In this week's eCommerce Odyssey Podcast, Trevor talks to Lauren Schwartz for The loft 325 about how to create compelling organic and paid content on TikTok.

Tiktok is an engagement platform where people go to be entertained. Posts consist of short videos (mostly less than 15 seconds) on any topic, which are consumed at a fast rate.

When strolling through a TikTok feed, users can click on a video to interact with it. You can like videos and also view the user's profile to see their other posts. On the post can be a link to their website.

Like other social media channels, TikTok has the option to post organic (unpaid) and paid content (ads). Ads appear in the feed and link to the advertiser's content using calls to action such as 'Shop Now' or 'Learn More'.

When creating organic TikTok content, look at what is trending on the TikTok app. These can be trending:

Think about how you can integrate these trends with your posts, e.g. by adding the latest hashtags to your description (e.g. #tiktokmademebuyit). Look at how people are people are talking about products and how they are talking to consumers.

By utilising the latest trends, you will begin to understand what people want to see from your content. If you are successful, your content will appear more on the 'For you' page.

Success on organic TikTok is measured by engagement. These include:

Both organic content and ads should have a hook, i.e. something interesting to get people to stop and watch the content for more than 3 seconds. Text on the screen makes people stop and read.

When creating ads, create content around the trends. Paid content on TikTok should look exactly like organic posts (look 'native'). Look at the styling of other successful posts and emulate this in your content. High production value ads are not necessary as they will not look organic.

2 or 3% is a good click-through rate for an ad. $30 is a good CPA. Ads are usually charged on a CPC basis.