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During the first lockdown, I decided to adapt my recent Sharing Social talk into an online version to present to Digital Women, a community of 7,500 across the UK. In this talk, I focused on TikTok audience demographics and case studies. I also taught the Digital Women community how TikTok can be used as a serious promotional tool. At the time TikTok was still relatively new, and many overlooked the potential of the app.
Discovering TikTok - A Comprehensive Guide
TikTok is a social media platform that has taken the world by storm, with millions of users spending hours on the app each day. As a business owner, you may be wondering what TikTok is and how it can benefit your brand. In this post, we'll explore everything you need to know about TikTok, from its audience to advertising options.
What is TikTok?
TikTok is a short-form mobile video platform where all videos are between 15 and 60 seconds long. The app's mission is to inspire creativity and bring joy by showing real people in real videos. TikTok makes every second count and has a personalised "For You" page for each user. Users can transform their look using filters and lenses, pause recording, and sync video with music tracks.
TikTok's algorithm analyses videos based on visuals, sound, video name, description, and hashtags and predicts how well the content will perform. If a video performs well, it will continue to be pushed to new users, and if it underperforms, it will stop being shown to new users. TikTok's algorithm is not something that can be tricked or hacked, so the best way to go viral is to create great content.
Who Uses TikTok?
TikTok's primary audience is 13 to 24-year-olds, and 41% of users are within this age range. There are 800 million global active users, with 5.4 million active users each month in the UK. TikTok users spend an average of 53 minutes per day on the app.
Advertising on TikTok
TikTok claims to connect brands today with the consumers of tomorrow and is a way to be a culturally relevant brand. It's a great platform to consider for advertising, particularly for brands and products that fit in the 13 to 24-year-old age category.
TikTok offers different ad types, including:
Native In-Feed Ads
Native in-feed ads are a great way to get the audience to engage with your own branded channel. These ads appear sandwiched between other videos in the TikTok feed. They're great for gaining exposure and emphasising call-to-actions, such as linking to your website or a hashtag challenge.
Brand Takeovers
Brand takeovers appear before any user-generated content appears and appear full screen. This is like a splash screen when you first open the app, and it also will often hide the interface for a couple of seconds so in that quick, that short window you have a one- to three-second window, the interface will be hidden so your user's attention is purely on your content for a couple of seconds. These types of ads are category exclusive, meaning that they're the only ads in that category for the length of time that the advertiser paid for.
Hashtag Challenges
Hashtag challenges are an excellent way to increase engagement, awareness, and build a better relationship with your audience. A company can start a challenge, and if it's a good concept, it can go viral. The challenge will be on the discovery tab in TikTok. Users can see more about your campaign, such as what you're offering, and all the TikToks people have made for that challenge. It's an excellent way of getting loads and loads of user-generated content and people engaging with your hashtag.
Branded Lenses
Branded lenses are a great way to promote specific products. They're like Snapchat's AR lenses, where you can put your product in your tick-tock user's world and incorporate it into whatever content they are making. It's an excellent way of building brand awareness and engagement.
Micro-influencer marketing is a great way to use influencers on the platform to kill two birds with one stone. It's a form of marketing that involves partnering with influencers who have a small but highly engaged audience.
Conclusion
TikTok is a platform that's worth considering for advertising, particularly for brands and products that fit in the 13 to 24-year-old age category. Creating good content is the key to success on TikTok, and there are no shortcuts to tricking the algorithm. With the right approach, TikTok can be a valuable addition to your marketing strategy.