TikTok Business Account vs Personal Account: What’s the Difference?
Last update: 28 November 2023 at 11:45 am
-What is the difference between a TikTok business and a personal account, and which one suits you best?
A head-scratcher to think about, right?
You wouldn’t want to make a huge mistake by choosing the wrong TikTok account type. Especially knowing that if you do so, it will be hard to stand out on this social media platform with 1.7 billion users, grow followers, or do any business.
We won’t let this dilemma become a source of stress for you.
By the end of this article, you’ll know exactly what option you need to pick for effective TikTok growth. It covers all the advantages, disadvantages, and contrasting features of both TikTok business vs. personal accounts. It gives several criteria you might want to rely on for selecting a better profile type for your needs.
Everything You Should Know About Business Accounts for TikTok
Just 20.77% of business proprietors in the United States dedicate over ten hours to social media marketing. Let’s start with the definition and then move on to the pluses and minuses of registering as a business on TikTok.
What’s a TikTok Business Account?
A business account on TikTok is a public profile run by a business to increase brand awareness and reach, engage with the target audience, and sell products/services.
Ideal for companies, service providers, or businesses of any size and type.
Pros and Cons of TikTok Business Accounts
We’ll explore the most essential strengths and weaknesses of business profiles on TikTok.
Pros
“Verified” badge
A verification badge is a blue circle with a white checkmark near the profile’s handle. It confirms an account belongs to the business it represents, helps a brand look more authentic and trustworthy, and contributes to attraction marketing.
Take a look at Chipotle’s profile on TikTok, for example.
Action buttons and website in bio
There are three action buttons accessible for a TikTok business profile:
- Phone number
- Address
For example, Mesoa Men left a clickable email button on their profile.
Business accounts with over 1K followers may also add website links in their bios. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a link to your company’s site. You can create a link or direct your account visitors to your project, blog, social media profile, etc.
For instance, here’s how Netflix shared the link to its app on Apple’s App Store.
Auto-messaging function
Business profiles on TikTok can also boast automatic welcome messages and auto-replies. As for the letter, you might want to set up a keyword auto-reply and select the keywords like “price,” “hours,” “contact,” etc.
Source: Tiktok
TikTok Shop
With a business profile, launching your TikTok shop and selling your products directly to your audience in-app is easy. You can showcase your products on your profile, create shoppable videos, or offer your customers a live shopping option.
Moreover, you can integrate your existing eCommerce store with your TikTok account for business. Currently, it supports four eCommerce partner platforms: Shopify, Square, Ecwid, and BigCommerce.
Business Suite
A Business Suite is a collection of tools that help a brand achieve a specific goal, whether to check the number of profile views, monitor follower growth, or adjust TikTok content to meet the audience’s needs.
Some of its categories are:
- Analytics (with downloadable reports)
- Growth center
- Creative Hub
- Branded content
- Promote
- And more
Ads Manager
The TikTok Ads Manager is a doorway to supercharge your advertising efforts if you run a business account on TikTok. Adverts have a whopping reach on TikTok – 17.9% or nearly 885 million users.
You can benefit from the following ad types on this social media channel:
- In-Feed Ads
- TopView Ads
- Spark Ads
- Brand Takeover Ads
- Branded Effects
- Branded Hashtag Challenges
LG Electronics, for instance, rocked the TikTok audience with #lifeisgooddance – a Branded Hashtag Challenge and a Branded Effect campaign. It resulted in 2M+ videos (mostly user-generated content) and over 7B video views.
Connectivity with other tools
A dedicated profile for business on TikTok allows integrations with social media marketing tools like Hootsuite, Loomly, Sprout Social, and the like.
Cons
More challenging to reach people organically
TikTok’s algorithm prioritizes the content shared by creator accounts over business accounts unless it’s an advertisement.
Only Commercial Sounds
The music library of a business account consists only of commercial sounds and songs (over one million) approved or licensed for business usage. In contrast, a personal account owner can access any TikTok song or sound.
Costly ads
If you scroll through the social media marketing prices, you’ll see that the average cost per 1,000 views on TikTok is $10. You should also be aware that TikTok obliges businesses to spend a minimum of $500 on a single advertising campaign. It can be expensive for a small business with a lower ad budget.
What Does a TikTok Personal Account Have in Store for You?
Follow the same path: definition, advantages, and disadvantages. This time, of TikTok creator accounts.
What’s a Personal Account on TikTok?
A personal or creator account is a default account type on TikTok preferred by users who want to share videos, network with like-minded people, watch entertaining content, build a fan base, and make money on this platform.
Ideal for solopreneurs, macro- or micro-influencers, public figures, or content creators.
Pros and Cons of TikTok Creator Accounts
Now, to the advantages and disadvantages of personal accounts on TikTok.
Pros
Verification badge
Like a business account, a creator’s profile can also get a blue checkmark to emphasize authenticity.
Below, you can see an example of such a symbol on a personal TikTok profile of Emily Mariko, a food and lifestyle influencer.
Extended music library
TikTokers with personal accounts can use any accessible sound or song unless the content is for a commercial purpose (partnership with a brand, for example), including the world’s most trendy pieces. By the way, catchy audio is among the most significant TikTok trends that help creators go viral. For as many as 88% of TikTok users, sound is crucial for their experience on the platform.
“Promote” feature.
If you need to boost content engagement, use the Promote option, one of the Creator tools in a personal TikTok account. It’s a native advertising instrument that makes your videos more discoverable and visible on this social media site.
Note: The minimum promotion cost per day is $3, while the maximum is $1,000.
Privacy settings
Unlike with a TikTok business account, which is always public, with a personal profile, you can switch your account to a Private mode and approve those who can follow you or watch your content.
Monetization programs
Within TikTok’s monetization programs, creators may earn money with –
- Video gifts
- LIVE gifting
- Tips
- Series
- Creativity Program Beta
- Creator Fund
- Creator Marketplace
By joining TikTok Creator Fund, for instance, you can grab a unique opportunity as a creator to monetize your content and get paid for the videos you publish. To do so, you should have at least 10,000 followers and accumulate 100,000 video views in the past 30 days.
Whereas Creator Marketplace, a native collaboration platform on TikTok, connects creators with brands and establishes partnerships for paid campaigns.
Cons
Messaging limit
The direct messaging option is restricted to your list of friends. By comparison, with a business account on TikTok, you can text anyone you wish.
No access to Ads Manager
In a TikTok creator account, advertising boils down to the Promote option because the Ads Manager is available for business accounts only.
Limited analytics
You have 60 days to view (without downloading) your analytics data. Therefore, if you prefer a personal account over a business account on TikTok, keeping an eye on the results and planning your brand development strategy on TikTok in the long-range outlook will be tough.
Business or Personal Creator Account on TikTok – What Else to Consider
Look out for some fundamental criteria and tips from business leaders. They will help you make your final decision.
Goals and budget
Goals
What are your objectives on TikTok?
Would you instead educate and entertain your audience with funny instructional videos or advertise your product/service to stimulate an increase in sales?
Here, purpose-driven marketing comes into play. Clearly, for educational and entertaining purposes, a personal account is enough. For advertising, a business account is a must-have.
Budget
Supposing your main goal is practical marketing and promoting your products or services on social media. Then, you need to outline a budget for online advertising on TikTok before you decide on a business or creator account.
You have seen the promotion prices for both. Now, consider this budgeting piece of advice from Anthony Martin, Founder and CEO of Choice Mutual:
“A general guideline for businesses is to spend 10% of revenue on promotional activities and campaigns. If you have chosen several digital channels for marketing, you need to allocate this budget accordingly and prioritize TikTok, particularly if you target younger generations. At this rate, advertising on TikTok is well worth the investment.”
Features
TikTok offers tons of similar basic features for personal and business profiles. For example, both creators and brands can make stitches or duets, add subtitles to videos for better engagement, and use other tricks in their videos.
What you need to compare, however, is exclusive features offered for each of the TikTok profile types. For example, only TikTokers with creator accounts can use such programs as Creator Fund or Creativity Program Beta to monetize their content.
Then, “There are some TikTok features that can help you always stick to the safer side of business,” says Mark Pierce, CEO of Cloud Peak Law Group. “In the case of Commercial Sounds available for business accounts, entrepreneurs don’t need to worry about copyright infringement. Businesses with personal accounts on TikTok may use mainstream sounds illegally without knowing that. To avoid legal consequences, it’s necessary to ask for permission from original audio creators,” he explains.
Advanced analytics and automation
“In business, you can’t get too far without automated solutions and advanced analytics,” believes Volodymyr Shchegel, VP of Engineering at Clario.
“That’s why you should think carefully when deciding between a personal and a business account for your TikTok success. An account for business outperforms a personal account in terms of full-access downloadable analytics reports and the power of integrations with third-party automation tools,” he notes.
Indeed, as you have seen above in the Pros section of business accounts, they can integrate with digital marketing tools or content distribution software for more advanced automation.
Marketing and selling potential
According to Jerry Han, CMO at PrizeRebel, “TikTok creator accounts have a high potential for companies or individuals to market themselves as brands and establish a connection with their audiences on a more entertaining level. At the same time, TikTok business accounts open promising perspectives for immediate customer sales on the platform.”
So, if branding is the central part of your marketing plan, you’re good to go with a personal account. And if you need to market and sell goods or services, a business account on TikTok has a superior potential for selling.
Tiktok Business vs Personal Account? Have You Decided?
The decision between TikTok business and personal account is often not straightforward. A common tendency for organizations and brands is to opt for a business account, while content creators and solopreneurs tend to lean more toward a personal account.
It depends on your goals, budget, features you’d like to use, analytics and automation preferences, and the likelihood of successfully promoting and selling on the platform.
Once you’ve made a bold choice, you can partner with one of the social media marketing agencies from Sortlist to empower your TikTok communications and translate innovative strategies into concrete actions and head-spinning results.
Anyway, it depends on your goals, budget, features you’d like to use, analytics and automation preferences, and the likelihood of successfully promoting and selling on the platform.
