Is TikTok the Future of Marketing?

Only a few years ago, it was common to find brands focusing on driving relatability and connection on other social media channels like Twitter. But as Gen Z grows up and becomes an ever-expanding market share, brands recognize that moving to their preferred platforms is just a smart strategy.

Younger people are overwhelmingly spending their time on TikTok and are more than happy to consume branded content if they find it relatable and interesting. The challenge for brands is to find ways to create engaging content that leaves a positive impression and avoids the label of “cringe.”

Many brands are banking on TikTok as the future of marketing or at least as a teaching forum for the direction marketing is going. Here are some ways TikTok is different from other social media platforms and how it continues to innovate and drive engagement.

Short and Sweet

By now, most people know that TikTok’s signature offering is the ability to create short videos. Just a few taps can get a person into a specific video on Tiktok, but it’s also just as easy to tap on the next video and the next. Therefore, fast and attention-grabbing videos that deliver something exciting, hilarious, or impactful as quickly as possible are the goal.

Challenges and Hashtags

Brands are learning how to better utilize the techniques influencers have mastered over the last few years. And many brands aren’t taking any chances—they’re working directly with influencers to ensure they get the challenge and hashtag game right.

For example, the restaurant Chipotle has become popular on TikTok. In 2019, Chipotle launched a successful challenge and hashtag combo with the #GuacDance. In this case, Chipotle was able to capitalize on a children’s musician’s viral video. The challenge and hashtag generated millions of related content submissions, driving brand awareness and positive impressions.

Branded Content or Paid Advertising?

You’ll find brands attempting one of three marketing strategies on TikTok. Some are only producing branded content, either on a central brand channel, via influencers, or both. Some are only producing paid advertisements injected into feeds, much like commercials. And finally, some are doing a combination of these techniques. But what is the difference between branded content and paid advertising? The lines are more blurred than ever before, but branded content focuses on:

• Entertaining the customer or viewer in some way
• Making personal appeals
• Encouraging interaction or some benefit to the customer

By focusing on the customer, branded content aims to provide some immediate value through education or entertainment to the customer. As a result of viewing the content, the customer then feels more favorable toward the brand or is encouraged to directly interact with the brand in another space.

On the other hand, paid advertising focuses on:

• Spotlighting the product or service
• The product description or how to obtain it

Often, branded content hopes to encourage customers to interact with the brand as a whole, whereas a paid ad seeks to funnel customers toward a specific product or service.

Brands that try to work with both branded content and more traditionally-focused paid advertising can reach viewers on TikTok in multiple ways. They can utilize the algorithms to appear in someone’s feed more organically or on their For You page. In addition, brands can pay for TopView ads, which will pop up as soon as the user starts scrolling.

Leveraging Different Algorithms on TikTok

In addition to where and how the marketing appears, brands can score big with their audiences by using the built-in tools that TikTok offers. Those tools have made TikTok’s presence grow exponentially around the world, and brands are starting to learn how to work with the tools properly. Some ways brands are fusing TikTok tools and brand marketing include:

• Trending hashtags: Anyone can do a quick search to find which hashtags are already trending, and brands in a position to act quickly can develop content related to the hashtag with a brand tie-in and ride the trending wave.
• Trending challenges: Just as with existing trending hashtags, brands don’t have to create their own. And sometimes, brands can piggyback on another brand’s challenge to produce some good-natured crossover content.
• New hashtags and challenges: Of course, many brands would rather create their own organic campaign with a challenge-specific hashtag.
• Collaborations and crossovers: Collaborations and crossovers can happen between two brands, or a brand and an influencer. When a brand works with an influencer, they often pay the influencer or exchange products for access to the influencer’s active audience.

One-on-One Connections Through TikTok

Small businesses and brands can leverage TikTok for marketing, too. The beauty of TikTok is how anyone can use the tools available to go viral. And those same tools can help a small business zoom straight in on their target audience.

Budget Marketing on TikTok

Finally, the short video format is highly cost-effective for small businesses who need few tools, if any, to create content. Unlike more traditional marketing campaigns and tactics, which can require a large budget and professionally-produced ads, small brands can create a brand channel full of organically-produced content for very little money. And followers are increasingly interested in content that looks and feels authentic and personally identifiable.

Brands can allocate the marketing budget they might once have dedicated to production to TopView or InFeed ads or Takeovers and collabs with influencers. But even if there’s no budget at all, brands may be able to get a foothold and begin to gather followers by learning and using the algorithm to identify the trends, challenges, hashtags, and dances that people are following.

Be Flexible and Embrace Change

The brands that adapt the best and have had the most success marketing on TikTok are the ones that have embraced that change happens quickly. Flexibility is crucial to successful TikTok marketing. TikTok itself is wildly successful because it continually innovates and is open to change.

The app began by appealing to a much younger demographic than other social media apps like Facebook and Instagram. However, it has since begun steadily increasing users in different age demographics and even picking up a significant Gen X and Boomer group.

TikTok marketing could lead to a brighter future for your brand. Why not explore all the tools available to you?