Over the past few years, Tik Tok has quickly become one of the most popular and exciting social media platforms. Tik Tok was initially an app called Musical.ly that encouraged its users to create short videos of themselves singing. Now, the app has turned into a full-fledged social platform with users posting videos of themselves singing, dancing, skating, creating art, and even teaching math. Pretty much anything you can find on YouTube, you can find on Tik Tok in the form of a 15-60 second video.
What Demographic is on Tik Tok?
Tik Tok was created for the younger demographic. Users age 13-24 are the most prevalent demographic on the app making up 33% of the total user population. As the platform has aged, older users have quickly joined the bandwagon with 25-30-year-olds making up 23% and 31-35-year-olds making up another 23%. With such a young and technologically savvy demographic on Tik Tok, this platform may quickly become one of the best places to advertise to them.
How Can My Business Use Tik Tok?
Similar to how everyday users interact with the platform, businesses can use it in the same way. Some of the best ways to increase engagement for your brand on Tik Tok is by creating content that encompasses your brand, promotes your products, or teaches people about your brand. The ultimate goal of advertising on social media is to improve engagement. By posting fun and creative content on the platform, you’ll likely start to get some strong engagement from the community and increase the conversation around your brand.
Some other ways to advertise your brand on Tik Tok is to try influencer marketing. Brands can partner up with popular influencer personalities on Tik Tok and have them market your product or business via their Tik Tok page. Since these influencers already have a loyal following of thousands of users, they are a great tool to use to promote your brand. They also work well as a testimonial from a trusted source.
Lastly, you can create commercials just like you might for YouTube. Tik Tok is still in its early days of being an advertising platform, so it isn’t near as effective or easy as advertising on other platforms. Nonetheless, many brands are posting longer commercial type videos on the platform to gain as much attention as they can. As this platform continues to grow year after year, advertising on the platform will only become easier and more prevalent.
Ways Other Brands Have Marketed On Tik Tok
Let’s take a look at some of the ways other brands have used Tik Tok to boost engagement. One brand that had a successful campaign was the famous shoe brand, Crocs. They started a hashtag challenge called #ThousandDollarCrocs. This was a partnership with famous rapper Post Malone and was a challenge to users to post a video showing what their Crocs would look like if they were $1000. They had a successful boost in engagement at around 18% when the challenge ended.
Another way a brand has successfully marketed themselves on Tik Tok is the NBA. The NBA has been steadily posting videos of mascots dunking the ball, cool trick shots, and outtakes from the games that aim to humanize the athletes. They’ve done a great job of marketing their sport as the sport for anyone to enjoy. Additionally, by posting funny and entertaining videos, your brand is more likely to be shared with other users or cause people to engage with their content by dropping a like or a comment.
Lastly, Chipotle had a good hashtag challenge called #ChipotleLidFlip. This was a challenge for users to create a video of themselves flipping the top onto their chipotle bowl without using their hands. This made for some creative videos being created and shared labeled with the #ChipotleLidFlip. Not only did it cause people to engage with the brand on social media, but it also managed to get all those people to go to a Chipotle franchise and purchase a meal.
The Takeaway
While Tik Tok is still a relatively young social media platform, it is growing exponentially. With more of the younger generation dominating the demographics, and the older generations slowly creeping into the fold, Tik Tok will soon become one of the better locations to market your brand. As they grow and develop like most social media platforms, they will likely open up their marketing services even further, making it easier for more people to advertise on the platform.
–written by Jonah Ericksen