TikTok Is The HOTTEST Social Media Trend!
If you haven’t heard of TikTok, it isn’t too late! This social media platform is the fastest growing platform of the last year. Its' tremendous growth is making it a powerhouse to compete with Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, and YouTube.
TikTok is based off users uploading short-formed videos, which are typically as short as 15 seconds in length. This unique design has given social media users another platform to collaborate and market brand products and services. In this blog, Hollywood Branded shares why TikTok is such a HOT social media platform for marketing and why you need to know about it!
A Little Background TikTok
TikTok was formerly known for being a hit song by artist Ke$ha. It is now known as the name of one of the newest and hottest social media platforms. The software platform was actually Musical.ly - which is why it has such a massive song-driven theme to it, and was bought by ByteDance, a massively successful startup from China.
As of January 2020, app intelligence company App Annie has TikTok ranked 6th in monthly active users at 800 million. This puts TikTok right behind Instagram.
How TikTok Works
People are recently become aware of this social media platform; however, a lot of people (over the age of 25) are still wondering, what exactly is TikTok? To give you a quick overview, TikTok is a platform that allows users to post short-versioned videos. Most of the time, the videos range from 10 to 15 seconds. No pictures are posted, and no videos longer than 60 seconds are allowed. Users have the ability to take trending sounds and use it on their video posts.
They can also use hashtags to get their videos seen by more people.
To give you a better idea of what the social media platform is like, take Snapchat and Instagram and combine them. It uses Snapchat’s short video idea along with Instagram’s visual post and feed idea. So you can continuously scroll through the feed of short videos. And it's somewhat built off the idea of Vine too - that old video social media platform where all content was just 6 seconds long. And that's why there are so many former Vine stars who are racking up followers on TikTok too.
TikTok has a unique feature known as the “For You Page” which allows users to view videos that are most relevant to what they have previously liked. The For You Page not only shows popular videos, but also implements videos with fewer likes to give new users better chances of gaining an audience and engagement.
Branding
Brand Marketing is a huge aspect of social media. It allows brands to gain real engagement through advertisements and influencers. It also allows people to see your brand through the people they already love so much! This gives brands an advantage over consumers viewing their advertisement on a billboard or a magazine. It gives the consumer a mutual connection to something or someone they are familiar with. For instance, if I were to see an ad about the new charcoal toothpaste on a billboard, it wouldn’t interest me very much. However, if I saw my favorite influencer talking and using the toothpaste in action, it would draw me towards wanting that toothpaste.
As many brands currently collaborate with influencers on Instagram, TikTok has emerged as a great marketing platform. It allows influencers to market products with a visual effect and their voice rather than solely on a picture with text. TikTok’s video design also allows the users to explain the description and actual use of the product marketed more clearly, which is the main reason brands have fell in love with it! Why pay the same amount for a picture as you can a video?
Successful Campaigns
Without evidence of successful campaigns, it’s hard to buy in to the platform and put your money into an influencer or into a user. The risk lowers once you know that there have been some companies that have excelled at marketing on TikTok, in so many different ways.
Some examples of ways companies have used TikTok as a brand marketing platform:
#GuacDance and #InMyDenim Challenges
This example is from Chipotle and Guess using TikTok to create exciting challenges for users to dance to while advertising the respective companies. These challenges have gone viral and have given Chipotle and Guess free advertisement in return.
BennyTheBull
Benny the Bull is the mascot of NBA franchise, the Chicago Bulls. This is a marketing technique that the Bulls have taken as a way to gain their TikTok audience. Benny the Bull currently has almost 2 million followers and over 25 million likes.
San Diego Zoo
The San Diego Zoo has taken the most basic, but successful, approach. They have made a page focused around the Zoo and the animals they have on site.
Their marketing technique was to gain a following using the Zoo and post content for users to see so they can potentially visit. The account currently has over 81 thousand followers and over 752 thousand likes.
Ready To Start Marketing On TikTok?
Brands looking to advertise on TikTok need to know what to look for in influencers and how to get started. Different techniques can be used and return on investment needs to be calculated using analytics. Celebrities are making a major footprint on TikTok right now as well, and leveraging them or other influencers can be one of the best ways to reach large audiences on a personal level - quickly.
Be sure to check out these other Hollywood Branded blog posts for more tips and tricks on how to market on social media including:
- 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
If you’re interested in taking your brand to social media and engaging with social media influencers, be sure to check out Hollywood Branded’s e-book on how to connect your brand with social influencers.
