The short video based social media phenomenon TikTok now sports 689m monthly users internationally, and businesses are waking up to its potential.
Tiktok is more than just a fad social endeavor. It’s a whole new marketing funnel for your business. According to data from ticketing and events platform Eventbrite, brands and marketers are increasingly booking professional training sessions to help them connect with new audiences on TikTok.
Over the last two years, Eventbrite has hosted TikTok seminars, training and workshop events in the UK for thousands of eager learners, ranging from TikTok for beginners and TikTok for charities to music marketing via TikTok and digital masterclasses, helping marketers connect their brands and products with new audiences – and the number of eager learners is trending upwards: in 2020, TikTok related events in the UK attracted six times as many attendees as in 2019.
The percentage of TikTokers sharing brand/product recommendations is higher (21%) than for users of both Instagram (15%) and Facebook (12%). And given there are 100 million monthly TikTok users in Europe, with 17 million monthly users in the UK – in all age groups – businesses and brands want a piece of the action. Yet the burning question is how to incorporate the platform into their marketing strategy and it seems that businesses are increasingly using online events to learn how to get their messages out in the best way.
Sabeha Mohamed from Eventbrite comments: “In the social media universe, TikTok is now firmly established alongside the big players like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat and Twitter. Judging by the growing amount of marketers booking courses on Eventbrite to learn more about the platform, we can expect more brands to insert themselves alongside sea shanties and trending dances.”
TikTok is also attractive because it is still, for the most part, uncharted territory when it comes to marketing. The app has only just begun exploring paid advertising and offers an open arena for influencers to fight for top positions.
Like most social media platforms, TikTok is all about user-generated content. But unlike Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and other sites, TikTok revolves less around people you follow, and more around introducing users to new content.
Fed by its algorithm, the TikTok For You feed shows users content it thinks they will like, and makes adjustments based on their behavior over time. As New York Times columnist John Herrman put it, “Imagine a version of Facebook that was able to fill your feed before you’d friended a single person. That’s TikTok.”
So how do you use TikTok for your business?
Make sure you clearly understand your brand culture, values, and identity so that what you create is authentic and true to your brand, and avoids typical corporate guidelines.
TikTok is relatively new, especially to the business world, and, as such, is not nearly as saturated as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. It’s also much cheaper to advertise on, because there isn’t a strong influencer community yet; there are far fewer users competing for sponsorship and ad placements.
Assuming you’ve already downloaded the app, the first thing you need to do is make sure that you are using the ‘pro’ version, especially if you’re using it solely as a TikTok business account.
This will allow you to access some useful analytics – giving you an insight into your content’s performance.
Then it’s all about getting those creative juices flowing and coming up with some original ideas to promote your business.
