If you believe the hype, TikTok is the next Snapchat or Instagram. According to Variety, the app has about 80 million users in the United States and about 795 million internationally. What is TIkTok? Should your business care? If you’re wondering how to promote your business on TikTok, learn more about this phenomenon that is said to be a cross between Carpool Karaoke and the defunct app Vine.
Understanding TikTok
TikTok is an app for iOS and Android in which users can create and share 15-second videos. It works like most social media apps with followers tik tok video download online free who like and comment on content. Hashtags let users find content by theme. On paper, TikTok doesn’t sound very different from most apps, but it is a lot of fun and has some interesting content.
Lip-syncing videos are popular, but so are short videos of parkour moves, band promotion, magic tricks and other stunts. One of the best features of TikTok is its editing tools, giving users resources to create fun videos. It has some interesting features, such as the ability to record your reaction to a video while you’re watching it. Users can also record a video of their own using the audio from another video.
TikTok was launched in China in 2016 under the name “Douyin.” It was rebranded as TikTok for an international market a year later. Today, it’s one of the fastest-growing apps on the market, regularly ranking in the top three spots of free downloads in the Apple Store. Its parent company, ByteDance, merged TikTok with the popular musical.ly app to build a broader user base. The TikTok name was kept, but all of musical.ly’s content was brought into TikTok.
TikTok’s Growth
TikTok has seen a huge surge of downloads in the U.S., most likely due to Jimmy Fallon becoming a fan. In November, Fallon issued the #tumbleweedchallenge on “The Tonight Show.” Viewers were told to act like a tumbleweed and upload the video to TIkTok. It was the biggest engagement surge the company had seen. The challenge generated over 8,000 submissions with 10.4 million viewings.
How brands are using TikTok
While TikTok is just started to get noticed by brands in the United States, several large companies are already starting to experiment with promotions on the app in other countries. Most of these promotions take advantage of TikTok’s “challenge” concept by creating their own challenges and even going as far as providing new music clips for users to interact with that could win some of the users big prizes.
For instance, in Malaysia, the multi-national fast food chain, McDonald’s worked directly with TikTok to create a contest called the #BigMacTikTok Challenge. To enter, TikTok users would dance to one of many pre-recorded #BigMacTikTok music clips that were uploaded to the service. After creating the video, users were also required to submit their entry via the official McDonald’s mobile app. All entries won a free Big Mac and a few select winners danced away with actual cash prizes.
More recently, fashion brand Guess partnered with TikTok, on a campaign targeted at millennials and Generation Z. During early September of 2018, as TikTok users opened the app, they were directed to the #InMyDenim challenge that urges them to post videos with the hashtag.
The #InMyDenim hashtag challenge marked the first promoted hashtag challenge on TikTok in the U.S. and the official launch of the app’s U.S. brand partnerships program. Guess promoted the challenge with the support of popular TikTok content creators. Unlike the McDonald’s example, there weren’t any prizes, but that didn’t stop thousands of TikTok users from posting videos using the official hashtag.
How Can TikTok Fit Into Your Digital Strategy?
Currently, one of the major features of TikTok is that there isn’t advertising or methods for monetization. It makes the user experience more relaxed and enjoyable. That’s not to say that the app won’t move in that direction at some point, because it can’t be free forever.
For businesses, this can be a good time to build a user base and enjoy organic advertising techniques to show off your products or services. Issue a #challenge to your followers showcasing your product. You may get some valuable ideas for marketing and content across other platforms.
TikTok has a younger clientele than other social media platforms. If you can create videos that appeal to the demographics on TikTok, it could be a valuable marketing tool for your business. TikTok is billed as a social media platform where you show your real side. Authenticity is a great marketing strategy.
With TikTok’s sophisticated editing tools, you can really shine. Contact Fang Marketing about using TikTok in your social media marketing campaigns.
TikTok is in that early phase where all the really big brands are doing it just to do it, which means TikTok can do goofy things like have minimums and have ridiculously high pricing. In our experience, what we’re seeing right now is even higher than what we saw on SnapChat in its early days. That said, the minimum investment requirement, in our experience, can be as low as $6,000.
Interesting article from eMarketer on the idea if TikTok is a true challenger to YouTube just yet, at least from a content creator standpoint. Given that YouTube has 1.1 BILLION more monthly users than TikTok, and TikTok just started its advertising program and doesn’t have a revenue sharing program yet, we think it’s a bit early for that line of thinking.
