In July 2023, TikTok introduced a significant update that lets users create text-only posts. This opens up a whole new way for creators to connect, engage, and share content with their community.
But how do you get the most out of it?
As a content marketer, my job is to plan, research, create, and publish engaging content. I’ve worked with start-ups, SMBs, and Fortune 500 companies, and I know how difficult it can be to keep up with new social media features. It requires constantly adapting your strategy to get the most out of your efforts.
In this article, we’ll take a look at what this new feature means, how to use it, and give you 10 useful tips to make the most out of text-only TikTok posts.
TikTok releases text-only posts
Competition in the world of social media is fierce. Meta’s text-based app Threads reportedly signed up 100 million users in its first 5 days. Twitter rebranded as X following Elon Musk take-over — with many upcoming changes teased.
Shortly after, in July 2023, TikTok released text-only posts expanding its features beyond video creation. Text-only TikTox are now seamlessly integrated, unlocking new ways to express yourself with text.
How, when and why to use TikTok text posts
TikTok text-only posts are a useful tool for businesses and content creators. They offer new ways to market, share, and engage with audiences on the fastest growing social media platform.
How to create a TikTok text-only post
Creating text-only posts in TikTok is easy:
- Start by clicking the Plus icon as you normally would for a video post
- Choose “Text” and start writing!
- Tap “Done” then “Post To Feed”
The difference between “regular” and text-based TikTox is that there are no video elements to text-only posts. Elements like emojis, stickers, hashtags, and music can all be added to posts.
What to know before you start using text posts
It’s important to consider who your audience is and tailor your message to them. Keep in mind that the platform’s audience tends to be younger. In fact, 70.2% of adult users are between the ages of 18-34.
TikTok is one of the top ecommerce platforms, with 78% of users buying a product if they see it featured by a creator. Considering that the platform’s ad reach is now at 945.2 million (up 14.6% from 2021), TikTok can strongly influence purchasing decisions.
Interestingly, over 40% of Gen Z use TikTok over Google as a search engine. That means these users are actively searching for educational content.
When to use text-only posts (instead of video)
Use text posts to connect and engage your followers by creating a poll, asking questions, highlighting a sale, posting quotes, sharing your writing, and more.
Text-only posts make sure you get a message across clearly, without too much distraction. It’s best used for short-form text, to keep viewers engaged. Text-based posts are also quick to create compared with video or photo-based content. Use them to tell stories, share song lyrics, share inspirational messages, announcements, updates, or educational content.
You can also use them to tease upcoming content, request partnership opportunities, highlight product features, host question and answer sessions, and much more.
How to make your TikTok text-only posts stand out
Text-only posts can help you communicate clearly, connect with your audience, and increase engagement and followers. Let’s look at how to make the most of TikTok’s latest feature.
1. Keep your message focused
With super-short attention spans leading to TikTok Brain (yes, that’s a real term!), it’s essential you get to the point quickly. Remember to stay on-topic and keep your message clear.
Ask yourself: What is the one important thing I want to convey with my post? Now cut away anything that doesn’t contribute to it.
Wordtune can help you keep your writing concise and to the point. Simply add your text to Wordtune and hit “Shorten”, then select from the options.
2. Use multiple slides to entice viewers
Using multiple slides is a great way to create anticipation and draw your viewers in, especially if you’re making an announcement.
Here are two ways to grab attention and engage your audience.
Progressive reveal
Start with a teaser or intriguing statement to entice viewers to keep reading. Then, gradually reveal more details or the main point as they continue to swipe through the slides.
By progressively revealing the information, you maintain anticipation and interest, compelling the audience to swipe through and engage with your post.
Impactful opening statement
Begin with a strong, attention-grabbing statement that conveys the main message or information you want to highlight. Make it bold, contrasting, or animated to ensure it stands out.
By starting with a strong opening statement, you immediately capture the viewer's attention and communicate the essential information, prompting them to take action or continue reading for more details.
3. Include a call to action
Think about what you want the viewer to do next. How can you make the most out of each post interaction? Text-only posts are the perfect place to ask your audience to take the next step. You can ask them to share, participate, sign-up, comment, follow, or like.
Example:
In this example, the CTA includes:
- Engagement prompt: Encourage the audience to take action with a positive and engaging tone.
- Value proposition: Highlight the benefit or value that the audience will gain by following through with the CTA (e.g., achieving glowing skin).
- Action verbs: Utilize action-oriented verbs like "Discover," "Tap," and "Follow" to direct the audience to specific actions.
- Incentive: Offer an incentive (daily skincare tips and exclusive offers) to motivate the audience to act.
- Use hashtags: Include a relevant and popular hashtag to increase visibility and engagement.
This CTA prompts the audience to follow the account for valuable skincare tips and exclusive offers, creating a sense of community and shared goals. Apply this to your own industry keeping in mind the points above.
4. Use stickers and songs to spice up your posts
Use the sticker button on the right-hand side of the screen to add photos, hashtags, polls, location, or decorative stickers and spice up your post.
At the top of the screen, TikTok automatically suggests trending songs to add to your post, too. If you want to change it, just click on the song and search for the one you want.
These elements add extra flair to your post, making them more engaging. Keep it fun and expressive to maximize your engagement. Don’t be afraid to play around!
5. Use relevant hashtags
Hashtags are still an important way for others to find your posts and accounts. TikTok’s search feature is handy for finding relevant terms and hashtags that you can use on your text posts.
TikTok doesn’t have a limit on the number of hashtags you can include, but it’s recommended to stick to three to five. Remember that the limit for text-only posts is 1000 characters, so choose your hashtags wisely.
Find hashtags that are relevant to your post by:
- Follow accounts that post in your niche/industry: Note down what hashtags and words used regularly
- Search for terms that describe your product/service/page: TikTok provides suggested hashtags and search terms that can help you expand your reach
- Explore: Check the Explore tab on TikTok to pick up any trending hashtags and generate ideas for content that aligns with them
Use tools to track and analyze: There are several AI tools out there that help you find and track trending hashtags. This can be useful to see if it’s time to capitalize on a growing trend, or if a hashtag is dying out.
6. Engage with your audience
Get your audience involved! Add questions, interactive polls, challenges, brain teasers, and encourage story sharing. Here are a few examples to get you started:
Engage with a question: Encourage your audience to share their preferences, fostering a sense of community and opening up a conversation around a shared interest.
Interactive fill-in-the-blank: Prompt your audience to fill in the blank with their own responses, encouraging them to actively participate and share their experiences.
Challenge or poll: Create a fun challenge or poll that sparks a friendly competition or comparison, encouraging your audience to interact and express their preferences.
Encourage story sharing: Invite your audience to share their personal stories or achievements, fostering a supportive and uplifting environment within the TikTok community.
Riddles or brain teasers: Pose a brain teaser or riddle, encouraging your audience to think and engage with the post by providing their answers and challenging others to participate.
Enable the comment feature: Reply to comments, ask questions, and note down any feedback you receive in the comments. This can be a great place to learn more about your audience and adapt your strategy to meet them where they are.
7. Use the duet feature in your text posts
This is a great way to collaborate with other TikTok creators. By enabling the Duet feature, other creators can engage directly with your text posts. Your post will appear on their page, too, so it’s a great way to build reach.
Interactive Text Duet:
- Start by creating a text-only TikTok post with a question or statement, encouraging your audience to respond.
- Then, record a Duet video where you showcase their responses in a split-screen format.
- You can point to the responses, react to them, or even create a video responding to the comments through gestures or expressions.
Text-to-Speech Duet:
- Begin by creating a text-only TikTok post with a statement or information you want to share.
- Then, use the Duet feature to create a video where you mouth the words of the text using the "Text-to-Speech" feature available within the app.
- Your viewers can read the text and hear the words simultaneously, enhancing the engagement and understanding of the content.
Keep it creative and engaging by experimenting and finding innovative ways to interact with your audience.
8. Participate in trends
Find trending hashtags, challenges, and more and use text posts to participate in these to build engagement and grow an audience. I find TikTok’s search feature to be super useful as it’s easy to search for trending songs, sounds, hashtags, recipes, and more.
Use tools to find out which trends are worthwhile participating in by measuring their popularity. Is it just on the rise or is the trend already waning or oversaturated?
Find trending hashtags, challenges, and more and use text posts to participate in these to build engagement and grow an audience. I find TikTok’s search feature to be super useful as it’s easy to search for trending songs, sounds, hashtags, recipes, and more.
Use tools to find out which trends are worthwhile participating in by measuring their popularity. Is it just on the rise or is the trend already waning or oversaturated?
Check out trending songs, hashtags, challenges, and creators on TikTok’s Explore or Trending pages. It’s also easy to duet trending videos: simply add your commentary in a text post!
Use creative text formatting, colors, or animations to make your on-trend post stand out and grab the audience's attention. Participating trends is a good way to offer diverse perspectives and conversations within the TikTok community.
9. Promote your other posts
You can use text posts to tease other video or photo posts, offer a look behind the scenes, and more to promote the rest of your page.
Here are three ways to promote your content through text-only posts.
Quote and preview
Use a captivating quote or preview of the content you want to promote. Give a glimpse of what viewers can expect in the post and encourage them to view the full post for more.
Example: 💫 'Success is not final, failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that counts.' - Winston S. Churchill. See the full story on our profile. 🙌
Teaser and anticipation
Create a sense of anticipation by teasing the content in a text-only post. Use intriguing phrases or questions that make viewers curious about the full post.
Example: 🕵️ Can you guess what happened next? Swipe left to uncover the mystery! 🎬 #GuessTheEnding
Countdown and event promotion
Build excitement by counting down to a specific event, release, or post. Use text to announce the countdown and generate anticipation.
Example: 🚀 Only 3 days left until our exclusive product reveal! Mark your calendars and join us for the big launch! 🎉 #ProductLaunch
10. Choose background colors to set a mood
Colors that match the mood and tone of what you’re promoting or writing about help amplify your message.
For example, red evokes excitement, passion, or love; blue feels calm and serene; green is often associated with nature; and purple with luxury and spirituality.
Keep in mind that different cultures associate different colors with different things. For example, in Western cultures, the color white is associated with purity and worn at weddings. But in Chinese culture, it’s associated with mourning. Consider your target audience and the context you’re posting in when choosing background colors.
Take a look at these posts side-by-side. For a Halloween-themed post, the darker colors suit the mood better than the pastel colors. Plus, they make the skeleton sticker and ghost emoji stick out more.
Play around with different color combinations and think about any associations you’d like the viewer to make. Are you celebrating Chinese New Year? Red or yellow are good colors to go for. Or, maybe you’re highlighting a St. Patrick’s Day event — go for green. You can also think about any colors that go well with your branding and stick to those.
Summary
Users can now craft text-based TikTox seamlessly through the app. Leverage text-only posts to connect, engage, and market to your target audience by keeping your message focused, using CTAs, and relevant hashtags. Spice things up using emojis, songs, and stickers to grab the attention of viewers. Remember to use eye-catching fonts, colors, and designs that align with your branding and style.
Experiment with different text styles to make your posts stand out and make the most out of this new TikTok feature. Take your posts to the next level with our article on how to generate captions for social media — with the help of AI. Or, check out our guide to the top marketing tools to improve reach and engagement in 2023.
FAQs
What is a text-only TikTok post?
A TikTok text-only post refers to a post that consists solely of text, separate from the popular short-form video content. This new feature was released in July 2023.
Is TikTok useful for writers?
TikTok’s new text-only feature makes the platform more useful for writers than before. It’s even easier to share written excerpts and promote your text outside of the usual video format.
How to enhance your posts on TikTok?
You can add emojis, songs, stickers, hashtags, and change background colors to enhance your posts on TikTok.
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