Top 10 tips helping founders & startups win on TikTok

Don't use TikTok just to "sell"; use it to learn. You can learn so much by interacting with folks in the comments, soliciting feedback, and being aware of what is trending in your niche. 

Participating in trends to maintain relevance is important, but “not selling” is just as crucial as you create direct content for your products/services. Be authentic, add value to users through education or humor, and be creative.

If anything was universally recommended by the founders & TikTok experts I spoke with, it was that you can’t just sell things on TikTok. You need to participate in the TikTok community and trends, giving your team the freedom to be creative.

The reality is, there are likely people that already love what you’re doing that would gladly create content to be a part of your story.

Something to remember… TikTok rewards good content, not just those with the most followers. This is one of the beautiful things about growing on TikTok and the FYP, and why leveraging other influencers or users/customers in your network can help drive virality.

TikTok is all about experimentation, and you don’t have to start from square one. It’s often helpful to observe and see what’s working for other accounts (or creators!) in your niche or adjacent ones before you get started. Maybe you’ll notice that no accounts in your niche are leveraging their mascot… could be an opportunity. Or maybe you’ll notic... See more

Tracking the granularity of users that find you through TikTok is also important, especially as you scale. For eCommerce companies, usually the question you ask yourself is “does this person become a customer.”

The comments section is an underrated way to engage with your followers and grow your audience on TikTok – being “on trend” means more than just making videos and expecting them to show up on someone’s FYP, thoughtful & funny comments can do the trick as well.

After speaking with a bunch of early stage founders, it’s clear that organic has been the best performing channel on TikTok from an ROI perspective – invest in organic content when you can.