If you’ve ever been witness
to a couple of young people performing a choreographed dance for what appears
to be an audience of none, you might have in fact stumbled across a TikTok
video in the making. While you might be inclined to dismiss the newest social
media app as simply something that kids do to keep themselves entertained until
the next social media trend develops, but you’d be missing out on the potential
of what is in fact a global phenomenon.
TikTok may be the newest
player on the block, but its reach is growing rapidly. Not only is it fast
becoming the most popular social media app, it also offers an entirely creative
and innovative way to spread brand awareness amongst a huge segment of the
population and market your business to an increasingly wide audience.
What is TikTok?
The app is actually the
amalgamation of two separate apps: TikTok and a lip-synching app called
Musical.ly. Chinese tech company, Bytedance, who owned TikTok, bought
Musical.ly in 2017 (for the whopping price tag of $1 billion), and a year later
announced that they were merging it with TikTok.
Since then, TikTok has become
a video-based app – often compared to the now-obsolete Vine – wherein you
upload 10- to 60-second videos and share them with users around the world. In
its first year, TikTok was downloaded one billion times, surpassing Instagram. It
has already surpassed Facebook, YouTube, and Snapchat in total downloads, and
today has over 800 million active users – making it more popular than Twitter,
Snapchat, Tumblr, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Twitch. TikTok is clearly worth
paying attention to.
How Does it Work?
It’s
actually incredibly simple and user friendly – after you download it, you’re
prompted to film an in-app video with the option to add
music, multiple video effects, transitions, and stickers. Once you’re happy
with the video, you can make use of hashtags to increase your reach, add a
Wikipedia link, and even share your cinematic masterpiece to other platforms.
While you can follow and engage with other users, you are also able to explore
new videos through the app’s “Discover” feed (similar to Instagram), as well as
trending videos and hashtags and suggested accounts.
TikTok is great because it
allows you to not only direct people to your other platforms, but also go live,
run ads, make use of their trending hashtags, and engage with your audience
through likes, comments, shares, and challenges or duets. And because the app
is relatively young (pun intended), it’s a low-pressure online environment. TikTok
encourages you to be creative, fun, and funny – users are looking for new,
authentic content.
How Can you Leverage
TikTok for Your Business?
Because TikTok is new,
businesses can experiment with it in a way that is considerably less risky than
other traditional marketing tactics. You can easily explore the app and
discover what other similar brands are doing and how they’re engaging with
their audience, or you can simply start trying it out and see what happens! TikTok
is growing rapidly, the competition is relatively low, and users are looking
for unique content, so this is a place for really creative ideas. Funny
perspectives on your industry, quick tips, behind-the-scenes videos, and
content driven by the creation of personalities will work best here.
While
you have the opportunity to drive users to your other platforms – including
your website – the nature of TikTok’s younger audience means that the app might
be most successful in generating brand awareness. And, of course, it’s not
necessary to jump on every new platform out there, but if you’re looking to
reach and engage a younger audience, then TikTok is worth a try.
Conviva just
released a 34-page eBook that outlines TikTok best practices, as well as “an overview of TikTok
analytics” and “industry-specific benchmarks for performance to help provide
some perspective.” Their tips include adding music tracks to your videos, which
enable additional opportunities for users to find you when they’re searching
for videos that feature that specific song. They also suggest that you spend
the time to develop personalities – like a reoccurring staff member or
character – or incorporate celebrities and influencers in your videos to help
draw in users.
The report also notes benchmarks per industry, with sports media
the most successful in terms of both account growth and engagement, followed by
television and pro sports leagues. The top three accounts for follower gains
are NBA, ESPN, and Ellen DeGeneres, while the top three news and media accounts
are Seventeen, Complex, and ENews.
Which Brands are Successfully Using TikTok?
Chipotle has done a great job
of incorporating TikTok in their marketing strategies. They gained traction
when they released a video for National Guacamole Day to promote free guacamole
in stores that day. They used the “Guacamole Song” video – a 2015 video by Dr.
Jean, a teacher and musical artist known for educational children’s videos – and
launched the #GuacDance challenge. The
challenge not only went viral – in one week it became the highest-performing
branded challenge – but resulted in the restaurant chain’s biggest Guacamole
Day on record, with 800,000 guac sides served that day.
Red Bull has
also found an audience on the app, but rather than posting product-specific
content, they instead play off of their tagline, “Red Bull gives you wings” by
posting extreme sports and stunts from skateboarders, snowboarders, and BMXers.
By posting awe-inspiring videos users will be interested in and that connect
with their brand, Red Bull is able to engage a wider audience and raise brand
awareness.
The NBA makes use of TikTok by posting game highlights,
montages, and funny, behind-the-scenes content. While they sometimes post
inspirational content from players, a good deal of their content comes from
dance challenges or other viral TikTok trends with their in-house content team,
players, and influencers.
What are you Waiting For?
While you may not end up
TikTok famous right away, the app nevertheless provides a great opportunity for
experimenting with your team to produce funny, creative, and unique content for
a wide-reaching audience. If the platform is one that speaks to you, why not
give it a try? The risks are low and the potential benefits are high, so
download the app and try it out!