In this lesson we’ll learn how many TikTok account types there are and which one you should choose.
There are actually 3 types of accounts:
- Personal accounts
- Business accounts
- Themed accounts (or aggregate accounts)
Personal accounts
It’s the most common type of account on TikTok. It ranges from ordinary people that just want to have fun (and post random content) to the more professionally-inclined people that choose a specific niche and try to become the authority within that space.
Dentists to lawyers, fishermen to dancers, actors to entrepreneurs… all typically use a personal account type. They have a specific goal in mind and create content to grow loyal audiences and build a fan base.
Personal accounts examples and analysis
Let’s take a look at some of the best personal accounts on TikTok and extract insight into what works and what the best are doing.
- A great example of such a profile is Charli D’amelio. She’s currently the most popular tiktoker and she built her account around dancing and everyday life type of content.
- Another great example of a personal profile that blew off lately is SeanDoesMagic. As the user name suggests, this popular creator makes short magic tricks clips. He posts daily and creates a rather engaging type of content. Again, a great example of a personal profile in a popular niche.
- Gary Vaynerchuk! He, of course, is a very famous Instagrammer and a well-known business person. An interesting thing that he does on his profile is repurposing content from his Instagram. He’s all about entrepreneurship, investments, and other such business topics. He promotes his company and his services quite successfully and has a huge following on TikTok.
Even though his demographic is more suited for Instagram he manages to somehow get good traction on TikTok as well.
- How about Will Smith? Of course, he’s a famous actor, and we all know him. He was actually one of the 1st big actors to blow off on TikTok. He leverages his fame and even though he doesn’t have that many clips he still managed to get a huge following (in the millions). Again, a great example of a successful TikTok profile.
As an actor, he needs to promote and sustain his fame to keep his status. So, in this case, promoting himself and creating behind the scenes type of clips, he leverages TikTok to support his acting career.
Business accounts
This type of account is used primarily by companies. The logo is usually the business logo and not the face of a person. The content on this type of account usually revolves around promoting their business products and services.
Sometimes business profiles may have a person and not the brand creating the content. But this does not make it a personal account as the person promotes the brand’s products. So, the content will not be centered around the person himself/herself but rather on the services or products of the business.
Business accounts examples and analysis
Let’s go through a couple of examples and see how this type of account is built and maybe even get some insight into their secrets.
- Boston Celtics is a great example of a business profile. Their user icon features the logo of the Boston Celtics team. Browsing through their content you can find a lot of clips shot at gaming events, players being interviewed by news anchors, but also a lot of funny meme-like content.
These all promote the brand itself and create awareness around the Boston Celtics team. So, you see, this account is not centered around a particular person but rather around the whole brand (in this case a sporting team). So sports and anything related to that makes for a really good niche on TikTok. Behind the scenes or favorite moments are great to build your Business account, as this type of content usually gets high engagement. Also, note that being authentic is one of the key takeaways on having a successful TikTok account.
- Let’s see Amazon prime video. At the moment of writing this account has 1.5 million followers and more than 46 million likes. We can all agree this is a hugely successful account… but how did they do it? As with any successful business, they center their content around company values and specifics.
Their content features their actors, and stars, and the most popular TV series. Funny moments, behind the scenes, bloopers are all part of their content strategy. They keep it real and even have a couple of raw clips. With TikTok, you’d like to stay away from polished content and try a more unedited approach (to appeal to a larger fan base).
- Ralph Lauren, yes the fashion designer! A great (and minimalist) logo and clear username – that’s the mark of success. Fashion is one of the niches that tend to do really good on TikTok and, if your business is within the niche, there’s a lot you can do in terms of content to build your company (and easily reach more customers).
In this particular case, this brand uses influencers to promote their clothing. It’s a great idea because leveraging the audience and fame of the influencers will help in your marketing efforts by a big margin.
- Another great example of a business account is the Washington Post. We all know it’s one of the largest newspapers out there. A clean logo and a short bio are enough for such a well-known brand. The content revolves around trending topics. They cover everything from official interviews to funny short clips and anything in between.
Take note though, they do not focus their content around a person, but rather on trends and topics of general interest. See a couple of their clips to get a better understanding of how they build their content. They have half of million followers and more than 23 million likes, so they must be doing something good.
Getting inspired by these well-performing accounts is not copying, as we all need mentors and we all need help in understanding how to create a winning strategy.
Themed accounts
These are usually built around a certain theme (like fails, and other funny clips). “Fails” or “people are awesome” types of content are among the more popular types of content (and accounts) on TikTok. The owners of such accounts usually post daily and even multiple times per day.
How is this different from the Personal or Business accounts you may ask…
Well, when you decide to grow such an account you create content focused on 1 niche. You do not focus on 1 person or 1 product. You simply focus on the niche itself instead of services, products, or persons. Among the most common themes are sports, politics, fails, etc.
Themed accounts examples and analysis
Let’s dive deeper and take a look at a couple of examples.
- A great example is Whose Fault. It’s built around car crashes and traffic-related short clips. But let’s take a look at the logo and username for a bit. It’s actually a genius idea because it’s formatted as a question (which drives engagement). It creates tension in the mind and wakes up curiosity. So, make sure you take this into consideration when coming up with the name and username of your account – it’s a big step towards success. This account has more than 500000 followers and they get a lot of views on most clips.
- Another example is Memes… huge following of over 12 million and 500 million likes. See a couple of their clips! Their post funny, short clips of people going about their lives and doing stupid stuff. Comedy works! Funny clips are among the most appreciated on the TikTok platform. People usually like to take a short break and view a couple of such vids.
The great thing about this type of content is that viewers usually see more than just 1 clip. They click through your profile and browse through your content. As an average, they will see more, comment more, and like more so you get increased engagements. This means increased account authority and all of your clips will rank higher!
There are a lot of aggregate accounts out there and most of them in the entertainment, celebrity, comedy space. They tend to do really good on TikTok. The platform itself has grown a lot lately and is becoming huge, so you’ll be surprised to see that you can find an aggregate account in any niche you can possibly think of.
To conclude
We’ve gone through all of the 3 types of accounts – Personal, Business, and Aggregate. Each has its specifics and each has its target audience.
The next step for you to take is to brainstorm your favorite account type, niche, and start building amazing content!
