking a sound
• Video Showcase: A carousel of popular content from businesses and content creators
• Commercial music library: A library of 150,000+ pre-cleared, royalty-free sounds that you can use for commercial purposes
• Web business suite: Download analytics data, view content creation tips from the Business Creative Hub, and access TikTok for Business for insights

Follow the steps below to switch to a Business account.

1. Within the app, click on the three bars on your right-hand menu.

2. Click on Manage Account.

3. From the Manage Account screen, click on Switch to Business Account.

4. You will see the different benefits of switching to a Business Account. Click on Next.

5. Choose a category for your business.

Set Up Your Profile

Once you have created your account, you need to optimize your profile before selling. A business account also lets you link your website, email address, and social media accounts.

Here are a few things to consider when setting up your profile:
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Some examples of excellent TikTok brand profiles: Chipotle and SendaFriendCo have led successful campaigns on the platform. Notice how they keep their bios short, include an emoji (but not too many), and include announcements (CTAs).

4. Link Your Shop or Products to Your TikTok Account

After optimizing your profile, you are now ready to start listing your products or connecting your ecommerce shop to your account. Below, we detail instructions on connecting a Shopify, BigCommerce, Square Online, and Ecwid store. Once you connect your ecommerce platform to your TikTok, you can:

• Sync your store’s product catalog to TikTok and feature a shopping tab on your TikTok profile
• Include product links in your TikTok videos that point directly to product pages in your store so customers can make a purchase
• Run optimized ads by installing the TikTok Pixel

Expand the sections below for details on connecting specific ecommerce platforms:

Connecting Shopify to TikTok

Shopify makes it easy for you to connect your store to TikTok. Just add the TikTok app from your Shopify dashboard. Once installed, follow the prompts to associate your TikTok business account. The integration also lets you run and manage TikTok ads directly from Shopify.

To install the TikTok for Shopify app, click Apps from your Shopify dashboard and search for TikTok.

Click on Add app.

Once installed, you will see TikTok added as one of your sales channels. Connect your TikTok account.

Note: The TikTok app in the Shopify app store is currently available in Austria, Australia, Canada, Egypt, France, Germany, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Poland, Thailand, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, Vietnam, Sweden, Finland, Netherlands, and Turkey.

Connecting BigCommerce to TikTok

You can connect your BigCommerce store to TikTok by following these steps:

1. Install the TikTok For Business app from the Channel Manager, under Ads and social.
2. Connect and authorize your TikTok Business account.
3. Once you connect your account, create or connect your TikTok Business Center account (this is different from your TikTok Business account) and TikTok Ad account.
4. Set up TikTok Pixel.
5. Set up your catalog. Under the Catalog section, click Create New to sync your existing BigCommerce catalog with your TikTok profile.
6. Set up TikTok Shopping.

You need to connect TikTok Shopping to be able to manage your products in your mini-storefront on TikTok. (Source: BigCommerce)

To add BigCommerce products to your TikTok storefront, click Manage under the TikTok Shopping section. You’ll be redirected to TikTok’s Store Manager.

1. Within the Store Manager, click on your Store Name.
2. Click on the Product tab.
3. Find your target product by using filter options or the search function.
4. Once you’ve found your desired item, toggle Storefront Status to on. Add items in bulk by selecting the check box for multiple items and clicking In Storefront at the top of the page. To remove an item, toggle Storefront Status to off.

An example view on how you can toggle products to show in your TikTok mini-storefront from your BigCommerce dashboard.
(Source: BigCommerce)

Connecting Square Online to TikTok

Connecting Ecwid to TikTok

If you don’t yet have an online store, read our guide to see which ecommerce platform is best for you.

5. Create Engaging Content

Now that you have connected your online store to your TikTok account, it’s time to get creative and promote your products. The only way to do this is to create engaging content that encourages more followers and promotes brand awareness.

It may seem overwhelming at the start, but looking at the Discover tab in your app or scrolling through the For You section can help. You can see trends, look at what’s going viral, and search for keywords related to your brand or business (and the products you promote).

Here are some ideas to get you started:

• Create your own brand’s hashtag challenge and encourage users to join in. Make the hashtag easy and memorable.
• Use trending music to create videos.
• Share an educational or tutorial (how-to) video. Make sure to do it in an easy-to-digest format.
• Join in special occasions or a viral craze.
• Run a contest.

One of the goals in creating content on TikTok is to drive lots of user-generated content (UGC). This promotes brand awareness that leads to trust, and finally, sales.

6. Partner With Influencers

Since TikTok is a creator-focused platform, partnering with influencers provides exposure for your brand and serves as social proof. One way to find influencers that fit your brand is through the TikTok Creator Marketplace. The platform houses thousands of TikTok creator profiles, and you can filter them to find ones that fit your target audience.

The TikTok Creator Marketplace provides insights about the influencer’s audience, including audience breakdown, content performance (view, comments, and shares), trending graphs (followers and engagement), and sample work.

7. Leverage TikTok’s Paid Ads

Apart from creating engaging content, partnering with influencers, and displaying products in your videos, feature your products in TikTok ads so that customers can buy your products right away. It is a great way to tap into this exciting new market.

When creating an ad, TikTok content has the following requirements:

• Image files: JPG or PNG only
• Video files: MP4, MOV, MPEG, 3GP or AVI
• Aspect ratio: 9:16, 1:1 and 16:9 (Vertical)
• Image resolution: 1200×628 (Recommended)
• Video resolution: 720×1280 pixels, 640×640 pixels or 1280×720 pixels
• Video duration: 5 to 60 seconds
• Brand name: Limited to up to 20 characters
• Ad description: Limited to up to 100 characters, no emojis

Types of TikTok Ads

You can run ads in the following formats: in-feed, top-view, branded hashtag challenge, branded lenses, and brand takeovers.

• In-Feed Native Video
• Top View Ads
• Branded Hashtag Challenge
• Branded Lenses
• Brand Takeovers

In-feed videos are shown before a user-uploaded video starts—similar to what happens in YouTube. However, TikTok always gives the user the option to skip the ad. With this type of ad, you can include a link to a website or an app download.

An in-feed ad for the Reflectly app

This type of ad appears at the top of users’ “For You” page when they first open the app. This ad format allows your video ad to be up to a minute long. A perfect example of this ad is the Galaxy Note 20 ad by Samsung.

These hashtag sponsorships last between three and six days and appear in the Discovery tab. When you run a hashtag challenge, you invite the TikTok community to make videos about the topic and mark them with the hashtag. For example, NYX’s #ButterGlossPop hashtag challenge generated more than 2 million UGC videos and experienced a 42% increase in brand awareness.

These are reality filters or “lenses” that users can use in their videos, similar to Snapchat filters. You can get brand positioning in a more indirect way than an ad.

These are ads that are shown as soon as a user opens the app. These ads take up the entire screen and are usually animations. This ad guarantees exclusivity because there can only be one brand takeover per category and country per day.

Bottom Line

TikTok is still an evolving platform, and its in-app shopping experience is relatively new. However, getting into TikTok to promote your online store should be part of your retail marketing strategy. It is the social media platform every business should be in, especially with how fast user-generated content is put out by its users.

If you have an online store like Shopify, it is easy to connect, sync, and advertise your products in TikTok. Explore your options with Shopify’s 14-day free trial.

Visit Shopify

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