What is TikTok?
Any company that has used social media as a marketing platform can attest to the truth that social media sites are currently the best way to get consumers’ attention. With consumers’ attention, you get engagement in shares, likes, comments, emoji replies etc., which are all a form of word of mouths for the posts with highest engagements get spread more online. TikTok is presently one of the hottest social media platforms alongside Instagram and Snapchat, and you might be thinking of trying it. For the business individual, you might be thinking how to capitalize it for your businesses. For whatever reasons, you shall find out more about TikTok ads and some marketing tips in this article!
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TikTok Ads & Marketing
There are many statistical reasons why a company cannot afford to ignore TikTok ads in their marketing agendas. Here are a few of them:
- The App has over 500 million active users in the world.
- In the first business quarter of 2020, the App had recorded 315 million downloads
- It is also available in 155 countries
- TikTok records showed keen engagement from users with multiple access by 99% of users every day
- The app records an average of 1 million views on videos daily
TikTok is continually gaining fame in social media and is still offering better exposure for companies at lower rates than already established sites. Companies seeking to market themselves on the platform can maximize their outreach through content creation. The app has a challenge feature that allows a company to reach out to 65% of TikTok users. Your company could take advantage of this feature and create challenges to market itself. Whatever the content, it should result in spreading actions of Fun!
Should I be Advertising or Marketing in TikTok?
The beauty of using TikTok is that there is no limit to who can or cannot use the platform. All you need to do is create content for a specific audience, use relevant features on TikTok, and reach as many potential clients as possible. Everybody likes Fun. So, yes, your company could use TikTok, but is that all you need? Our advice here is that you need a content strategy, in order to maximise potential from your TikTok campaigns. Having a content strategy also allows you to monitor, measure and improve it.
More so for businesses in the Entertainment industry, using TikTok is like a ‘must’ and we highly encourage. The second would perhaps be the FMCG industry (Fast Moving Consumer Goods), because these goods are brought, purchased and used by the general market. That is if you could capture the attention of someone with your TikTok campaigns, even if they are not current consumers or customers of your offerings, your businesses could gain from branding exposure and enhancement which literally influence their purchase decision. All these at zero spending!
TikTok Marketing Strategy
1. Branded Hashtag
The branded hashtag challenge on TikTok is still one of the best ways for a company to use the platform for marketing purposes. Several brands, such as Chipotle, Pepsi, and Universal Pictures, have successfully used the feature to promote their products. The feature encourages TikTok users to create videos around a customized hashtag using a popular song or dance move. Its basically free advertising for your company to consumers, by consumers!
2. Giveaway Contest
Everything in TikTok revolves around videos and hashtags. But, nothing counts without engagements right? Can we incentivise engagements then? Yes! Its totally possible, as long as you keep to TikTok’s terms of use. A giveaway contest would work perfectly in this case with any count of follow, likes, and comments getting an entry. Of course, you can count manually or make use of external tool. Herein, we introduce SweepWidget. This tool is freemium, but only provide 1 giveaway entry route via TikTok page visit. Any paid plan will allow your audiences and followers to gain entries via follow, like, share, and comment. Click on the link to be directed to an example.
3. Regular Episodes
The current video length in Tiktok is 1 minute. However, TikTok announced 2 months ago that this would be increased to 3 minutes! Nonetheless, our TikTok marketing strategy remains the same. Make use of regular episodes. Establish a theme and how 1 episode will lead to the next, all in a matter of weeks! This will keep your audiences coming and your followers loyal. Very hard to execute, but will be totally worth it! Perhaps try with cartoon of how your organisation comes about?
4. TikTok Ads – Brand Takeover
Brand take over ads are also a brilliant way to use TikTok for company marketing. It involves ads popping up once a person opens TikTok and has a link leading to an external site or an internal landing page. Although the platform only allows one advertiser per day, it assures companies of 5 million daily impressions.
5. TikTok Ads – Branded Lenses and Songs
Branded lenses and songs are also a very reliable way of marketing on TikTok. A company can partner with the platform to create 2D or 3D lenses to use or share. Each company with the most following on this feature is placed on the Discover tab on TikTok for ten days. A company can also have a customized song to its products to help in its marketing campaigns. It gets better if your company can partner with a popular artist in using branded songs for marketing.
6. Influencer Partnerships
TikTok influencer partnerships have also proven to be very helpful to any company that markets on TikTok. The influencer’s role is to promote the hashtag challenge for a company and attract as many followers as possible. One influencer can lead to many influencers riding the trend. So, go venture!
TikTok Marketing Tips
DOs
- Understand the hashtags relevant to you so you could monitor and mention in your videos.
- Additionally, do social listening by following key influencers relevant to your brand, and comment on related posts.
- Thereafter, be informal yet tactful. Avoid any potential associations with political parties, and ideologies, cults or similar like.
- Understand your niche and stick with it to create a theme consistent with your brand.
- Plan ahead, strategise, and post regularly. If you need help with your post planning, social listening and auto-scheduling, try SocialPilot. Alternatively, try this Freemium tool, Crowdfire.
- Check TikTok Newsroom for its latest updates.
- Use TikTok regularly to spot new trends in order to hop on it.
- Hence, look for opportunities to inspire instead of copy. Unless its a challenge.
- TikTok has its own video editor. But, if you could, beautify them further with your own editor. Some online editors such as Canva provide ready TikTok templates.
DONT’s
- Use hashtags heedlessly.
- Buy followers. What your channel need is engagement actually, not followers. Good content from properly strategising will naturally lead to new followers.
- Same content from your other social media channels posted in TikTok. This doesn’t give your audiences any reason to follow you in TikTok.
- Be negative at any time. Respond negativity with grace to turn it into a favourable situation. That said, avoid apologising unless it is to admit a mistake.
- Too formal. TikTokers are here to chill! Don’t bore them with formal messages or settings. Relax abit and your audiences will be too! Also, consider your preferred tone for consistent feel across.
- Push to get followers, or sell for your sponsors. No one likes to be pushed. Consider warming them up with good content and let them come to you once they are ready!
Final Comments
As a business, it is crucial to be aware of the changing trends and hop onto the one most suitable for your business audience. You can rest assured that TikTok is currently one of the best platforms with the highest potential for your company’s campaigns. Why is that so? One Word: FUN! The idea here is not for companies to create fun, but in creating posts that inspire users to the trend of Fun! We hope you hop onto this trend and achieve a whole new level of engagement like never before with your TikTok Ads and Marketing Strategy!
Activities
Besides TikTok, how about exploring Instagram, Snapchat or Pinterest for your business?
Would you agree on the Trend of Fun for your business? COMMENT below.
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HASHTAG #TikTok #DonutAtwork
