HOW TO EFFECTIVELY USE TIKTOK FOR YOUR BRAND
For an app where the average video is only 16 seconds, TikTok has become one of the fastest growing social media platforms, particularly among Gen Z, and has over 600 million daily active users worldwide. Safe to say, there’s a huge audience ready and waiting for creative marketers. It might seem like another trend that’s one more job for your social team to handle, but trust us, TikTok isn’t going anywhere any time soon.
There are plenty of ways that your brand can start to use TikTok as a marketing tool and we’re going to walk you through some of the best approaches for your first few videos.
CHOOSE YOUR NICHE BUT DON’T LIVE IN A BOX
Knowing where you fit in your industry and what makes you stand out is critical when building any marketing plan, but that’s especially true on a platform like TikTok. You’re limited in the hashtags that you can use (at the time of writing, no more than 100 characters in length) so being selective is important. Think about what your audience might be searching for, the topics that appeal to them, and where you can fill in some gaps.
Having said that though, don’t feel confined by niching down. Yes, you want to be known for what it is that you do, but there’s nothing stopping you from jumping on a viral trend by dueting or stitching other popular videos. What’s the difference? Both allow you to incorporate another user’s video content into your own videos, but dueting plays this content as a side by side view, whereas stitching integrates that content into the video separately.
Puma is a great example of using an idea that originally came from a brand fan and garnered high levels of engagement by creating a duet challenge for their followers:
BANDWAGON ON TRENDING SONGS AND SOUNDS
If you’ve spent any time on TikTok, you’ve probably heard the same handful of songs and sound clips at least a dozen times each. Users can add any sound within the platform to their own videos, remix them, or create their own originals. Most popular options will stay viral for a few weeks, even months, so using them in your own videos is another way to build credibility with your audience.
There’s also the added bonus of sound search. At the bottom of each video, the sound being used is a clickable link that will take you to another page with all of the videos that have used that audio clip, just like searching a hashtag. While using viral audio can make your content get lost in the crowd, it’s also the perfect place to show up in front of a huge audience if you can strike while the iron’s hot.
Unsurprisingly, Chipotle’s account is full of this type of content:
PARTNER WITH STANDOUT CREATORS
Like with any social media platform, working with popular influencers can help you to reach new audiences and expand your customer pool. The more followers a user has, the more expensive they’ll be to work with, but the ROI potential is usually worth it.
TikTok is no different when it comes to building a marketing campaign, deciding which influencers to reach out to, and how to approach your advertising. Find the best influencers for your industry and whose personalities or content style aligns with how you want your brand to be promoted. Not sure where to start? Remember that TikTok is primarily focused on entertainment, so influencers with funny and likable content are usually safe choices.
ELF Cosmetics are the poster child for this type of video. Working their name into a song (Eyes Lips Face), the brand partnered with several influencers to create original content on their channels using the sound clip. Users jumped at the chance to create their own videos too and the hashtag for the campaign has been used nearly 8 billion times:
USE ADS THAT FEEL LIKE NATIVE CONTENT
It’s a well-known fact that Gen Z hates marketing. In fact, they’re so sick of seeing ads that over half of them are using ad blockers on their devices. But there’s still hope for brands who want to take a less invasive approach to advertising with this audience.
Creating engaging content has always been important, but even more so with a Gen Z target. Ads that don’t feel like ads are really the best approach here. We know that everything in marketing should always come back to storytelling and building connections with your audience, so using smart content that feels organic and authentic, without the heavy sales pitch, will perform significantly better.
Why do you think user-generated content works so well? Because it feels real, rather than an attempt to gain another sale. Incorporate this feeling into your advertising as much as possible. A recent collaboration between actress and comedian Alina Block with dating site OKCupid shows how this can be done well:
KNOW WHEN TO SAY NO
An important point to remember is that just because everyone else is rushing to create TikTok content doesn’t mean that your brand has to. If you work in a highly regulated industry (think banks, hotels, healthcare), the chances of you violating the platform’s terms of use or those within your governing body are quite high.
You also need to think about how you prefer to market as a brand. Do you like to be incredibly hands-on when working with influencers? If you’re looking for high levels of creative control, partnering with collaborators will be unlikely to yield the type of results you’re after. Being genuine and authentic, as well as being entertaining, is the key to success on TikTok, so appearing too “perfect” is actually more of a hindrance than a help.
Finally, think about your team’s capacity. Will adding another social channel to manage, create content for, and engage with the community be too much for them to handle? This isn’t a case of being able to copy and paste content across all of your social accounts. TikTok needs its own dedicated care and attention, so if your team doesn’t have the time, it’s best to shelve the idea for now over creating low quality content that could damage your brand long-term.
Interested in working with TikTok creators or launching your own channel? Get in touch!