The undeniable power of TikTok

It’s the sixth most-used app on the plan­et and high on the agen­da for mar­keters world­wide as it con­tin­ues to be one of the hottest social des­ti­na­tions. But TikTok’s poten­tial for brands to build mass aware­ness and reach new audi­ences is only just begin­ning to be under­stood.

Known for its pre­dom­i­nant­ly Generation‑Z user base with 800 mil­lion glob­al month­ly active users, TikTok’s explo­sion onto the world stage has been pro­found, espe­cial­ly over recent months as whole nations went into lock­down and teenagers went in search of enter­tain­ment to pass the time.

The app, avail­able across 149 coun­tries and regions and in 39 lan­guages, allows users to cre­ate and share three six­ty-sec­ond videos on top­ics rang­ing from music and lip-synced dance rou­tines to geopo­lit­i­cal news and cur­rent affairs. But if you thought it was just anoth­er social plat­form made for under-18s, think again.

In Decem­ber 2019 alone, 9 per cent of UK smart­phone users aged 25 to 34 were on Tik­Tok, com­pared with 8 per cent of those aged 35 to 44 and 5 per cent of phone users aged 45 to 54, accord­ing to WARC esti­mates. Accord­ing­ly, celebri­ties, influ­encers and house­hold names are all get­ting in on the act as the des­per­a­tion for brands and indi­vid­u­als to go viral con­tin­ues to gath­er momen­tum.

What makes TikTok unique?

But it’s the app’s con­tent-cen­tric mod­el that sets it apart from the com­pe­ti­tion. Unlike Insta­gram or YouTube, the con­tent, not a channel’s fol­low­ing, reigns supreme, which means accounts with just a few likes or “hearts” still have the poten­tial to reach mil­lions of eye­balls.

The Wash­ing­ton Post’s chan­nel, for exam­ple, which pro­vides a light-heart­ed, behind-the-scenes look at how the pub­li­ca­tion is made, has amassed near­ly 600,000 fol­low­ers and 25 mil­lion likes since launch­ing in May 2019, as it attempts to reach a younger, more glob­al demo­graph­ic.

“‘Don’t make ads, make Tik­Toks’ isn’t just our propo­si­tion to mar­keters; it’s some­thing we believe in pas­sion­ate­ly,” says Stu­art Flint, head of busi­ness solu­tions for Europe at Tik­Tok. “We think there is a clear oppor­tu­ni­ty for brands to tell impor­tant sto­ries on our plat­form, to cre­ate a depth of what they can share, what they believe and to con­nect with the com­mu­ni­ty, but to do so in a way that is tru­ly Tik­Tok.”

The plat­form offers a vari­ety of adver­tis­ing options, from in-feed and takeover ads to brand­ed video fil­ters and the ever-pop­u­lar hash­tag chal­lenge ads, where com­pa­nies invite all users to cre­ate con­tent around their cam­paign theme, with all user-gen­er­at­ed con­tent (UGC) aggre­gat­ing in the cen­tral page.

Connecting with users in brand new ways

And it is this UGC mod­el where TikTok’s true poten­tial lies. Accord­ing to Sales­force, social cam­paigns that have some ele­ment of UGC achieve a 50 per cent increase in engage­ment, while ads with sig­nif­i­cant UGC gen­er­ate five times high­er click-through rates.

“In a very dynam­ic media land­scape, we are con­stant­ly look­ing to address the right tar­get group and nur­ture our tar­get group of the future,” says Wim Van Bogaert, man­ag­er of dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing at BMW, which doesn’t yet have a cen­tral Tik­Tok chan­nel, but is look­ing to inte­grate the plat­form into its over­all strat­e­gy in the future.

“With Tik­Tok show­ing the most year-on-year growth [com­pared with oth­er plat­forms] of above 30 per cent, an audi­ence of above 800 mil­lion and grow­ing, as well as record­ing the longest amount of time per day on a social plat­form, we would only deny Tik­Tok at our own per­il. We’re wit­ness­ing the com­ing of age of Tik­Tok.”

Last year, BMW launched a dance cam­paign on social chan­nels under the #THE1challenge hash­tag, where­by users were tasked with per­form­ing a chore­o­graphed dance “inspired by the new BMW 1 Series”, which on Tik­Tok gen­er­at­ed 1.4 mil­lion likes, 7,400 com­ments and 7.1 mil­lion views, out­per­form­ing Insta­gram.

“If we do not bond with this younger tar­get group who are at the brink of own­ing a driver’s licence and spend an aver­age 53 min­utes per day on Tik­Tok, when will be the right time?,” asks BMW’s Van Bogaert. “The female ratio is between 60 and 70 per cent and this is very impor­tant. The major­i­ty are using high-end smart­phones, an indi­ca­tion of the pur­chas­ing pow­er of the audi­ence which is on Tik­Tok.”

Creating the next generation of brand ambassador

For Chipotle’s lat­est Tik­Tok mar­ket­ing cam­paign, #Chipotle­Spon­sorMe on Cin­co de Mayo 2020, it teamed up with influ­encer and brand super­fan David Dobrik to chal­lenge cre­ators to show­case why they should be spon­sored by Chipo­tle. The cam­paign was inspired by the influx of fans who were request­ing Chipo­tle spon­sor­ships across social. Tressie Lieber­man, vice pres­i­dent of dig­i­tal and off-premise at the Amer­i­can chain of fast food restau­rants, explains: “Tik­Tok cre­ators jumped at the oppor­tu­ni­ty to share new orig­i­nal con­tent that proved their unde­ni­able love for Chipotle’s real food.

“We worked with David to pick five win­ners who became the first Chipo­tle fans to receive the famed Celebri­ty Card, which is nor­mal­ly reserved for a small, elite group of brand super­fans who are celebri­ties, ath­letes and influ­encers, and grants access to free Chipo­tle. The cam­paign gen­er­at­ed 1.2 bil­lion total views on Tik­Tok.”

How Nike capitalised on a more even playing field

UK-based 22-year-old Ben Black, a Nike foot­ball ambas­sador with 2.3 mil­lion fol­low­ers on Tik­Tok alone, was an ear­ly adopter of the plat­form. As one of the first foot­ball cre­ators pub­lish­ing con­tent on Musical.ly, he wit­nessed the plat­form evolv­ing first-hand. “Any­body on the plat­form has the oppor­tu­ni­ty to be seen. On any oth­er plat­form it can be quite hard to get expo­sure. On Tik­Tok it’s a more even play­ing field,” says Black.

He works along­side Nike, its agency and Tik­Tok, and has earned their trust lead­ing him to have cre­ative con­trol and steer activ­i­ty and cam­paigns, includ­ing Nike’s #Mag­ic­Boots, which chal­lenges users to show off their soc­cer skills to win a pair of boots. “Take inspi­ra­tion from some of the finest #nike­foot­ball play­ers in the game and show us what you’ve got. And if you impress our baller, @ben, you could even win a very spe­cial pair of #Mag­ic­Boots,” accord­ing to the cen­tral cam­paign page.

Any­body on the plat­form has the oppor­tu­ni­ty to be seen… It’s a more even play­ing field

TikTok’s Flint explains how the ampli­fi­ca­tion with adver­tis­ing works with the brand and cre­ator Black, prais­ing the strength of col­lab­o­ra­tion. “Nike was able to lever­age his large fol­low­ing in a key tar­get demo­graph­ic to gen­er­ate huge organ­ic reach right from the start. To max­imise reach, Nike ran addi­tion­al topview-lite and in-feed ads, as part of a wider adver­tis­ing cam­paign. On Tik­Tok, #Mag­ic­Boots saw more than one bil­lion video views.”

The suc­cess has led Black to trav­el the world to work with foot­ball super­stars Kevin de Bruyne, Ney­mar and Cris­tiano Ronal­do, direct­ing, edit­ing and pub­lish­ing con­tent. “It just feels like Tik­Tok have nailed it. The trends and the use of audio makes it eas­i­er for peo­ple to get involved. These are prob­a­bly the two things that make it so unique,” adds Black.

Major worries over TikTok security

But the break­neck speed of TikTok’s world dom­i­na­tion is not with­out its chal­lenges, with pri­va­cy and nation­al secu­ri­ty among the top con­cerns of some gov­ern­ments as geopo­lit­i­cal manoeu­vring attempts to stall its rapid growth.

Owned by Chi­nese multi­na­tion­al ByteDance, Tik­Tok start­ed life as Douyin in 2016, but rapid­ly became more pop­u­lar on a glob­al scale after acquir­ing and merg­ing with lip-sync app Musical.ly in 2018. But as its audi­ence con­tin­ues to swell, many, such as Don­ald Trump, are now wor­ried the plat­form could be amass­ing data on Amer­i­can cit­i­zens to pass to the Chi­nese gov­ern­ment, some­thing ByteDance denies.

In August, the US pres­i­dent ordered ByteDance to sell TikTok’s US oper­a­tions before the mid­dle of Sep­tem­ber or face a nation­wide ban, with Microsoft, Twit­ter and Ora­cle among the lead­ing con­tenders to take over the unit.

Tik­Tok, which boasts 80 mil­lion active users in the Unit­ed States, is fight­ing its cor­ner and tak­ing legal action against the Trump admin­is­tra­tion to chal­lenge the accu­sa­tions lev­elled at it. Mean­while, India banned the app in June, cit­ing secu­ri­ty and pri­va­cy con­cerns.

What is the future for TikTok?

The unfold­ing Tik­Tok sto­ry is just as enter­tain­ing as the con­tent pub­lished across its plat­form. From the eco­nom­ic, geopo­lit­i­cal and every­thing in-between, it’s attract­ing con­tro­ver­sy and inter­est. Its poten­tial new own­ers may be able to side­step the polit­i­cal issues cur­rent­ly plagu­ing it, in addi­tion to the chal­lenges of pri­va­cy, spam and inap­pro­pri­ate con­tent that will inevitably fol­low. Like oth­er plat­forms, trans­paren­cy and trust will be crit­i­cal to its future suc­cess.

With com­pe­ti­tion from Instagram’s new­ly launched Reels prod­uct, and more copy­cats expect­ed to fol­low, Pres­i­dent Trump cre­at­ing an account on com­peti­tor Triller, and a dozen oth­er sim­i­lar plat­forms want­i­ng to repli­cate TikTok’s suc­cess, how sol­id is its future? There is a poten­tial­ly com­plex road ahead. But achiev­ing huge West­ern adop­tion where one-stop Chi­nese tech­nol­o­gy pow­er­house WeChat failed, it is tempt­ing to sur­mise more suc­cess awaits. ByteDance itself report­ed­ly esti­mates annu­al rev­enues will surge to $6 bil­lion by the end of 2021, up from $1 bil­lion this year.

With its growth, invest­ment, reach, viral­i­ty and abil­i­ty to evolve quick­ly, it’s impres­sive. Announce­ments such as its new­ly launched Cre­ator Funds aren’t hurt­ing either, where­by Tik­Tok is invest­ing bil­lions in sup­port­ing “cre­ators of all sizes and back­grounds through earn­ings that reward the pas­sion and ded­i­ca­tion they put into inspir­ing, uplift­ing and enter­tain­ing the Tik­Tok com­mu­ni­ty”.

Tik­Tok­ers are unapolo­get­i­cal­ly loy­al and they are the audi­ence defin­ing its future. What’s appar­ent is the inter­est brands have in Tik­Tok mar­ket­ing, the Tik­Tok cre­ator ecosys­tem and its audi­ence. These don’t appear to be going any­where else any time soon. 

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TikTok marketing for B2B

Tik­Tok For Busi­ness is sup­pos­ed­ly for brands tar­get­ing both busi­ness-to-busi­ness (B2B) or busi­ness-to-con­sumer (B2C) audi­ences. “Tik­Tok is where cre­ativ­i­ty can be unleashed. Mod­ern cus­tomers for both want the fun­da­men­tal­ly same thing out of brand inter­ac­tions: enter­tain­ing, inspir­ing or infor­ma­tive expe­ri­ences improv­ing their lives,” says TikTok’s Stu­art Flint.

But cater­ing for both B2B and B2C cam­paigns has been a strug­gle for most social media plat­forms and Tik­Tok isn’t immune. Some spe­cial­ists aren’t con­vinced the plat­form is right for B2B brands or cam­paigns just yet.

“If B2B brands need to be on Tik­Tok, then it should be for recruit­ment pur­pos­es show­cas­ing the brand and have peo­ple apply,” advis­es Tim­o­thy Armoo, chief exec­u­tive at influ­encer mar­ket­ing agency Fan­bytes.

The Asso­ci­a­tion of Char­tered Cer­ti­fied Accoun­tants (ACCA), estab­lished in 1904, suc­cess­ful­ly worked with two cre­ators with the sup­port of Fan­bytes to pro­duce con­tent for Tik­Tok and Snapchat to reach new recruits, which was essen­tial­ly a B2C play for a B2B organ­i­sa­tion.

“We worked with two influ­encers [James Owen and Sherice Ban­ton] who vis­it­ed accoun­tan­cy firms, Flinder and Peter Jar­man who had the right fol­low­ing, not just a size­able fol­low­ing. The con­tent showed off ACCA and stu­dent accoun­tants redefin­ing the pro­fes­sion, abol­ish­ing the stereo­type that accoun­tants are bor­ing by cre­at­ing organ­ic Tik­Toks,” explains Karen Smith, head of UK mar­ket­ing, at ACCA.

The activ­i­ty gen­er­at­ed 890,800 views, 182,900 likes, 1,069 com­ments and an aver­age engage­ment on Tik­Tok of 13.6 per cent, accord­ing to the ACCA. “There was a lot of research and a lot of dia­logue to ensure there wasn’t any­thing that would jar with our brand and plac­ing trust in the influ­encers we’d cho­sen, giv­en the live aspect of the con­tent cre­at­ed,” Smith adds.