In the short period of its existence, TikTok has grown in popularity, and today it boasts of millions of downloads. Digital marketing professionals are looking at this app to boost their brand popularity. With the TikTok marketing report 2021 establishing that 90% of the popular videos
of TikTok have some form of brand placement, there is a fear of missing out among brands concerning this platform.
TikTok caters to younger demographics, and most of its users are people less than 30 years old.
Brands that offer products or services for people of this age group stand to benefit from TikTok branded marketing. While the TikTok marketing report does promise a good ROI on your investments, the growing advertisement options of TikTok help in its brand marketing. This article will tell you the top five things that you need to know about TikTok brand marketing.
1. Understand Your Audience
Before you get to leverage TikTok to build your brand, spend time understanding your audience and the type of content that works in this platform. Broadly, we can categorize TikTok users into two groups.
The first group upload videos of themselves lip-syncing to popular music. While not all of them are keen on creating full-fledged content, most people in this group aspire to be content creators. Understand that this group forms a major fraction of TikTok users.
As a brand, you can organize various contests and hashtag competitions to encourage such
people into content creation. When you plan a contest, try to incentivize the efforts of your viewer in spreading the word about your product or brand. Understand that such videos garner better responses than videos where a brand boasts of itself.
The other group of TikTok users is those who are creative and technically proficient. These people upload original content and, over time, build up a community around themselves. As they rise to become influencers or micro-influencers, you can reach out to them for possible collaboration videos. Today, 25% of TikTok videos feature an influencer or a celebrity.
2. Optimize Your Content for TikTok
As you set out to understand the platform, merely knowing your audience will not suffice. You need to be aware of the fact that TikTok videos may be up to 15 seconds long. You can join multiple clips to give you a video that is up to a minute long. Further, there is no need to restrict yourself to videos captured using the TikTok tool. You can record your clip on your phone, edit it with InVideo (or any other video editor) and then upload it to TikTok.
Understand that TikTok caters to a younger audience who favor modern usage trends. As a brand, your focus should be on coming up with innovative content that is optimized for the platform. Try to keep the video description short. Although TikTok restricts the description length to 150 characters, shorter video descriptions up to 87 characters long stand better chances of getting viral.
Hashtags help to direct your video to the correct target audience on TikTok. 87.3% of the TikTok videos have at least one hashtag. An average TikTok video has 3.26 hashtags. Depending on the type of content and the intended users, feel free to use appropriate hashtags.
3. Leverage TikTok to Give a Human Face to Your Brand
TikTok uses fun content to establish a connection with the audience. There are millions of ways in which you can leverage this to build a tour brand. When you introduce an innovative product in the market, you can go live from your TikTok channel. TikTok live sessions are an effective way for the human resource department to conduct interactive sessions.
These days, TikTok offers try-on videos that are helpful for boutiques and retail brands. If you are a boutique that is tight on a budget yet keen to bring something new to the table, you can consider experimenting with try-on videos. Proper strategizing will allow you to film an entire seasonal collection in an interactive sped-up video.
4. Give A Unique Flavor to Your Videos.
Realize that most TikTok users do not have their phones on silent mode while using the app.
Hence, it is a good practice to add appropriate music to your videos. Studies show that 80% of the top TikTok videos had some form of music. Ideally, the music theme should echo that of the video content. For example, upbeat music will not add to the value of a sentimental scene.
If your brand has brand colors, try to incorporate that in your videos. The use of the brand logo in your TikTok videos is highly recommended.
One of the reasons for the widespread popularity of TikTok in marketing is that it helps you reach a global audience with minimal effort. TikTok is popular in over 150 countries, and if you can get your videos to become viral, you will catch the attention of viewers from other nations.
We recommend that you add captions or subtitles to your videos to give them a better context of the video contents.
5. Go For Paid TikTok Videos
If your marketing budget permits, you can go for paid advertisements on TikTok. Depending on the marketing goals of your brand and the audience that you intend to attract, feel free to choose one of the four advertisement options.
In-feed Video Ads
The in-feed ads appear in the ‘For You’ news feed of your viewers. As these have a similar appearance to the conventional TikTok videos, they blend in organicallyand give you the best advertising results.
Branded Takeovers
Branded takeovers occupy the viewer’s full screen on opening the TikTok app. These have a clickable website link or hashtag that you can use to direct the viewer’s digital journey. Branded takeover videos are restricted to 3 or 5 seconds and will also show up in the ‘For You’ feed of relevant audiences.
Top View Ads
Top View Ads are also full-screen ads but these are delayed play videos. This means that, unlike the branded takeovers, they do not start playing immediately on opening the app. Further, the length of top view ads can be up to a minute.
Branded Effects
TikTok allows brands to create their stickers, lenses, and AR Filters to establish their social media popularity. While these are essentially similar to Instagram AR Filters, each branded effect is available only for ten days on Instagram.
The growing popularity of TikTok makes it the ideal platform to express your creativity. As you look to leverage TikTok and build your brand’s online identity, the tips in this article will allow you to have better clarity.
