Last Updated on July 3, 2023 by Surender Kumar
In just a few years of its existence, TikTok has established its position as one of the leading social media platforms. TikTok is dominated by a younger audience, most of whom spend hours on the platform. Today, the platform has more than 2 billion downloads, and over 800 million people are active in it. This has led brands to explore ways of promoting themselves in TikTok.
A look at the marketing strategies of top brands such as Apple, Amazon, Chevrolet, Nike, and Samsung will reveal that TikTok holds the center stage. Here’s why such brands prefer the use of TikTok.
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TikTok Gives Brands a Massive Reach
TikTok has an exponential growth story and provides brands with a wide reach. Creative advertising techniques help brands stand out from the crowd. In TikTok, brands have complete control over their target group.
For example, when you use generic hashtags on your post, you can expect to draw in a wider audience. However, for situations where you wish to attract a particular audience segment, localized TikTok hashtags and genre-specific hashtags will come in handy.
NBA was prompt in jumping into the TikTok bandwagon and leverage the platform for sharing memes, motivational content, and other short-form videos with their followers. Over the years, they have improved on the quality of their TikTok videos. Today, the brand boasts over 5.5 million fans, thus making it one of the most popular brands on TikTok.
TikTok Videos Have a Better Engagement
If you refer to the latest marketing report, you will see that every 100 views on TikTok correspond to 12 engagements. While this is the average figure, creative videos often see better results. This makes TikTok one of the preferred platforms for user engagement.
TikTok is a diverse platform, and all types of entertaining and informative content have high chances of getting viral. Most top brands put in efforts at understanding TikTok trends. They then create content that has the potential of getting viral. SEO optimizing the video content for TikTok and dedicated promotional efforts lead to better engagement.
Spikeball is a major computer game that has taken to creating TikTok-specific videos in a bid to expand its reach. In less than a year, such efforts got Spikeball over 700,000 followers. With the increase in followers, the brand saw over 100 million cumulative views on its videos and achieved 13 million likes.
TikTok Content is Easily Shareable
Gen Z has a short attention span and is likely to drop off from long-form content. Since TikTok focuses on videos that are less than a minute, a younger audience is more likely to share these. Young Nails, a nail polish brand has established its TikTok presence by creating short videos that are colorful, optimistic, and fun to watch.
As the TikTok demographics are dominated by people less than 30 years of age, such videos rate among the most highly shared content. These types of engaging content have helped Young Nails achieve 2 million followers on TikTok and led to better conversions and sales.
TikTok Rewards Authenticity
One of the major challenges for small businesses is to portray their honest self in front of the audience. With TikTok, brands can show the people behind the business in a realistic manner. Guess, an apparel brand, achieved over 38,000 followers with just 7 TikTok videos. Their authentic videos struck a chord with TikTok enthusiasts and paved the way for the brand’s marketing success.
While creating TikTok videos brands do not have to focus on advanced video editing. Since videos that are shorter than 15 seconds perform better, brands have the luxury of splitting longer clips into a video series. That way, they can create an authentic posting schedule and engage their followers at minimal investment.
TikTok Increases Brand Awareness
The average TikTok user is enthusiastic about branded content. Recent marketing statistics show that branded event videos get over 20 million views.
If you can use your brand logo, colors, and tagline in the video, it will lead to better recall value. When your branded videos get viral, it increases the reach of your business and gives you positive visibility.
The ‘Less Tok, More Guac’ initiative by Chipotle was a major success and helped the brand establish its social media stance. It’s Halloween the boorito campaign was another major success and achieved over 2 billion views. Such figures are highly inspiring for smaller brands that are keen to raise awareness about their brand.
TikTok Encourages Competition
One of the main reasons for the popularity of TikTok is that it allows users to have the spotlight on them and create videos. As a brand, you can make the most of it by organizing hashtag challenges. If you Refer to the latest marketing report, you will see that 90% of TikTok videos have product placement.
You can create videos where you may try to build the first 1000 followers on TikTok to create content with your products and post them with a hashtag.
In its #eyeslipsface challenge, Elf Cosmetics encouraged viewers to create videos using their products. This was a major launch, and the brand commissioned a song for the campaign.
The challenge was initiated by some popular beauty influencers. In a short span, the hashtag got viral, and Elf Cosmetics became the most discussed brand of the day. The hashtag challenges eventually saw the participation of more than 3.8 million TikTok enthusiasts.
TikTok Videos Are Easy to Create
TikTok has ample video effects and filters to simplify the process of video creation. With the TikTok app, anyone with a smartphone can create visually appealing content. Brands like Fortnite were quick to realize this and use it to their marketing advantage. The brand encouraged its followers to create short dance videos.
The idea of this campaign was that the best entries would be converted to official emotes on the Fortnite game characters. This was a win-win situation and saw more than 250 million video entries. By giving such a simple task to their followers, Fortnite ensured massive participation and improved visibility. Many product-based brands have launched similar initiatives on TikTok. These help to build a sense of community around the brand and win loyal customers.
As 2021 brings in higher internet penetration, more brands are expected to jump into the TikTok bandwagon. With creativity and innovation being the driving wheels of the platform, we can expect a surge in newer forms of video content. Brands that keep pace with the latest TikTok trends will have an advantage in capturing the audience’s attention. As you trace the journey of successful TikTok brands and learn from their strategies, here’s wishing you a fulfilling TikTok journey ahead.
I am a passionate blogger having 10 years of experience in blogging and digital marketing. I started List Absolute in 2018 to give my passion a live platform. I have also a good hand in writing unique and quality content. Here I contribute in my free time. Thanks for reading. Let me know if I can help you get your work done in a timely manner.