With over 1 billion users every month, TikTok has proven to be a leading social network that's here to stay. But where do you start if you're considering your brand's presence on TikTok? First, you need to decide what type of account will best meet your business needs.

There are two types of accounts on TikTok: Creator and Business accounts. They each offer different opportunities and have certain limitations. To pick the right match for your brand, read our insights in this blog and dive into the TikTok world with a clear strategy in mind.

What is Creator vs. Business account on TikTok?

Let's look at the primary purposes of the two types of accounts one can create on TikTok. 

Business account

The business accounts address the business needs and offer an array of features to help you build, manage, and monitor your brand's activities on TikTok. 

They are public and enable you to connect with your audience in real-time more easily than with a personal account. The Business account offers tools like analytics, creator studio, third-party integration, etc., to help you shape and improve your marketing strategy.

Creator account

The Creator account is a personal type of account. Its primary purpose is to serve the needs of any creators, like artists, musicians, influencers, and anyone who wants to express themselves on TikTok. 

Therefore, the account's features are based on enabling those talents to shine through on the social network.

Until August 2021, TikTok also offered a special creator account, which is now part of the personal account.

If you are still wondering what type of account suits your needs best, read on for the main differences, advantages, and disadvantages of each.

Let's look at the differences between the Business and Creator account on TikTok.

Advantages of the Business Account

Holistic marketing approach

This type of account on TikTok is specifically designed for businesses. Therefore, we recommend this type of account if you are running a company.

The account's tools can help you see the bigger picture of your performance on TikTok and adjust your strategy and activities accordingly.

Access to special features 

The Business account helps you get more insights and features compared to the creator one, like:

• Ads: The Business account offers more sophisticated advertising tools than the creator one, which can help you reach a broader and better-targeted audience on TikTok. TikTok's Workspace contains the Promote tool, which is the one to guide you in your advertising efforts.
• Analytics: This tool will help you understand your performance on the social network so you can manage your marketing strategy in the right direction.
• Business Creative Hub: This space is dedicated to providing you with inspiration, tips, and trends to strengthen your marketing efforts on TikTok.
• Commercial Music Library: The library contains over 1 million commercially licensed songs and sounds you can experiment with in your TikTok videos. Brands can also create their own TikTok trends and sounds through the tools and resources available.

Messaging opportunities

The Business account lets you message anyone, whereas, with the Creator account, you are limited to your friend list. 

You can also set up automated responses to new direct messages to start proper communication with your audience.

TikTok store for eCommerce brands

If your brand is into eCommerce, you can set up a special catalog and store and showcase your products. This will help you boost your sales right on the platform.

Traffic generation to external websites

As a Business account, you are allowed to add a link to an external website in your bio. Use that opportunity to generate some traffic to your website or a specific marketing campaign.

Scaling efforts with third-party tools integration

This type of account is the only one of the two that allows you to integrate with third-party tools and thus optimize your marketing efforts further.

Our suite enable you to plan, manage, and analyze your TikTok accounts easily. With Brandwatch, you can seamlessly collaborate with your colleagues while working on your next TikTok video. 

You can also access all your users’ comments in one social inbox and easily address them so that no comment goes unread. 

And finally, you can look at your videos’ performance on Brandwatch dashboards and access interesting insights, such as the video sources, which are useful to understand where your video was seen: on the feed, via hashtag search, etc.

If you want to learn more about how Brandwatch can help you, reach out here.