TikTok has 1.04 billion users, but my colleagues are not one of them. I mentioned a TikTok meme during a meeting and nobody except my CEO got it. He then asked me to write this guide (unfortunately, I can’t double it and give it to the next person).

If you’re new to TikTok, we recommend first-hand experience with the app. Following influencers like @christopherclaflin and @themrspedersen and businesses such as @moonsrarebooks, @duolingo, and @washingtonpost, is a good starting point. You can also directly immerse yourself in the TikTok Academy, their platform with curated courses for business to explore and learn.

In this Best Courses Guide (BCG), we’re spotlighting the top six online courses for learning TikTok marketing, curated from Class Central’s catalog. Our recommendations are based on extensive research, including course reviews, YouTube comments, Reddit discussions, and my own experience as a learner.

Click on the shortcuts for more details:

• Top Picks
• Class Central’s Organic Reach Study Case
• Why You Should Trust Us
• How We Made Our Picks and Tested Them

Here are our top picks

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Class Central’s Organic Reach Study Case

TikTok is not just a platform for fun and entertainment, it’s also a powerful marketing tool. With its unique algorithms, it offers immense possibilities for businesses to reach a massive audience, boost engagement, and drive conversions. However, mastering TikTok marketing requires an understanding of the platform’s nuances, from content creation to ad promotion.

Embracing the medium of authenticity, 56% of users and 67% of creators feel closer to brands they see on TikTok – particularly when they publish human, unpolished content. Source: Newsroom TikTok.

Even though Class Central lacks an official profile on TikTok, the platform’s organic reach has proven to be transformative for us. Influential TikTok users like Loai Hesham, renowned for his educational content, and La meuf en rouge, a respected tech tips influencer, have endorsed Class Central to their vast, engaged audience. This engagement has resulted in staggering viewership figures and amplified Class Central’s presence and credibility among a young, tech-savvy audience. This kind of reach is significantly more effective than self-promotion on the platform, leading to a noticeable surge in our website traffic each time these videos go viral.

Why You Should Trust Us

Class Central, a Tripadvisor for online education, has helped 60 million learners find their next course. We’ve been combing through online education for more than a decade to aggregate a catalog of 200,000 online courses and 200,000 reviews written by our users. And we’re online learners ourselves: combined, the Class Central team has completed over 400 online courses, including online degrees.

Best TikTok Course for Business (TikTok Academy)

TikTok Academy is a comprehensive learning platform crafted by TikTok to provide businesses and marketers with the resources they need to thrive on the platform. With 34 courses of varying duration, it offers detailed insights into different aspects of TikTok marketing.

Each course spans from 30 minutes to 2 hours and uses engaging video and audio tutorials. Additionally, quizzes and gamified learning elements help reinforce knowledge. However, the platform lacks a learner support system like a discussion forum.

The courses cover diverse topics such as content creation, trend identification, strategy development, lead generation, and more. Among the courses are: “Celebrating Diverse Cultures on TikTok”, “Developing Always-Engaged Strategies”, and “Lead Generation on TikTok.”

Best TikTok Course for Creatives (Domestika)

Arnufur Hakonarson, aka THAT ICELANDIC GUY, a TikTok sensation with over 800K followers, guides learners in this course offered by Domestika. Aimed at creative individuals, the course covers the basics of TikTok, content creation, filming, editing, and the key strategies for brand building.

With 21 lessons and 23 additional resources, learners can work at their own pace. By the end of the course, you will deliver a final project, which other students can provide feedback on.

Best TikTok Ads Course (Udemy)

This course on Udemy is a comprehensive guide on leveraging TikTok Ads for your brand. The instructors, Darius Mora and Evan Kimbrell, provide a detailed overview of the platform and its advertisement mechanism.

Covering 12 modules with 136 bite-sized videos, the course offers insights into growing your TikTok account organically, setting up your ad account, and designing content for TikTok’s algorithm. You’ll also learn to design and optimize profiles for engagement, use TikTok analytics, and more. After completing the course, learners receive a certificate.

Note that some of the TikTok features shown in this course are no longer available since part of the material was recorded back in 2020. This course definitely needs an update but still one of Udemy’s most popular for a reason.

Fun Fact: Evan Kimbrell is the founder of Sprintkick, a full-service digital agency and has another course featured in the Best Copywriting Courses.

Also Great TikTok Video Creation Course (Skillshare)

In this course, Max and Lena guide learners through their creative process to create short, compelling videos that tell stories. This class covers the basics of filming, editing, and posting videos on social media, providing beginners with the skills to:

• Find the best light
• Compose a compelling shot
• Move your camera to create captivating videos
• Edit footage into a logical and cohesive story that is easy to follow

Learners need a smartphone with a camera, free editing apps like iMovie or CapCut, and a social media account to follow along. The course is self-paced and comprises 13 lessons and 4 downloadable resources. The final project is creating, filming, editing, and posting your own story. Once you finish your project, you can receive comments and feedback from the instructors and other students. A certificate is available for download upon completion.

Also Great TikTok Ads Course (Domestika)

This course by Canvas+Co co-founders Charlene Tassinari and Carly Potock teaches learners how to create attention-grabbing video ads for social media using just a mobile phone. They build video marketing strategies with the brain science of human attention at the core of the approach.

The final project is creating a 15-30 second long video ad ready for advertising your business on Instagram and TikTok. The course covers why video ads matter, the difference between organic and paid video, defining your audience and goal, messaging strategy and storyboarding, creating selfie and product style ads, and using ad manager tools.

The course is divided into 14 lessons, with a total workload of 1 hour and 19 minutes. It also provides 21 additional resources to help learners follow along. Upon completion of the course, you can download a certificate and receive feedback from other students on your final project.

Great TikTok Growth Strategy Crash Course (Skillshare)

In this course, TikTok influencer Erin McGoff, with nearly 3 million followers, teaches learners how to create a growth strategy for their account. This course is valuable for both creators and marketers alike.

For the class project, learners are tasked with making a TikTok in their desired niche and sharing it with the class. The course provides tips on using various techniques to make the video as engaging as possible with music, information, stories, and more. Additionally, it teaches learners how to create engaging captions and lean into trends & popular sounds.

The course is divided into 13 bite-sized lessons with a total workload of 41 minutes. One of the reviews mentions, “Great class! Watched this as I am about to enter an internship that requires me to be able to make viral TikToks. This is definitely helpful and I will be employing the skills learnt!” by Casandra Nicholas.

How We Made Our Picks and Tested Them

Trying to find “the best” can be daunting, even for those of us who live and breathe online courses. Here’s how I approached this task.

First, I combed through Class Central’s Catalog and the internet to find a variety of free and paid open courses, some with certificates.

When choosing courses, I considered the following factors:

• Renowned Institutions: I looked for recognized institutions in TikTok Marketing
• Instructor experience: I sought instructors with extensive experience in TikTok Marketing and engaging presentation styles
• Popularity: I checked numbers of enrollments and views to find popular courses
• Course content: I examined courses that covered a range of topics and presentation styles, including the basics and more advanced topics. I watched some course videos to sample courses I hadn’t already taken
• Learner reviews: I read learner reviews (when available) to get a sense of the quality of each course, leveraging the Class Central database with its thousands of course ratings and reviews written by our users as well as available course provider reviews.

Then, I defined the scope for these recommendations. A TikTok Marketing course can cover various topics, so I chose top courses from a range of sub-fields.

Ultimately, I used a combination of data and my own judgment to make these picks. I’m confident these recommendations will be a reliable way to learn about TikTok Marketing.