TikTok seemingly exploded out of nowhere to become one of the most downloaded apps in the world. The app started life as a moderately successful video-sharing app, tagged Douyin in its native China and TikTok in other countries. However, in 2018, the company acquired the better-known app Musical.ly and migrated all non-Chinese users to a new unified TikTok platform. The company still operates Douyin as a separate app in its home country. It's no surprise that marketers are starting to realize the potential of this platform. This is a TikTok marketing guide that suggests ways businesses can make the most of TikTok and its young audience.
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TikTok marketing guide:
TikTok boasts over 800 million installs
Perhaps the biggest obstacle to TikTok marketing success is that most marketers (and business managers) over the age of 30 have never heard of the platform.
It has been in the news several times recently due to concerns that this may be the case. safe for young people. The issue comes after India's Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology ordered TikTok to be removed from app stores in early April after the Madras High Court said the app promoted pornography and other illegal content. It surfaced.However, this ban did not last long, and the court lifted the ban On April 22nd, TikTok took a closer look at its content and removed more than 6 million videos that appeared to violate its terms of service and community guidelines.
Those concerns aside, TikTok has grown tremendously over the past year. The app was the most downloaded free iOS app in the first half of 2018. Also, in October 2018, he became number 1 on Google Play. Overall, TikTok ranked him No. 3 in the world in November 2018.
Source: sensortower.com
TikTok has been installed over 1.1 billion times as of March 2019.Users say he has been downloaded more than 660 million times in 2018 alone, and more 188 million downloads During the first quarter of 2019. More than 500 million people around the world use his TikTok every month. India's short-term ban must have been a major concern for TikTok's management, as 43% of TikTok's global users are from India (these numbers do not include Douyin's Chinese users) ).
What is TikTok?
TikTok encourages users to upload short videos. Most former Musical.ly users simply uploaded videos of themselves lip-syncing to music videos. More talented, enthusiastic, and technically skilled members uploaded videos of their original content, and these members became influencers on the platform.
Most TikTok videos are up to 15 seconds long, but you can also create and share 60-second story-type videos.
The original TikTok and Musical.ly both targeted the same audience: tweens and teens. Therefore, it is not surprising that the integrated TikTok is also focused on 13-24 year olds.
One thing that has changed as the platform has grown in popularity is that the types of videos people share have become more diverse. They are no longer just music. An up-and-coming comedian showing off his stand-up routine, a skateboarder showing off his skills, a prankster, a dancer, a fashion enthusiast, a budding hairdresser, and a craft fan all have the chance to share a video showcasing their talent. I am using it. And now people are even sharing videos of themselves using their favorite products.
Of course, not all TikTok users have the confidence, bandwidth, or skills to create videos. Just as many of YouTube's viewers are secretly just looking for exciting content to consume, a significant number of his TikTokers have also taken a more passive attitude toward using the app. .
In fact, TikTokers don't even need to follow anyone. Users simply open the app, go to her Discover page, and start playing videos that seem interesting and fun. You can also search for videos about your favorite topics using relevant hashtags.
However, over time, most TikTok users will develop a preference for certain types of videos. They are likely to subscribe to channels that share “their” kind of videos on a regular basis. All his TikTokers have a profile page where their uploaded videos are highlighted.
Who uses TikTok?
Muscial.ly aggressively targeted Gen Z, which has a female bias. It's too early to tell whether there will be any real changes to TikTok. However, 66% of her TikTok users are under the age of 30, and she is still overwhelmingly supported by the younger generation. A similar percentage of TikTok users are women.
It has international appeal, with many users on Douyin in the US, India, and China. Douyin reports that he has 400 million monthly users.
Douyin has been operating in China since 2017. Initially, more than 50% of its users were under the age of 24. In particular, his early users of Douyin seem to remain on the platform as they age. This means that the average age of Douyin users is gradually increasing. I crawled up. As of February 2018, only 31.8% of Douyin users were under 24 years old, 23.4% were between 25 and 30 years old, and a further 23.4% were between 31 and 35 years old. Over time, it will be interesting to see if the rest of the world sees similar trends to TikTok.
How can brands leverage TikTok?
There are three main ways brands can market on TikTok.
- You can create your own channel and upload related videos through your channel
- Work with influencers to spread your content to a wider audience
- They can pay to advertise on TikTok – TikTok advertising is still in its infancy – it certainly doesn’t have a market like YouTube yet. However, over time, TikTok may grow in popularity and become here to stay.
Many brands combine running their own channels with working with influencers to spread their content to a wider audience. You can also try some of the ideas listed below on your own channel or suggest that your influencers create and share this kind of content.
hashtag challenge
Challenges are an important feature of the TikTok community. TikTok users love challenges and create and upload videos accordingly. These challenges are usually named with # tags to make them easier to remember and find.
Perhaps the most well-known challenge is American television personality Jimmy Fallon's #tumbleweedchallenge. He asked users to upload videos of themselves falling to the ground or tumbleweed while a Western music theme played in the background. This generated over 8,000 submissions and over 10.4 million engagements for him. Jimmy Fallon has continued to challenge TikTok ever since.
Brands can also encourage hashtag challenges on TikTok. Unless your brand has built its own popular TikTok channel, your best bet is probably to start a #hashtag challenge by collaborating with an influencer. When a #hashtag challenge is launched on TikTok, people can participate in just a few clicks.
User-generated content
Again, this is the type of business where brands base their own TikTok channels or work with influencers to encourage their followers to create user-generated content (UGC) that supports the brand in some way. It's marketing.
Gen Z prefers fully immersive experiences. That's why they don't sit at home and watch traditional broadcast television. It's too much of a passive experience. Gen Z likes to be actively involved.
If you can somehow find a way to encourage customers to share videos of themselves using or interacting with your product, you're likely to get a high buy-in.
Chinese restaurant Haidilao I discovered this under the DIY option on the menu. Customers who chose the DIY menu item created their own off-menu dishes and filmed their experience. China-based Haidilao encouraged clients to share videos on Douyin.
Source: technode.com
A few patrons uploaded their own food prototypes, and others flocked to the restaurant to create their own dishes and videos. In the end, over 15,000 people requested his DIY option. In the end, 2,000 videos of his work were uploaded and 50 million people watched the videos. We have also developed a tool to guide influencer earnings on TikTok. This gives us a better indication of the influencer pricing for user-generated content in his campaigns.
Traditional influencer marketing
Of course, all the influence marketing techniques you see on other video-based platforms like YouTube also work on TikTok. If your product is suitable for the influencer's audience, your TikTok influencer campaign should be successful. In most cases, content creation should be left to influencers. Influencers know what their followers like.
As always, the key to influencer marketing success is targeting specific parts of the purchase funnel and setting the right goals. For young TikTok streamers to succeed with influencer marketing, they need to remain authentic to their followers.
Often, all a brand needs to do is encourage influencers to create videos depicting them wearing or using the sponsored product. Again, this only works if the influencer is someone who would normally use the product. There is little point in encouraging influencers to promote inappropriate products. You can't successfully sell nursing homes or hearing aids on TikTok.
Another side effect of TikTok's younger customers is that they're less interested in flash camera work and high video production values. You need to trust the influencer enough to create the video their way, even if it looks amateurish in the marketer's eyes. TikTokers are more interested in originality and fun than the quality of their videos.
TikTok ads
TikTok has been experimenting with advertising for the past year, but has yet to establish a formal profit-sharing system. But we're getting closer to the point where more people can advertise on the platform. We started showing short ads in January 2019.
They are, advertising pitch deck In late 2018, it showed the types of ads that may eventually be available to brands on Musical.ly. Someone leaked this document to Digiday. Possible ad types are:
- brand takeover
- Infeed native video
- hashtag challenge
- 2D lens filter for Snapchat style photos.
TikTok is currently testing ads in both the US and Europe.
