As a rapidly growing platform, TikTok is a topic of interest for many marketers, so getting the basics is important to understand how they can use this network to reach the customers of tomorrow.
TikTok is an explosively growing video sharing app, with 800 million active users worldwide, despite being launched only 4 years ago by ByteDance, one of the leading Chinese internet companies. With two thirds of its users being younger than 30, it’s a great way to reach the customers of tomorrow, says Alicia Maravic, Senior Account Manager at Adverity, in the latest Adverity Bitesize webinar.
The Magic of Video
Alicia explained that there’s a whole lot more to TikTok than just being a fun platform for kids who want to share dance moves and funny viral videos. Although the platform is predominantly used by young people, the user base is active and engaged, and growing quickly in many regions that include Spain, Italy and Germany.
A major indication of where the channel is heading is the fact that the company recently appointed Kevin Mayer as its CEO, who was previously Head of Streaming at Disney, where he launched Disney+ last November.
Marketing-ready Platform
What makes TikTok so great for marketers, says Alicia, is that it enables businesses to create their own branded marketing channel, and manage their ads through a self-service tool. She adds that the platform is ideal for short marketing videos, which you can promote using TikTok brand partnerships, and it’s easy to create localized marketing campaigns in different languages.
Another useful element for marketers is the platform’s use of hashtags, which can be repurposed for challenges, or particular types of content that align with users’ interests.
Instant Engagement
Social platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram make it notoriously difficult to build engagement among non-followers, but this isn’t the case with TikTok, says Alicia.
Because of the way its delivery algorithms work, it’s easy to get higher video engagement with much less effort, she explains. In fact, your videos can go viral even if your account is new and has zero followers. If your hashtag falls within the user’s interests, they will very likely be shown your video on their home screen.
Plug and Play
At the beginning of 2020, they introduced TikTok Ads, as a way for brands to advertise on this popular platform. Adverity makes it simple to connect TikTok as a data source, making it quick and easy for users to integrate, consolidate and analyze data from TikTok Ads, and monitor and optimize ad performance.
In addition, says Alicia, by overlaying that data with information from Facebook or YouTube, for example, you can get a holistic overview of your marketing achievements across social, digital, and non-digital channels, and see your marketing return on investment.
Measuring Up
Adverity allows you to get a top-level view of your TikTok ad campaign data, but also lets you drill down into the details. In doing so, you can get granular and accurate information on things like ad costs, conversion rates, costs, clicks, likes and views.
All these factors combine to make TikTok an important element of your marketing strategy, particularly when you measure campaign performance alongside data from other marketing sources, Alicia concludes. And as a platform in its own right, TikTok is definitely worth considering as a means to tell your marketing stories.
