TikTok is a relatively new social media network that caters to a young, fun-loving audience. Before you brush aside TikTok as the play toy for adolescents; consider these numbers.
According to Sensor Tower, the number of TikTok app downloads from Google Play and Apple Store has exceeded 2 billion. Furthermore, the latest video marketing statistics show that 79% of marketers who used TikTok have benefited from it.
Are you planning to include this new social media platform in your marketing strategy? Here are 5 ways to use TikTok videos to promote your business.
1. Create Fun Content
Every social media platform has something unique to offer. The content that’s created for one might not work on others. So, before the plunge, study the platform, and know the demographic profile of users that dominate the platform. Study the type of content that works and how to interact with your target audience.
TikTok didn’t start with target demography. But, according to GlobalWebIndex, the Gen-Z or the 16-24-year-old age group has taken to TikTok as fish to water. This means, to connect, the video content needs to be tailored to their tastes and preferences.
What kind of content works on TikTok? Content that’s creative, fun, appealing, and entertaining. Some believe businesses and their marketing efforts can’t survive and thrive on TikTok. This isn’t true. Here is an example of how a newspaper publication is making it big on the platform with fun and creative content.
Fun is hardly the term anyone would associate with the Washington Post. The brand is famous for its intellectual, award-winning, and groundbreaking journalism. The newspaper publication was one of the early adopters of TikTok.
Unlike their publication persona, on TikTok, they are connecting to their audience with funny, pleasant, and entertaining videos. Here is a short video clip of the news team, giving the Democratic Debates a skip, and discussing the Bachelorette show.
The clip earned thousands of likes in no time because it shows the lighter side of the news team known for their hard-hitting journalism.
2. Promote Using the TikTok Hashtag Challenge
Hashtag challenges have become popular among the brands and users of TikTok. This method of brand and product awareness can be organic or sponsored. A hashtag challenge involves encouraging users to shoot a short entertaining video and adding a brand hashtag to the clip.
Brand hashtag challenges are published on the Discover page. On the page, millions of TikTok users can watch the latest videos and partake in the challenge. Clicking the hashtag link will take the users to a page or video that explains and demonstrates the challenge sponsored by a brand or business.
The American clothing brand and retailer company Guess saw the instant success of their hashtag challenge campaign. They collaborated with TikTok for their #inmydenim challenge. The campaign urged the users to perform a short routine wearing the company’s latest denim line. The company also encouraged the users to append the “I’m a Mess” by Bebe Rexha to the clip.
The #inmydenim challenge isn’t an epitome of creativity. That said, the successful campaign demonstrates how connecting and engaging with users on a highly-visual social media platform can go viral and spread product awareness.
While only a few thousand might take part in a hashtag challenge, the viewers will want to learn more about the product and brand.
3. Use TikTok Advertising
Video marketers soon realized TikTok had all the right ingredients except one to serve as a marketing platform for brands and businesses. The gap is now filled after the introduction of TikTok advertising. The social media platform offers four different modes of advertising:
Brand Takeovers: Brands can have their paid ad appear on the feed page. The video, GIF, or image ads usually contain links to the brand’s hashtag challenge, landing page, or website.
Native Ad Content: These ads are similar to the ones that appear on other social media channels. The video ads play before the TikTok content that the user wanted to view. TikTok allows the viewer to scroll or skip the advertisement video. The ads typically last for 9 to 15 seconds and contain buttons or links.
Branded Lenses/Effects: Learning from Snapchat and Instagram, TikTok introduced simple augmented reality (AR) effects into its videos. The Branded Lenses feature allows the inclusion of 2D and 3D objects, filters, and more to the content.
Sponsored Hashtag Challenge: How brands can benefit from TikTok hashtag challenges was discussed in the above section. Instead of waiting for the hashtag campaign to go viral, brands can promote the challenge and reach a larger audience.
4. Partner With TikTok Influencers
Brands might sometimes need a wingman or wing person to get their message across to the target audience. TikTok influencers play the role to perfection. TikTok users who have risen to the status of an influencer know their audience quite well, understand their tastes and preferences, speak their language, and possess the right skills to engage with them.
Heck, some of these guys even rent filmmaking grade equipement just to put out a 10 second video on their social media.
For brands, finding the ideal influencers or micro-influencers to partner with isn’t an easy task. The brand’s target audience must match with that of the influencer. For example, a beauty and fashion tips influencer can hardly help an electronics brand in its marketing efforts. There are many tools on TikTok and on the web that can help businesses find the ideal influencer or micro-influencer to partner with.
The restaurant chain Chipotle roped in vlogger David Dobrik for their #ChipotleLidFlip campaign. The hashtag challenge campaign received 230 million views and more than 100,000 submissions.
5. Piggyback on User-Generated Content
TikTok is a young social media platform that presents a huge potential to engage the future generation. Marketing experts believe that casual and lighthearted video content has a higher chance of going viral. Not all brands can produce content that delivers on the promise of fun, frolic, and appealing videos.
On TikTok, there is more than one way to promote your business. Nike adopted a unique approach, not by creating engaging videos, but by sharing user-generated content.
The multinational company’s TikTok profile is nothing remarkable. The account has a strict privacy setting and the users need Nike’s permission to access the profile page. But, the company isn’t sitting idle.
The hashtag #nike has millions of videos and GIFs with Nike paintings, dances, stunts, etc. What’s more, Nike content has more than 1.9 Billion views so far.
Like Nike, brands can tap into user-generated content. Doing so will help businesses create brand awareness, connect with a large audience, and promote their products.
Final Thoughts
Businesses don’t need a bundle of cash to create videos for TikTok. Visually appealing content that’s casual, fun, creative, and authentic rule the roost on this social media platform.
With the 5 ideas mentioned above, you can promote your business and have loads of fun doing it.
