6 Reasons Your Brand Should Be Using TikTok to Increase Awareness
If you’ve been marketing your brand in the last decade, you know there’s one thing above all else: online engagement.
In the last 10 years, maintaining social media accounts and launching online campaigns transformed from a neat bonus within marketing strategies to the principal way to connect to customers. Gone are the days of print advertising and buying ad slots in-between breaks on the local news. Nowadays, highly visible and hyper-segmented online engagement strategies are the key ways to boost awareness.
In many ways, that’s a huge plus to a brand; it allows brands to interact more directly with consumers and advertise to others in that orbit. But, there is a major hurdle to clear in order to reap those benefits. You need to keep up with the ever-evolving digital landscape.
The newest player in that landscape is, of course, TikTok.
TikTok may seem like a challenge to many marketers, but with a basic understanding of the app and a little practice, it can become an excellent tool in your marketing arsenal. So, with that in mind, here are 6 reasons your brand should be using TikTok to increase awareness.
TikTok is the fastest growing social media platform
TikTok has seen a giant leap in U.S. users in the last few years.
The biggest factor in TikTok’s meteoric rise in America was the pandemic. Downloads for the app jumped 800% between late 2018 and August 2020 and it’s only gone up from there. In 2022, estimates put monthly active users in the US at 73.7 million people and expect to reach 1.5 billion by the end of the year. Wild, right?
Gen Z still dominates the age demographics on the app so far, but their majority is constantly falling. Older users continue to flock to TikTok as other social media companies like Facebook and Instagram fall out of fashion. Millennials are the fastest growing user segment these days.
2. TikTok is expanding its reach and capabilities almost daily
TikTok isn’t sitting on its hands as its platform blows up in America either.
The app developers have already added stories, increased the length that videos can be, and fine-tuned its algorithm for English-speakers. All signs point to TikTok’s intentions to stay a major player in the states for the foreseeable future.
If your target audience isn’t on TikTok right now, they likely will be in some form later. And since TikTok is starting to add features to imitate competitors like Google or Meta, adopting early is vital for your businesses.
TikTok also recognizes that it isn’t just users that make an app successful. They’ve made just as many new opportunities and features for brands to take advantage of, but more on that later.
3. TikTok content can reach audiences in several ways
The most common thing non-users think of when they think about TikTok are the dances.
While it’s true that dance “challenges” were the early highlights of the app, there is so much more now. TikTok’s algorithm caters to the hyper-specific interests of its user and dancing often has little to do with the vast diversity of interests.
Popular topics on TikTok these days include how-to videos, viral trends, humor, product reviews, make-up tutorials, and the list goes on and on. The key takeaway is: whatever your brand does will have an audience on TikTok.
Brands that perform best on the app right now sell clothes, makeup, décor, and home appliances, but that’s by no means an exclusive list. The reason these products perform well is because creators can review them and film themselves using the product or modeling it.
The first step is determining how your target audience utilizes (or will utilize) the app and thinking of a way to enter that video niche.
4. TikTok’s paid ads are powerful
If you’ve used paid ads through Facebook or Instagram, you’re probably familiar with the process. If you aren’t familiar with it, however, check out my previous blog post all about it!
TikTok’s paid ads are similar to other social media sites’, but boast a higher engagement rate. TikTok has a higher reach than its competitors and a 9% organic engagement rate from ads as opposed to Instagram’s 3%.
TikTok has plenty of different types of ads, but there are three main ones to consider:
In-feed
In-feed ads appear in between videos on TikTok’s “for you page.” The for you page (FYP) is the main way people engage with the app. If you’ve ever scrolled through TikTok before, you were most likely on that page. In-feed ads look just like the other videos on the platform, they just have an ad label in the bottom corner. This is the cheapest form of advertising on TikTok.
Top-view
This is like the in-feed advertising feature, but instead of showing up in between videos, brand takeovers are the first things users see when they open the app. Additionally, some top-view ads are unable to be scrolled away from for several seconds.
Brand takeovers
Brand takeovers are the best of both worlds of in-feed and top-view advertisements. They ensure that not only will your ad be the first thing users see when the open the app, but the only ads they see throughout their entire stay on TikTok.
If you’re interested in any of these ads (as well as several more), create a TikTok Ads account here.
5. Influencers make a difference on TikTok
Influencer marketing is huge online. If your brand wants to display the benefits of your product or service, there isn’t a better way than to employ someone to do it for you.
Influencers already come with their own audience that trust what they have to say, so you aren’t just paying for a commercial, you’re paying for an expert testimonial. And TikTok influencers are especially powerful. They have an average 18% engagement rate with their audiences; double the organic engagement rate of regular paid ads.
Even if you aren’t familiar with which influencer to partner with, TikTok does the heavy lifting for you. They have a simple “matching” tool you can use to find the perfect brand ambassador. Find it here.
6. TikTok content can be reused and utilized on various social media platforms
Finally, it’s no secret that video content is king in today’s digital world.
Content you create for TikTok can be successfully repurposed on other platforms like Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, and more. Creating videos is understandably harder than taking a few pictures of your product, but the reward is worth it. Instagram Reels are the platform’s biggest engagement success in recent years and it’s in clear response to the success of TikTok.
So, if you’re already making ad content for TikTok, you’ll simultaneously be creating high-value ads for your other social media accounts.
PRO TIP: Other platform algorithms may dock your content if it contains the TikTok watermark. Create your video content outside of the app and then import to TikTok for most efficient + successful content creation.
In short, TikTok is here to stay - and for good reason! If you’re not on the platform, personally or professionally, take the first step and create an account to begin learning the ropes. And as always, if you need help in deploying a brand strategy on TikTok (& elsewhere),