How To Succeed With TikTok Marketing

TikTok is the fastest growing social platform ever. But what should your strategy for it be?

By Joaquim Salgueiro

TikTok has broken all records for social media growth

Let’s look at the numbers. TikTok took 5 years to reach this milestone – in 100m terms, 9.58 seconds. We know this has been the fastest growth of any social platform yet, but let’s put it in perspective. There’s a magical number of years that the most successful platforms took to achieve the 1 billion mark – 8 years. Going back to the racing track, that’s 15.33 seconds! (Bonus info – that’s longer than non-professional athletes would get).

So what does this tell us? TikTok is not here to play, they’re here to redefine the standard of competition. As digital advertisers, we’re used to a certain pace of change, and if you are involved in paid social, that was fast enough already. The short-video platform came in to demolish any sense or normalcy. In early 2020, there was no auction buying in EMEA, no catalogue, no wide range of campaign objectives or even a consolidated proposition outside of branding.

By the end of 2020, the TikTok advertising interface was out there competing against all “minor” social players (which just means anyone that’s not a Facebook owned business).

Now it’s 2022 and, as marketers, we can only look ahead. It’s within the nature of our jobs to analyse, imagine and forecast likely outcomes. We do it for our clients and for ourselves every day – to several degrees of accuracy – and it’s essential for us to move forward. So join me while we cover every key aspect of TikTok strategy in 2022 and onward.

Content

How do we approach TikTok creatively? Obviously there’s a tagline for that – ‘Make TikToks, not ads!’ What does this mean though?

My personal favourite approach to the problem is to look at it from several angles. Starting with the user experience, it’s a good thing to remember how intrusive ad creative can be. For an animal lover, this might be an actual experience:

Funny cat video, funny cat video, cute dog, highly produced ad for a new phone, dog dubbed singing to bohemian rhapsody, cat running around the house.

One of these is not like the others, congrats for spotting it! Understanding the social media organic environment is essential. TikTok learns the type of content that you prefer and finds more to keep you engaged. That means content is amplified if it’s getting eyeballs on it – regardless of where it came from: small content creator, big TikTok star, random internet user.

So when it comes to advertising in a social media element, never was there a bigger need for making it look native. Forget TV ads vertically cut. This is a platform that thrives on creativity, engagement and authenticity.

Dos and Don’ts – Align your brand voice with the video

Be creative: Everyone posting their content is trying to find a new thing that people will engage with. Using old ideas might not be the approach.

Remember where you are: Remember the content that appeared before or after your ad was probably created by a random user or an influencer. You want to stand out, but not because you forgot to read the room

Branded content is your friend: In a platform where user generated content is king, it’s always a good idea to tap into this solution. Influencer content, customer demonstrations, product challenges – as long as you’re following the above, the sky is the limit

Use audio: TikTok is an audio rich environment. While visual impact is important, the consumption pattern on the platform is predominantly audio on, which makes it so much more important to leverage this element as a key part of the advertising.

Paid Propositions

There is a lot to be done with TikTok advertising and some clear advantages to be gained. First of all, you don’t have to post your ads from your brand account – allowing you to test different creative ideas and concepts until you understand what works for your brand.

Understanding what you can do with paid media here is essential, so below is a quick overview from starting off, to mass awareness…

1.    Starting Off: In-Feed Ads

Like most social platforms, TikTok allows you to position your ad mid-feed while users are on a content consumption journey. These will be the most common piece of inventory available for advertisers and allow for effective testing between concepts.

Video ads can use any video (vertical highly recommended) to promote your brand. And if you’re working with other content creators that are producing content to promote your business, then there are Spark Ads.

Spark Ads allow advertisers to promote content from an account that doesn’t belong to them (once the creator gives their permission of course). They are key to amplify your Influencer Marketing efforts past the organic growth of the content.

2.    Building Awareness: Top View Ads

So you have a big product launch. Or you’ve entered a new market. Or your brand just needs the reach and more people’s eyes on it.

This product displays a full screen ad to users when they open the app. While you can go as long as 60 seconds, the recommended duration for this product would be on the shorter side – someone just opened the app for an experience, we don’t want to get in the way but rather to improve the experience.

3.    Mass Awareness: Hashtag Challenges

These are Branded challenges where you encourage the TikTok userbase to engage with your brand through a specific challenge. It appears on the Discovery section of the app, and all user generated hashtag content appears on the challenge page.

This is a mass awareness option that can generate a high volume of exposure to a brand in the right conditions.

Always Start With A Clear Strategy

Be clear on your strategy before jumping into TikTok paid media. There is a lot to consider when looking at paid media. Is the audience aware of your brand? Are you active in the environment? What is your brand voice?

Understanding the full picture is essential, and the first step at Kinase is to help you plan your approach – and how you can use TikTok to reach your goals.

If you want to earn more about TikTok or any Paid Social channels, please drop us a line at hello@kinase.co.uk