In a rapidly evolving digital landscape, social media platforms have emerged as a powerful means of communication, connection, and knowledge-sharing. TikTok, initially known for its catchy dances and viral trends, has evolved into a versatile platform that coaches can utilize to inspire, educate, and engage with a diverse and tech-savvy audience.
This article is a dynamic and innovative guide tailored for coaches looking to harness the power of TikTok to elevate their coaching game.
No matter what type of coach you are, this resource will show you how to leverage TikTok’s engaging format to profoundly impact your coaching journey.
Read on to uncover the secrets to creating impactful content and building a loyal following, as well as actionable strategies for making a real difference through the world of short-form videos. You’ll even see some examples from top creators on TikTok to inspire your own journey.
Understanding TikTok for Coaches
What is TikTok?
TikTok is a social media platform and a video-sharing app that allows users to discover, create, and share short-form videos (typically about 15 seconds to 3 minutes long). It was developed by the Chinese tech giant ByteDance and was launched internationally in 2016.
Today, TikTok has over 1 billion monthly active users. It’s also the fastest-growing social media app in the world.
The platform’s user-friendly interface and emphasis on short, engaging videos have contributed to its widespread popularity, especially among younger users, as a place for entertainment, self-expression, creativity, and even education.
The app has been used for everything from sharing funny and entertaining content to promoting social causes and businesses.
TikTok Key Audience and Demographics
In order to understand whether or not TikTok is the right platform for you, you must first know the demographics and interests of its users and how this aligns with your online coaching niche.
Here’s a general overview of TikTok’s user base:
1. Age Groups
TikTok has a predominantly young user base. The platform is especially popular among teenagers and young adults, with the majority of TikTok users aged 18 to 34. However, TikTok’s popularity has been steadily growing among older age groups as well.
2. Gender
TikTok has a relatively balanced gender distribution, with both males and females using the platform. In many regions, there’s a slight female majority, but the difference is not substantial.
3. Geographic Reach
TikTok is a global platform with users in many countries around the world. While it has a significant presence in the United States, China, India, and other large markets, it also has a strong user base in smaller markets internationally.
4. Interests and Content Categories
TikTok caters to a wide range of interests and content categories. This includes entertainment, music, dance, comedy, lifestyle, beauty, fitness, education, and more. The platform’s algorithm is designed to personalize content based on user preferences, which allows for a diverse range of content to thrive.
5. Engagement
TikTok users tend to be highly engaged with the platform. They spend a significant amount of time watching and creating engaging content. The “For You Page” (FYP) algorithm helps drive engagement by showing users content that aligns with their interests.
6. Cultural and Demographic Differences
TikTok’s user base can vary significantly by region and culture. Trends and challenges may be specific to certain countries or communities.
7. Business and Marketing
TikTok has become a valuable platform for businesses, influencers, and marketers to reach a younger, highly engaged audience. Influencer marketing is particularly popular on TikTok, where creators partner with brands to promote products and services.
Remember, these stats can change over time, so you need to do your own market research to determine if TikTok should be an important element of your coaching business.
Why Coaches Should Be on TikTok
As many online coaches well know, one of the best ways to gain organic exposure for your online coaching business is to create lots of video content and post it on social media. This helps you maximize your potential to succeed online.
However, most coaches are hesitant about getting on TikTok. To them, the platform is for teenagers to post silly dances. But as recent stats have shown, the majority of TikTok users (over 70%) are adults between the ages of 18 and 34 years.
If your coaching audience comprises this demographic, then TikTok may be an ideal coaching platform to help you reach potential clients.
As the digital landscape continues to evolve, TikTok emerges as a potent tool for coaches to deliver their valuable insights and connect with a diverse, tech-savvy audience.
Here are some of the benefits of TikTok that make it a valuable platform for coaches.
- Reach a Wider Audience: The organic reach of TikTok is massive. The platform has over 1 billion monthly active users, allowing coaches to get their message and brand in front of many more potential clients.
- Showcase Expertise: Short videos are a great way for coaches to demonstrate their knowledge and skills on a variety of subjects.
- Build Trust and Credibility: Posting consistent, high-quality content will establish coaches as thought leaders and build trust. Trust is an essential element of sales, and it’s human nature to trust someone more when you can actually see their face, hear their voice, and make eye contact with them.
- Step Outside the Box: As a coach on TikTok, you can be trendy and fresh with your content, allowing you to step outside the traditional educational, expertise-based content you find the most other platforms.
- Affordable Marketing: Creating and posting TikTok videos is a low-cost way to market a coaching business.
- Recycle/Reuse Content Easily: If you’re already on other platforms like YouTube or Instagram, you can easily recycle content onto TikTok from those platforms (e.g. Instagram Reels) and vice versa.
Bottom line, if you’re planning for expansion, organic growth, and a broader reach, TikTok is a great platform to consider.
After all, you already have the know-how on content creation and the business strategy piece of it, so why not take full advantage of this video-sharing platform that offers massive performance, expansion, and organic reach potential?
TikTok for Businesses
Social media platforms like TikTok continue to shape how we connect, engage, and share our expertise. They can also be a dynamic force for businesses. In addition to educators and tutors, local businesses and artisans can use the platform to share bite-sized content showcasing their products and services.
There are many ways you can use TikTok as part of your business funnel to attract more customers and increase sales. For example, you can use it as a platform to funnel leads to your Instagram and other online channels.
You can also use TikTok ads to help you reach your target audience on any budget. You’ll be able to get your brand in front of a unique global audience in an easy and affordable way. The TikTok Ads Manager comes with built-in, easy-to-use tools to help you get more out of your ad spend.
You’ll be able to:
- Find Your Audience: The trick to effective marketing is finding the right audience at the right time. TikTok lets you leverage your audience’s interests and viewing behaviors to deliver relevant ads that are aligned with your industry and goals.
- Launch Effective Ads: Use TikTok’s creative solutions, such as ready-made ad templates and built-in targeting tools to create and launch highly effective ads that get you discovered by TikTok users who are ready to shop.
- Drive Sales: TikTok helps you connect with highly engaged shoppers which makes your ads more effective. According to stats, 1 in 3 TikTok users purchased a product because they saw it on TikTok.
- Measure Performance: The TikTok Ads Manager has smart measurement tools that allow you to launch, measure, and optimize your ads all in one place to ensure that you reach your objectives.
In addition to being a one-stop shop for managing paid campaigns, TikTok also comes with built-in video creation tools so you can manage everything from a single place. You’ll find plenty of high-quality templates that are ready to use. There are also drag-and-drop video editing tools.
Moreover, TikTok offers brand partnerships which means you don’t have to spend time and effort searching for the right marketing partners to collaborate with.
These are just some of the ways businesses and coaches of all disciplines can leverage TikTok’s features to grow their businesses. If you’re not quite convinced yet, take a look at the successful coaches who have leveraged this platform for phenomenal success.
TikTok Success Stories – 4 Coaches That Went Viral On TikTok
There are many successful coaches on TikTok who have leveraged the platform to share their expertise, inspire others, and build a following. Coaches from various fields, such as life coaching, fitness coaching, business coaching, and more, have found success on the platform by creating engaging and informative content.
Here are a few examples of successful coaches building their brands and driving business on TikTok.
Nicole Lepera – TikTok Life Coach
Nicole grew her TikTok account to almost 1 million followers by sharing positive and uplifting messages. She leveraged her large following to promote her coaching programs and books.
Lauren Drain – Health and Mindset Coach
Lauren has over 600,000 followers. She posts motivational content around fitness, nutrition, and mental health. She offers online coaching programs focused on those topics.
Megan Parken – Confidence Coach
Megan built up 160,000+ followers with videos on building self-love, banishing insecurities, finding your passion, etc. She promotes her one-on-one coaching for young professionals.
Tori Dunlap – Career Coach
Tori has over 2.4 million followers and gained visibility by providing job search tips, salary negotiation advice, and career development insights. She highlights her coaching services in her bio.
These examples showcase the range of coaching niches thriving on TikTok. Whatever type of coach you are, you can use these examples as inspiration to turn your brand into a TikTok success story.
The key for you as a coach on TikTok is providing value first through helpful tips and advice, then leveraging your authority and audience to offer coaching services. For example, at the end of a video, you might offer a free discovery call.
How Many Views Is Viral On TikTok?
As the coaches above have demonstrated, having a viral video on TikTok is the perfect way to get more people to discover you as an online coach.
However, there is no definitive view count that qualifies a video as “viral” on TikTok. One of the reasons for this is that the number of views required for a TikTok video to be considered “viral” can vary widely depending on several factors, including things such as the size of your existing follower base, the content of the video, and current trends.
With that said, here is a rough guideline for viral videos on TikTok:
- 100k views: A video with over 100,000 views is typically considered reasonably viral, especially for smaller accounts. This shows strong initial traction.
- 1 million views: Any video gaining over 1 million views can safely be considered viral. This indicates widespread reach and engagement.
- 5 million+ views: Videos above 5 million views have achieved a very viral level of popularity on TikTok. This is a major success.
- 10 million+ views: Gaining over 10 million views is incredibly viral, usually reserved for the biggest challenges, memes, and trends on TikTok. This demonstrates a huge mainstream appeal.
- 50+ million views: Only the most contagious TikTok videos hit view counts in the tens of millions or above. This is a phenomenal level of virality.
So in summary, viral status is subjective and depends on context, but a good video benchmark on TikTok is 100k = solid traction, 1M = unambiguously viral, and 10M+ = massively viral.
Just keep in mind that TikTok is a platform where trends can quickly change, and what’s considered viral today may not be the same in a month. Engagement (likes, comments, shares), and the speed at which views accumulate are also essential factors in determining whether a video is going viral.
In essence, creating content that resonates with your audience and aligns with your goals is a much better goal than solely chasing view counts.
How to Use TikTok To Grow As An Online Coach
Now that you’re inspired, it’s time to dive into the strategy for using TikTok to grow your coaching business.
But before we do, it’s important to understand that the app is different from other social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter in that it isn’t designed for growing a following or cultivating a community.
This is an important distinction for coaches to understand because in order to succeed, you’ll have to leverage TikTok as an outreach platform. In other words, The platform’s goal is to get as many users as possible to watch content on the site for as long as possible by pushing out whatever content the algorithm deems relevant, but it’s not necessarily from the creators they follow.
So, you will see a much greater ROI on your marketing efforts if you focus on using TikTok for brand awareness as opposed to community building or social selling.
Having said that, here’s a step-by-step plan designed to help you succeed on TikTok for coaches and businesses.
1. Define Your Niche and Audience
Earlier, we discussed the demographics of TikTok users. It’s important for you to understand who’s using the platform so you can align your TikTok content to your target audience.
First, consider whether your target audience is active on TikTok in the first place. If you’re trying to reach teenagers and young adults, TikTok may be a good fit, as it’s particularly popular among this demographic.
However, if your coaching clients are over 55 years of age, this may not be the ideal platform for you. Just keep in mind that TikTok’s user base is diversifying, so it’s not limited to just a younger audience.
Next, research and analyze your potential audience on TikTok. In addition to identifying your target audience on TikTok, you also need to cater to their specific needs. That’s why niche specialization is so important for coaches on TikTok.
2. Set Clear Goals
Your next step is to define specific goals for your content coaching on TikTok. You’ll need to not only identify your purpose but also look at potential objectives, such as brand awareness, client acquisition, or knowledge sharing.
Set SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound).
For example, you might have goals such as:
- Content Objectives: Outline specific content-related objectives that align with your coaching goals. For instance, you might aim to create three educational videos per week or participate in trending challenges relevant to your niche.
- Engagement Goals: Engagement is vital on TikTok. Define goals related to likes, comments, and shares. For example, aim to receive 100 comments on your educational videos within a week.
- Follower Growth: If your primary goal is to expand your reach, set follower growth targets. Determine how many new followers you aim to gain over a specified time frame.
- Promotion and Conversion: If your goal is to promote your coaching services, specify how many inquiries or sign-ups you want to receive via TikTok within a particular time frame.
You also need to focus on monitoring and analytics. You must be able to track your progress (video views, watch time, audience demographics, etc.) so you can improve your TikTok performance wherever possible.
3. Create Engaging and Educational Content
By mastering the art of short-form video content, coaches can create a profound impact and extend their reach beyond conventional boundaries.
So, embrace the world of TikTok and start your journey towards becoming a TikTok-savvy coach, inspiring and educating a global audience, one short video at a time. But what type of content can coaches create on TikTok?
Types of Videos Coaches Can Post
For most coaches, the types of content that resonate with their TikTok audience include educational, inspirational, and storytelling videos. But in fact, any type of content works, as long as it’s visually appealing and can be effectively conveyed in brief videos.
There are many types of video content you can post on TikTok to help you grow your coaching business. Here are some examples of other videos and coaching content that performs well on TikTok.
- Coaching tips and strategies
- Reactions to trending topics/news
- Q&As
- Client testimonials
- Behind the scenes of your coaching business
- Short motivational talks
- Live coaching sessions
- Advice for your niche
- How-to videos and tutorials
- Challenges
Just remember, whether you are storytelling, sharing tips, or offering quick insights, post each video as a standalone piece of content that works without context. This way, you’ll be able to grab attention faster and keep more people engaged for longer on the platform.
And don’t forget to use TikTok’s built-in editing features to enhance your content to make your short clips even more engaging.
4. Embrace Trends and Challenges
TikTok can be harnessed to amplify your voice, establish your authority, and engage with a diverse, younger, and tech-savvy audience. Trends and challenges are among the most effective ways you can leverage the platform’s algorithm to get in front of thousands of potential clients.
A trend on TikTok is an original hashtag, video format, or sound clip that goes viral. Once a TikTok trend kicks off, many other creators tend to jump on the bandwagon which further fuels the trend.
Challenges on TikTok are campaigns that invite people to create their own short videos based on doing some specific task, such as displaying their talent, showing off how to use a product, etc.
As a TikTok coach, you can boost the creativity and entertainment aspect of your online coaching by creating fun and shareable content, trending sounds, and challenges aligned with current trends. TikTok rewards trends, which will help you find more success for your business.
5. Interact with Your Audience
In today’s fast-paced digital landscape, TikTok has emerged as a captivating platform that can help coaches connect with their audience, share insights, and inspire positive change in just 60 seconds.
Whether it’s comments, likes, or shares, there’s value in engaging with viewers on TikTok. You need to respond to comments and engage your audience in conversations. Your interaction with the audience helps to enhance authenticity and build trust.
You can also work to build a community on the platform. Although TikTok isn’t built for community-building, it’s still possible to use your audience interactions as a way to foster a supporting TikTok community around your coaching brand.
Another way to interact with your TikTok audience is through live streams and Q&A sessions. These types of real-time interactions are a powerful way to offer support and on-the-spot guidance to your audience.
Learn more about how to live stream on TikTok here.
6. Use Hashtags and Captions
Using hashtags and captions in more videos is a powerful strategy to help you grow on TikTok as a coach.
Hashtags help to increase your video’s visibility while engaging and compelling captions complement your content and, when used as the title, stop people in their tracks as they’re scrolling down their feeds.
Here are some examples of hashtags and captions used by coaches on TikTok:
Hashtags:
- #CoachingTips: A general hashtag that can be used for various coaching topics, from life coaching to career coaching.
- #MindsetMastery: For coaches focusing on mindset, personal development, and mental resilience.
- #SuccessStrategies: Suitable for business and career coaches who share strategies for success.
- #WellnessJourney: A versatile hashtag for coaches specializing in wellness, nutrition, and healthy living.
Captions:
- “Unlock your potential with these daily habits. 💪 #PersonalGrowth #CoachingTips”
- “Embrace change and watch your life transform. 🌟 #MindsetMastery #ChangeIsGood”
- “Success begins with a plan. Start mapping out your goals today. 📈 #SuccessStrategies #GoalSetting”
- “Your wellness journey starts with self-care and self-love. ❤️ #WellnessJourney #SelfCare”
Thanks to its over 1 billion active users, TikTok has a massive organic reach that’s unmatched on most other social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook. For this reason, the platform has huge virality potential for creators who leverage hashtags and captions.
Some coaches have gone viral with their videos which completely transformed their online businesses. But while virality is great, it’s not something that’s necessary for you to be successful on TikTok.
7. Leverage Collaborations and Duets
Creating duets and collaborating with other TikTok users, including influencers and fellow coaches can extend your reach and engagement significantly.
The goal is to create content that demonstrates your expertise so you can tap into new audiences and showcase the power of your coaching through collaborations. Be creative in providing value and perspective.
Collaborations also come with a ton of other benefits, including networking opportunities, diverse expertise, cross-promotion, and increased credibility.
You’ll find plenty of successful coaching collaborations on the platform, including career coach Anna Redman who partnered with teacher influencer Mrs. G to create videos on resume building, interview skills, and workplace etiquette for students. This allowed Anna to provide tips to Mrs. G’s 780k engaged followers.
Another great example is business coach Chris Winfield who collaborated with digital nomad travel influencer Kelly Kahn (12k followers) on videos featuring productivity and time management tips for remote workers.
You too can leverage collaboration and duets on TikTok to help you grow an engaged audience by following these tips.
- Guest Coach Takeovers: Have a fellow coach in your niche take over your account for a day to share tips. This exposes their expertise to your audience.
- Q&As: Do a question-and-answer video with an influencer or expert where they ask you coaching-related questions.
- Reaction Videos: Duet or stitch an inspirational or informational video by reacting and adding your commentary as a coach.
- Co-Created Content: Team up with complementary creators to co-author helpful tips and advice based on your combined knowledge.
- Trend Participation: Provide your coaching twist on trending challenges by collaborating with others participating in the same challenge.
- Behind-the-scenes: Give your followers a glimpse into your coaching programs by having clients share testimonials, experiences, and progress.
- Virtual Conferences: Participate in live streams, panels, and virtual events alongside other experts in your field.
- Cross-Promotions: Shoutout or promote fellow coaches in your niche who can return the favor.
With these tips, you’ll be able to create duets and collaborations effectively to gain exposure on TikTok.
8. Measure Success and Adaptation
Continuous improvement and adaptation is the only way you’ll be able to succeed on a platform that is constantly evolving.
You need to track and analyze key TikTok metrics, such as views, likes, and shares. Monitor your follower count, engagement rates, video views, and any other metrics that are important to your coaching objectives.
TikTok has built-in analytics tools that let you view limited analytics details such as the time and date each video was viewed, when you got the most engagement, and which video effects are most popular with your audience.
You will have to use a third-party tool to measure more in-depth metrics. Fortunately, there are plenty to choose from, including Social Insider, Popsters, and Analisa.
One of the best TikTok analytics tools to track hashtags and profiles is Keyhole.
It allows you to identify your top posts at a glance and comes with easy-to-use hashtag tracking and analytics features. You also get recommendations to help you increase engagement, and you can even analyze profiles and competitors from your dashboard.
With such tools at your disposal, you’ll have all the data you need to evaluate your performance and adjust your TikTok strategy as needed.
How to Decide If TikTok Is the Right Platform for You
So far, this guide has outlined some exceptional reasons why TikTok is a great platform for coaches. But, you still have to make the choice for yourself.
Here are some tips to help you decide if TikTok is right for you.
- Consider your target audience. TikTok skews young, so it’s a great fit if you want to reach Gen Z. Other platforms like Facebook may be better for older demographics.
- Evaluate if short videos fit. The short format lends itself well to comedy, dance/music, creative skills, and viral challenges. More in-depth content may thrive better elsewhere.
- Assess your willingness to create. Success requires regularly posting new videos. You’ll need to commit to ongoing content creation.
- Check out popular niches. Life coaching, relationship coaching, business and entrepreneurship coaching, and career coaching all thrive on TikTok. See what resonates and provides value.
- Analyze the competition. Research other accounts in your niche. If it’s oversaturated, standing out may be difficult as a new creator.
- Set realistic goals. Viral fame happens for a few. Set targets like followers, views, or engagement as benchmarks.
- Consider your brand. TikTok’s casual feel may suit brands with a quirky or upbeat personality but not a formal corporation.
- Test ideas. Draft some sample video ideas and run them by objective friends. See if your content suits the expectations of the platform.
Deciding if TikTok is the right platform for you depends on your goals. By weighing factors like your target audience, content style, competitive landscape, brand identity, and goals, you can make an informed choice on whether TikTok is a suitable platform for your needs. A small test run can provide valuable insight as well.
Best Practices For Unlocking the Potential of TikTok for Coaches
So far, this guide has shown that TikTok can be a valuable platform to reach and educate a broader audience. It has built-in tools designed to help you elevate your coaching career and create a lasting impact.
If you’ve decided to explore TikTok for your coaching business, here are some key strategies and tips to help you maximize the impact on the platform.
- Tailor content to a specific niche like nutrition, finance, career, fitness, etc.
- Educate and inform your audience by sharing tips, behind-the-scenes looks, and helpful advice aligned with your niche.
- Show some personality and let your authentic self shine through to connect with your audience.
- Utilize trends wisely. For example, use popular audio, hashtags, effects, etc., but with your unique spin. This way, you’ll share more content that warrants comments and conversations.
- Engage with your audience by going live, responding to comments, doing Q&As, and collaborating with others.
- Post at least 2-3 videos per week to stay top of mind. Also, you must make sure your videos are easily shareable – even by those who don’t know who you are.
- Link to your other channels and promote your best content on other platforms to help you drive traffic to your website and social platforms.
- Optimize video titles, descriptions, and hashtags. Add captions to every video and use a caption as the title of each video to visually hook people in as they scroll through their feeds.
- Use relevant audio and effects and start every video with a hook that lets people know why they should stop scrolling and keep watching your video instead.
- Analyze performance data to improve the different aspects of your business.
Most importantly, stay consistent with your posting.
A lot of TikTok users feel discouraged when their post receives only a few hundred views. However, that’s no reason to give up. After all, as a coach, two or three hundred views mean that all those people now have awareness of your coaching business.
Whichever way you look at it, it’s still a win. So keep posting engaging videos and you’ll be able to compound your efforts over time.
TikTok For Coaches: The Final Word
We hope this guide has helped you determine if TikTok is a good avenue for you.
We’ve explored how to create an effective TikTok presence as a coach, build a loyal following in your niche, create viral content that resonates, and attract potential coaching clients.
If you’re like many online coaches who are really leaning into video content creation, then TikTok is an essential resource to add to your marketing arsenal. The platform will help you reach a wider audience and create a lasting impact.
Use the information in this guide to embrace a new era of coaching – one where you use TikTok as a coaching platform and leverage its features to elevate your coaching career.
And if you’re looking for an online platform specifically designed for coaching, check out our top picks for online coaching platforms.
Jeff Cobb, Founder of Learning Revolution
Jeff Cobb is an expert in online education and the business of adult lifelong learning. Over the past 20+ years he has built a thriving career based on that expertise – as an entrepreneur, a consultant, an author, and a speaker. Learning Revolution is a place where Jeff curates tips, insights, and resources to help you build a thriving expertise-based business. Learn more about Jeff Cobb here.
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