Why your Business Needs to Consider TikTok in your Marketing Strategy in 2022
June 20th, 2022 by Isaac Nelapana
The power of TikTok should not be underestimated. It has emerged as the social media platform perfectly placed to capture and retain our attention. And attention is known as the ‘oil’ of the 21st century.
What started out as a simple video sharing platform that encouraged people to sing and dance to popular tunes, catapulted into a place where users now go to:
- Stay updated with current affairs.
- Learn a new skill (excel tricks, investing, cooking).
- Browse content based on what you’re interested in (movies, TV shows, sports).
While TikTok may not be right platform for every brand, it is worth considering, given the phenomenal organic growth and engagement the platform witnessed during 2021 and onwards. The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the growth of TikTok, as creators found new ways of connecting with their audiences.
Who uses TikTok in Australia?
In February 2022 in the face of plummeting results for Facebook, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that “”People have a lot of choices for how they want to spend their time, and apps like TikTok are growing very quickly”.
In February, there were reportedly in excess of 1.1 Million Australian users of TikTok. While the monthly time spent using YouTube and Instagram rose by 5% and 2% respectively in 2022, data shows that the average Australian spent 26 minutes per TikTok session, or roughly about 23.4 hours per month on the platform, a whopping 40% jump since the beginning of 2021. Interestingly, TikTok has the highest social media engagement rates per post.
TikTok was the third most-downloaded app in Australia in 2021, (only behind the Service Victoria and Service NSW QR code-check in apps), and has a potential ad reach of 7.38 million people aged 18+. TikTok is mainly used by 18–24-year-olds, with 55.3% of users skewed towards female, and 44.7% towards male.
Why is TikTok so popular?
One of the key differences in the platform is that your feed focuses heavily on the content that you are interested in, rather than what everyone your connected to is saying. In addition, your feed is all short-form video content; the fastest growing type of content online at the moment. Facebook has recently been trying to catch up on this form, via Facebook Watch and Facebook Reels. YouTube Shorts is another recent competitor in the short format video space.
A Neilsen study commissioned by TikTok with over 8,000 survey respondents aimed to understand TikTok’s enormous success. Its finding reveal that TikTok is unlike most social media platforms, given
- 64% of users say they can be their true selves on TikTok.
- 56% of TikTok users say they can post videos they wouldn’t post elsewhere.
- 79% of users find content on TikTok to be unique or different.
- 53% of users say they trust others to be their real selves on TikTok.
Users perceive the content (even the ads on its platform) as authentic, genuine, unfiltered, and trendsetting. The study also found that while other platforms are plagued with concerns about negatively impacting the mental health of its users, almost a third of TikTok users included “lifting my spirits” as one of the top three reasons for returning to the platform again and again.
What is TikTok Marketing?
TikTok marketing is the practice of using TikTok to promote a brand, product, or service. As the platform keeps adding new features to keep users satisfied, brands have come to view TikTok as a means through which they can achieve several digital marketing objectives, including:
- Increase brand awareness.
- Build engaged communities. To challenge YouTube, and to leverage monetisation opportunities, TikTok has been experimenting with longer form content – as much as 10 minutes. It believes that this will bring value to its community and enrich the TikTok experience.
- Sell products and services. 2022 is expected to bring an increase in social commerce on the app. TikTok has reportedly partnered with Shopify to make it easier for Shopify’s over 1 million merchants to reach TikTok’s younger audience and drive sales.
- Get feedback from customers and audiences.
- Provide customer service.
TikTok for Business
Both small business and large brands use on TikTok for marketing, primarily in the following 3 ways:
1. TikTok influencer marketing.
Charli D’Amelio, Addison Rae, and Zach King are some of the biggest stars on TikTok, with Charli at the top of the pecking order having close to 140 million followers on TikTok. Brand collaborations with these mega stars almost instantly result in returns for the brand in terms of higher brand awareness and sales.
TikTok users are known to create video content that resonates with their highly engaged audiences. TikTok has its own Creator Marketplace, designed to connect brands with creators.
However, since few would have the budget for these TikTokers, it would be best for a brand to identify a TikToker creating content in a specific niche (cosmetics, tiles, etc.) and partner with them. For example, if you type the keyword ‘Melbourne make-up artist’ in TikTok’s search bar, you might find Sandra’s account, who goes by the name @glambysaandra on the platform.
Sandra posts informative makeup tutorials every week to educate her followers on various makeup tips and tricks for different skin types. She usually gets 10K-15K views on each video, with her best video being watched 40K times.
2. Creating your own TikTok Videos.
Anyone with a TikTok account can create and upload videos on the platform. This option gives you the most freedom. In fact, the most whacky, unexpected videos usually receive the highest engagement on the platform. Content can be created relatively quickly and with no budget.
The best way to quickly break through clutter and reach new audiences is to follow TikTok trends (i.e. trending hashtags), get involved with the latest memes, and apply them to your brand. Using some basic filters, effects and soundbites can lead to the production of an entertaining TikTok, poised to grab the attention of viewers. You can also post videos ranging from showing off your products, to day-in-the-life videos, to dance challenges.
Goldelucks is a chain of bakeries located in the Melbourne suburbs of Croydon South, Ringwood, and Patterson Lakes. The business, which sells online nationwide, specialises in donuts, gift boxes, brownies, cookie cakes, explosion boxes, and what it calls ‘cheeky gifts’. Its popular videos of cake explosion boxes and rudely shaped donuts have attracted 19.8 million likes and almost 800,000 followers on TikTok.
3. TikTok advertising.
If you’re new to advertising, Tiktok’s own website is a good place to start as it contains success stories from brands that started advertising on TikTok. Brands are attracted to advertising on TikTok, as it offers the same scale as Facebook and Instagram, and yet doesn’t seem saturated with advertisers. Brands can easily create self-service advertising campaigns and target users based on age, location, demographics, and interest.
TikTok offers a variety of different creative ad formats for brands and businesses to explore. Below are some TikTok ad formats to consider:
In-feed ads. These are self-service ads you can create yourself through the TikTok Ad Manager interface. They are usually between 9-15 seconds in length, include a call-to-action at the end, and are displayed inside the native news feed as users scroll through the “For You Page”. Popular CTAs include Shop, Download & Visit Website.
As these ads are easy to scroll past or skip, they should be produced in a full screen format, and be enticing enough to capture people’s attention before they scroll past to the next video. Always have text/clear subtitles in your video for those viewing it with the sound off.
Koala used in-feed ads in Australia to target its core highly engaged audience of 18+, renters, homeowners, home buyers and furniture enthusiasts. It leveraged the core tools of TikTok including TikTok graphics, background music and transitions to produce content that felt authentic, as opposed to a highly polished advertisement.
Branded Takeovers. Sometimes when you open TikTok, you are immediately shown an ad, which is called a Branded Takeover ad. Since they present a full-screen video to your target audience at a premium spot within the TikTok app, it creates an eyeball-grabbing moment to get your brand top-of-mind.
These takeovers are perfect for delivering mass brand awareness and driving direct sales. Branded Takeovers are quite exclusive since TikTok shows users only one takeover per day, putting a lot of eyes on your content with little competition. Pepsi Max became the first PepsiCo brand to utilise TikTok in a paid campaign in Australia. Its Branded Takeover achieved a massive 24% click-through rate, reaching 2.4 million people in a single day.
Branded Hashtags. These offer both organic and sponsored opportunities for brands and are a great way to encourage user-generated content and build brand awareness. When a user clicks on a sponsored hashtag at the bottom of a video, they’re directed to a landing page on TikTok with the brand logo, link to their website, brief description of the challenge, and popular videos using the hashtag.
Menulog has always managed to stay top-of-mind within the Australian TikTok community via its #DeliveryDance and #DeliveryDressDown challenges. The latter challenge encouraged Australians to dress down into their most comfortable outfit to receive home food delivery.
Menulog famously partnered with 20 creators, who showcased different iterations and interpretations of the challenge. The challenge reached 3.5 million unique users in Australia, saw over 1,400 videos being created and achieved 39.5 million views.
Hashtag Challenge Plus, a recently added feature, adds a shoppable component to the hashtag. Apart from viewing videos of a brand’s sponsored hashtag, users are also shown a separate tab that features products from the campaign that can be bought on TikTok itself.
Improve your TikTok marketing efforts with Contactpoint
Considering TikTok marketing for your business or organization? You’re not alone. Find out how to make the most of this new social network.
Need help with creating TikTok Marketing? Contact the digital marketing experts at Contactpoint today on (03) 8525 2082, booking a meeting with us, or send an email to info@contactpoint.com.au
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