By: Wendy Greenwood, Contributing Author
TikTok is now a leading destination for full-screen vertical short-form mobile video. With its slogan, “Don’t Make Ads, Make TikToks,” it’s determined to disrupt Google, Facebook and Instragram. If you’re considering whether to feature your brand on this growing social platform, here’s what you need to consider before jumping in.
Currently, TikTok is in 150 markets around the world, in 75 languages, with over 500 million installs on Google Play. Its mission? To inspire creativity and bring joy to its highly engaged community of Generation Z and Millennials, based in major cities around the world.
Connect with a Global Community of Creators
TikTok allows users to find content based on their viewing preferences and habits. Luring brands with organic reach, it claims to have 2X higher than global norms for unaided brand awareness, brand favourability and purchase intent.
According to Vanessa Gaik, Group Director, Brand Partnerships Canada, “When brands show up on TikTok, it’s not advertising. It’s connection, inspiration, co-creation and entertainment.”
Vanessa claims that social responsibility, eco-friendliness and knowledge resources are the top things that TikTok users want to see from brands.
Participate in Viral Trends and get Creative
Brands are encouraged to explore their creativity and identify a visual signature using creative filters, editing tools, and sound or voice effects. But beware that videos with high production values won’t work. The best storytelling models are imperfect, raw, gritty, and depict everyday life.
Learning content is best when focused on life hacks, DIY projects, or food and wellness. Family accounts are popular, so you might consider content that entertains or is focused on spending time together.
Ways to Get Noticed
- Top View is the most premium real estate in the app, where an ad appears when you first launch the TikTok app, capturing user attention with sight, sound and narrative. It grabs user attention with up to 60 seconds of full-screen and long-form video, with auto-play and sound.
- Brand Takeover ads are three to five seconds that can be either a video or image.
- In-feed ads can be up to 60 seconds in length and run with the sound on. Users can like, comment, share, follow, or shoot videos with the same music.
- Branded Hashtag Challenges deliver deep engagements by tapping into a user’s passion for creation and expression. Brands can invite users to participate and create content around a campaign theme.
- Branded Effects allow brands to insert themselves more directly into a video in a 2D, 3D or AR format in either the foreground or background. You can combine this with a Hashtag Challenge to boost engagement with your brand. Make it fun by using sharable stickers, filters, and special effects.
Case Studies
To get some inspiration, visit TikTok For Business and read the case studies from various industries across the globe. Here are two examples that stand out.
Chipotle, an American chain of fast food casual restaurants was looking for a way to personally engage with customers. It ran two successful Branded Hashtag Challenges to engage the TikTok community and help drive users to its Business Account. The first, #LidFlipChallenge, was inspired by a Chipotle employee who had a passion for assembling burrito bowls, while the second challenge, #GuacDance, was set to the “Guacamole Song.” Both challenges featured popular Creators and were very effective in raising awareness for Chipotle’s official Business Account.
Nike Football launched its “Future Lab” pack with a multichannel campaign. On TikTok, it created a Branded Hashtag Challenge called #MagicBoots, where it asked fans to showcase a football trick while wearing their Nike boots. Nike leveraged a popular football TikTok Creator, @ben, who has 2.2M followers, along with collaboration videos featuring Liverpool’s Andy Robertson and Manchester City’s Phil Foden. Users had the chance to win their own pair of “#MagicBoots” if their trick impressed Ben the most.
“TikTok will soon drop the launch premise that it is anything other than a medium for advertising”.
Mark Ritson, Advertising Week columnist
Predictions for the Future
Marketing Week’s Mark Ritson predicts that “Its bold early organic promises will soon be replaced with the robotic delivery of programmatically placed commercial messaging.” Just like Facebook.
Ironically, TikTok is using traditional advertising formats to advertise, including outdoor, search and sponsorship to create awareness and user adoption. It claims to have 100 million users in North America and is growing. So if you want to experiment and take advantage of organic reach, then now’s the time to advertise… or make a TikTok.