Your Guide to TikTok Marketing for Your Ice Cream Shop
If you've spent time with people aged 16-24 in the past couple years, odds are, you've heard of TikTok. If you aren't sure what it is, TikTok is a social media platform where people post videos up to three minutes long. It's known for dance trends, short-form comedy, small businesses, and artful content. It's the perfect place to humanize your business and promote yourself with low effort and no cost.
Here's Why Your Business Should Be on TikTok:
In the year 2020, TikTok was the most downloaded app in the Apple App Store. It has more than 689 million monthly active users. That means TikTok is bigger than Twitter and Pinterest!
Better Reach for Younger Customers
In TikTok's user base of millions of accounts, 60% of those are people ages 16-24. Another 20% are 25-34. If your target customers are 16-34 years old, TikTok is a vastly useful platform for your ice cream shop. Alongside that, the population of people between those ages is the largest demographic in the US. If you're not targeting them already, you should seriously consider it.
Humanize Your Business
Allowing customers to see the behind-the-scenes of your ice cream shop humanizes your business and your employees. Customers will feel more connected to you and they'll have more compassion towards you and your business. Customers love to feel included in the inner-workings of their favorite shops.
Understand Your Customers
Not only does TikTok give your customers the opportunity to get to know you and your business, it gives you an opportunity to understand your customers. Follow your target audience and watch some of their videos. This is a great way to understand the content they like and their general vibe.
How to Market Your Ice Cream Shop on TikTok:
Follow Your Audience
When you start your TikTok, follow your regular customers and people in your area. You can find them by looking through your Instagram followers and the followers of other local businesses.
Once you've found your target audience on TikTok, look at what they're posting. Make a note of what they think is funny and what they're drawn to. This way, you can know what your audience is already watching and make your way in.
Find Your Niche
Once you know what your audience likes to see, it's time to figure out what to post. This is where your niche comes in. Most videos on TikTok fall into four categories: satisfying, funny, informative, and behind-the-scenes. Here's how you can use these for your ice cream shop.
Satisfying
In the last few years, satisfying videos have blown up on social media. These videos include smooth footage with pretty content. This could be scooping ice cream, making a sundae, or even cleaning your workspace. Satisfying videos include anything that's relaxing to watch.
This TikTok is a good example of a satisfying video from an ice cream shop:
@dooziesmtp Watching this on a loop rn ##dooziesmtp ##smallbusiness ##oddlysatisfying ##icecreamshop ##icecream ##sprinkle ##dolewhip ##icecreamcone
♬ SUNNY DAY - Matteo Rossanese
Funny
TikTok is the perfect place for short-form comedy. If you can make your audience laugh in 30 seconds, you're doing well. Funny videos you can post for your ice cream shop include mistakes made while serving, funny stories about customers, or funny stories about running your ice cream shop.
Here's a good example of a funny TikTok from an ice cream shop:
@beeniesicecream “Regular Cone” ##icecreamshop ##beeniesicecream ##funny ##foryou
♬ original sound - Beenie’s Ice Cream
Informative
This may surprise you, but TikTok is filled with informative content. For your ice cream shop, this could be the science behind your ice cream, how you clean your store, or the process you use to hire employees.
Here's one about fun facts!
@gelatorajissimo Mind blowing right?🤯 LIKE FOR A PART 2!❤️ ##gelatorajissimo ##icecream ##icecreamshop ##fyp ##denmark ##churros ##fy ##foryou ##xyzbca ##churros ##homemade
♬ Lose Control - Meduza & Becky Hill & Goodboys
Behind-the-Scenes
Customers love to know what goes on behind the scenes. They love to feel like they're a part of something. In your ice cream shop, you could make videos about your process of making a new flavor of ice cream, a tour of your kitchen, or opening your shop at the beginning of the day.
Here's an example of someone filming their opening routine:
@haleylooops opening at an ice cream shop part 1 ##openingshift ##opening ##fyp ##icecream ##foryou ##shift ##working
♬ original sound - haley
Follow Trends
TikTok is all about trends. People echo one another with sounds, dances, and stories. Following trends is an important part of marketing your ice cream shop on TikTok. Stay up-to-date with current trends. If you can keep up with the current trends, your audience will be more willing to watch your content.
Relevance is Better than Reach
Followers don't matter unless they're your target audience. If you have a million followers, but none of them are potential customers, they're useless to you. Keeping your TikTok relevant to your target audience gives you a better opportunity to reach potential customers.
TikTok is a great place to market your ice cream shop. If you regularly post relevant content that follows trends, your ice cream shop will gain traction.
Follow us on TikTok!
