Building a Brand: How to Establish a TikTok Presence as a New Fashion Brand

TikTok as a social media platform isn’t always the best choice for businesses. Due to the unique demographic and content format, some businesses simply don’t work on TikTok. Fashion businesses, however, do. As a new fashion brand, establishing a presence on TikTok can have a profound effect on your customer levels, your presence in the industry, and your profits.

While TikTok can have lots of benefits though, you might find it a challenging place to establish your brand. This is because TikTok works in a slightly different way to Instagram–the other visual social media platform in your life.

Below, we’ve collated our top tips on how to establish your new fashion brand’s presence on TikTok. Take a look below for some recommendations.

TikTok Basics for Fashion Brands: Audience, Culture, and Best Practices

As a newer app, TikTok is often the place to cater for younger demographics. In late 2023, statistics showed that the age range that most uses TikTok is between 18 and 24, with 25 – 34 year-olds and 35 – 44 year-olds making up the next most prominent age ranges respectively.

This means that if your fashion brand is specifically designed for women in the 60s, then TikTok is not the place for you. However, if you’re looking to build your customer base in the younger generations, then TikTok should be a priority in your social media marketing.

TikTok has a slightly different culture to platforms like Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. Due to the fast-paced nature of the app, trends change rapidly, even though it is considered a trendsetting app. This means that while viral challenges and trending audio come and go in this ever-evolving landscape, the trends on TikTok can often find their way to Instagram, meaning repurposing content is easy

The clock app is also a highly creative space. This isn’t somewhere where the same tried and tested branded graphics and glossy photography will do well. Have fun with your TikTok content. Get the girls in the office to join dance challenges, lip sync to relevant songs, and showcase your uniqueness. All of these content types make your brand look and feel authentic to users, making TikTok users much more likely to engage, follow, and shop with your brand.

Community is also a big factor on TikTok. With a younger user age range, the call to causes and movements is difficult for users to ignore. Your brand can get involved with these social causes by building awareness, raising funds, and leveraging your platform for good.

Lastly, TikTok is a place for inclusivity. As a global app with creators from all corners of the world, the app has been known for uplifting diverse voices and promoting inclusivity. Diversity and inclusivity are important for brands anyway, but if you want to foster connection on TikTok, consider how you can highlight these values in your content.

Setting Goals and Planning for TikTok

All marketing strategies need goals. If you don’t have something to focus on and work toward then your content may lose direction and you won’t be able to measure your success. Steps for goal setting on TikTok include:

1. Establish your audience: Before setting any goals, you need to ensure you know your audience. What is the age range? Where do they live? How do they use TikTok? What do they want from content? All of the answers will help to give your content direction.
2. Make SMART goals: SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Timely. Making goals in keeping with this acronym means they’re highly relevant to your niche as a fashion brand and that you can achieve them in a set timeframe. Goals might include reaching a set number of followers in your first month on the app or a specific average content engagement rate.
3. Break long-term goals down: You might have a goal to achieve a following of 10k by the end of the year, but longer goals can often be difficult to motivate yourself for. So, break it down. Aim for 500 followers in one month, then 2.5k in three months and so on.
4. Identify the metrics: Like all social media apps, TikTok has a reporting feature for creators that allows you to see key metrics on your content. Harness the power of this free feature and find metrics that you want to improve. For instance, engagement means people are actively interacting with your content. A more engaged following means click-throughs and conversions are more likely. So, you might keep track of your content engagement, looking into times when it’s doing well and when it’s not.
5. Identify popular content: Using your key metrics, find which content styles do well and make more of them!
6. Celebrate your milestones: Social media marketing is hard. Algorithms change constantly and updates to apps mean that you can try your absolute hardest and still see little reward. For this reason, it’s important that you celebrate your wins, even if they feel small!

Content Ideas for TikTok as a New Fashion Brand

Sometimes, the hardest part of establishing yourself on TikTok is coming up with content ideas to fill your profile. Below, we’ve looked at some of the best content types you can choose for your TikTok profile.

• Trending content: TikTok is well-known for its trends. In fact, going viral on TikTok has made careers. So, tapping into trending content is always beneficial. If you’re looking for ways to stay up to date with trending content, consider signing up for one of the many, many newsletters that keep you up to date with this kind of information. Or, use the For You page on TikTok to identify niche trends that suit your fashion brand.
• Influencer content: Working with influencers and creators on TikTok opens your fashion brand up to a whole new following. It gets the word out there about your products and gives you User-Generated Content to use in your own content output. Look for influencers in the fashion niche that suit your brand. Ensure your values align and work out a contract that works for both of you.
• Experimental content: If you’re looking for a place to get experimental with your content then TikTok is the place to do it. The video editor on the clock app is fantastic and gives you plenty of ways to be creative.
• Live videos: TikTok Live is a great way to engage with your following. You could go live for a range of reasons, like Q&As or even the try-on for your latest collection. Viewers of the live can comment during the video and you can speak directly back, opening up two-way communication and establishing a community as part of your brand.

Final Thoughts

Establishing a social media presence sometimes feels like a lot of work. While you might get yourself a few viral videos, changes across social media algorithms and apps mean you need to constantly maintain your output.

If you’re a new fashion brand looking for social media support across platforms including TikTok, then reach out to Rokir today. We’ve worked on social media strategies for a huge range of businesses across a range of sectors, including the fashion and apparel industry, and we’ve got the expertise to help you too.