Including Options That Don't Require Advertising Dollars!
As the most downloaded app in the world in 2020, TikTok is full of brand opportunities. With its rapidly growing user base – especially younger millennial and Generation Z demo – it has become a very promising platform for brands to market on.
The platform, which allow users to make, edit and post :15 second to :60 second videos only recently developed and launched its advertising process – which is relatively pricey as compared to Facebook and Instagram. This, coupled with the fact that the platform is relatively new, make it understandable that brands have some apprehension on how to start their foray into TikTok marketing. And in fact, there are multiple ways to use TikTok as a marketing tool without using their paid advertising options. In this blog, Hollywood Branded shares 3 different ways your brand can run brand campaigns on TikTok.
Work with TikTok Influencers
One of the most important way brands can run brand campaign on TikTok is by leveraging the social presence of influencers on your targeted TikTok audience. Working with influencers is especially beneficial when your brand is targeting younger audiences. This is a great platform to target this younger demographic as a large proportion of TikTok users are Generation Z. However, as Generation Z in particular does not respond well to being marketed to by traditional advertising method, working with influencers is an excellent way to market to this demographic group without being too “brand-y”. Influencers will be able to create brand awareness and convey brand messages through organic contents that will feel like a recommendation from a real customer (or a friend, even) for the target audience. And that is what you want!
Your brand should aim to work with influencers closely associated with TikTok. Those that dominate this platform are not long-established celebrities such as Hollywood stars. They are mostly subculture influencers who found their niche on TikTok. Some of the older influencers came over from Musical.ly, a social platform purchased by the owners of TikTok, which they evolved into TikTok. Due to the short form content of :15 seconds, previous Vine influeners are also loving this software app, and growing their follower base.
Another thing to take note of is to make sure your brand chooses your influencer(s) carefully. The right influencer would be relevant if the content they focus on creating is directly or indirectly relevant to the industry your brand is in or your brand’s goal, their followers matches your target audience and they have consistent and satisfactory engagement rate.
A great example of a successful influencer partnership is Too Faced’s ongoing TikTok campaign. The make-up brand partnered with several influencers who would post videos of themselves doing make up routines using Too Faced’s products. They would include before and after shots of themselves to show the transformation, which is one of the reasons this campaign was so popular. The influencers TikTok works with are mainly beauty influencers – which is highly relevant to the industry the brand is in – with high user engagement rates, such as Abbey Strohmeyer and Kristen Hancher. One of the video Kristen Hancher posted for the partnership garnered 169,000 likes and 1.9 million views.
Create Your Own Tik Tok Challenge
One of the most distinctive things TikTok is known for is its challenges. Almost every day, there is a trending challenge that TikTok users take up on. A challenge, as the word suggest, involves TikTok users recording themselves doing a certain set of actions (which are often extremely funny) that the challenge dares them to do. It can be a dance, a lip sync, ore ven a physical act. Brands can create their own challenges as a way to promote their products or services, which can be a great way to create awareness and communicate messages.
In doing so, there are several things that your brand needs to pay attention to.
First is to pre-plan your TikTok challenge campaign. It is important that your brand set the objective of the campaign, determine how your brand will promote the challenge and how you would measure the outcome.
Secondly, you will need to come up with the details of the challenge. Your brand will need to make sure that it is not too difficult so that TikTok users can actually carry out the challenge. Your brand also needs to think of what kind of mood you want the challenge to be. Keep in mind, funny usually wins.
A brand that repeatedly makes use of TikTok challenges for their brand campaign is Chipotle. They have run multiple TikTok challenges, including the popular #boorito challenge that gained a monumental 4 billion video views. The challenge had users post videos of themselves before and after they are dressed up in costumes on Halloween, using the custom music that Chipotle had created specifically for the challenge.
This was done to promote their Halloween promotion, where customers could receive $4 off if they walked in wearing a costume. Other popular challenges Chipotle has run are the #GuacDance challenge which gained 430 million views as well as the #ChipotleLidFlip in which users had to flip the lid onto their bowl without using their hands as a way for the brand to promote their Cinco de Mayo deal. Plus they incorporated influencers to kick it up a notch.
Integrate TikTok with Traditional Advertising
TikTok is synonymous with the thriving subcultures within its platform. Most brands opt to hire TikTok influencers and have them share the brand’s product or services organically on their own individual profiles. But this does not mean traditional form of advertising has no place on TikTok.
Take an example of Calvin Klein. The brand hired big name celebrities such as Kendall Jenner, Bella Hadid, Lupita Nyongo and Saoirse Ronan and professionally created short digital video advertisements – very similar to advertisements shown on television. Calvin Klein then created their own official TikTok account and posted these video advertisements on their official account. And yes, they were massively successfully and got a gazillion views.
The video advertisements your brand creates can be posted on multiple marketing and social media channels. This allows your brand to run the campaign in a cost-efficient manner – especially if the brand campaign encompasses multiple channels. Plus you can drive your marketing message and content even further!
Start Using TikTok to Market Your Brand
As TikTok continues to gain popularity, brands should start to familiarize themselves with the platform and begin to explore how they can incorporate it into their marketing campaigns.
One of the main ways that brands can run campaign on TikTok is by working with influencers. Our team has your questions covered on all things influencer marketing! Check out some of the following blogs to help get you started:
- 3 Qualities To Look For In A Social Influencer
- 5 Ways To Make Your Brand Stand Out To A Social Media Influencer
- How To Implement An Influencer Marketing Strategy That Works
- 5 Signs Your Brand Should Invest in Influencer Marketing
- 3 Tips To Make Your Brand Appealing To Top Social Media Influencers
And then what? Check out our social influencer classes at Learn.HollywoodBranded.com! We have how-to-do turnkey fast classes that will not only help you learn - you can get your influencer certificate too!
