The only reason you might be aware of Tik Tok is if you have a teenager or other young person somewhere in your life as over 40% of the app's users are between the ages of 10 and 19. Originally launched by Chinese company ByteDance as Musical.ly, Tik Tok has smartly leveraged the void left by Vine after its demise in 2017. The app is, for all intensive purposes, a social network for amateur music videos.
Described as a combination of Vine, Twitter, and Instagram, users can create and view short-form, music-focused videos and edit them with lenses, filters, and AR features. The short, highly engaging content has been steadily gaining the attention of young users and business owners alike. Tik Tok is a prime target for any brand that is seeking the fickle attention of Generation Z. Part of the appeal of this app is that it is, essentially, uncharted territory in regards to marketing. Tik Tok has just recently started exploring options for paid advertising and, as a result, offers the opportunity for influencers to fight for position with users.
Musical.ly to Tik Tok
Musical.ly was founded by Chinese entrepreneurs Alex Zhu and Luyu Yang and initially launched in 2014. After gaining a loyal userbase, it was acquired by ByteDance in November 2017. ByteDance, a Beijing-based media and tech company already owned a similar app, Tik Tok, and while both Musical.ly and Tik Tok were popular, each app was differently positioned depending on where in the world the user base was located.
ByteDance decided to bring the two apps together for better efficiency and felt that Tik Tok better reflected the original mission. Not to mention that, per market research, Tik Tok was also the most downloaded iOS app in the first quarter of 2018. Not too much changed when the app became Tik Tok although new creator tools and interactive filters were made available. ByteDance also provided bug fixes and performance improvements and even warns users when they’ve been using the app for more than two hours straight. Let’s hear it for digital mindfulness!
More About Tik Tok
Video Length
While the now extinct Vine app allowed 6-second videos, Tik Tok has a magic number of 15 seconds which is the upper recording limit within the app. That being said, users can string together different clips to create stories as long as 60 seconds. Users may also upload longer videos that were recorded outside of the Tik Tok app.
What People Do on Tik Tok
Musical.ly was originally created with lip-syncing in mind but then later became known for posting music videos to a broader social-media and entertainment platform. Tik Tok is big on movement-based activities like dancing, gymnastics, cheerleading, and parkour. Comedy is also popular although it is usually lip-sync-based comedy.
App Safety
There are no parental controls on the app however, parents do have access to the usual privacy settings if they are concerned about their children’s accounts. It should be said that it is possible to watch videos without having a Tik Tok account and there have been instances of strange adults contacting children inappropriately on the app. In regards to content, there is no policing of strong language or sexual lyrics that are a part of today’s music. In addition, some of the outfits and dance moves in videos can be a little racy.
Why Should Businesses Care about Tik Tok?
Tik Tok offers businesses an excellent opportunity to execute their engagement marketing strategies in a way that feels neither contrived nor fake. It’s important to create a complete profile and to follow popular users to gain an understanding of the unwritten rules of this particular platform. Create practice content until you master the type of content with which users like to engage and that falls in line with the platform’s culture. As with any social media site, a regular, active presence is important and offering content that aligns with your brand is key.
As of this year, Tik Tok supports four types of advertisements: infeed native content, brand takeovers, hashtag challenges, and branded lenses. Each type of advertisement has a different purpose and will result in a different outcome based on the type of campaign you're running.
Infeed native content is similar to Snapchat or Instagram Story ads. This content plays in full screen, is skippable, and needs to fit in the standard 9-15 second Tik Tok video length. Infeed native content campaigns can be tracked via clicks, impressions, click-through rates, video views, and engagements.
Brand takeovers allow a single brand to take over the app for a day and to create images, GIFs, and videos. The brand can also embed links to both landing pages and to hashtag challenges within the app. The success of brand takeovers can be measured via impressions and click-through rates.
Hashtag takeovers are when a brand creates a hashtag with an associated end goal or prize for participants. These campaigns can be used to promote services or products with a young demographic base.
Branded lenses are just that – brands can create lenses similar to Instagram filters and lenses in Snapchat that Tik Tok users can then apply in their video creations.
Tik Tok is relatively new, especially to the business world, and as a result, not as saturated a platform like Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter. Tik Tok is also less expensive to advertise on as it is still growing its influencer community and there are far fewer users competing for sponsorship and ad placements. The app also offers your brand the opportunity to explore different facets of your business on a platform where fun and whimsy are welcomed. Not to mention that Tik Tok puts your branded content in front of the notoriously difficult to market to Gen Z. The app lets you meet them where they are and to have some fun doing it.
Fun and Approachable Content
Tik Tok is not a platform like Instagram where perfection is expected. Tik Tok users will fundamentally reject polished, high-quality content. It is a casual platform on which users feel completely comfortable expressing their true selves. A truly creative space, Tik Tok thrives on quirkiness, not commercial-style creations. Engagement is the ultimate goal so allow your brand to explore the personality of your business to find what is fun, whimsical, and entertaining. Successful Tik Tok content requires a clear understanding of your brand culture, values, and identity. Be sure to create and post content that avoids stiff corporate guidelines and embraces your brand’s true character. Leave the formalities behind and strive for creative, crazy, fun.
Wrap Up
Social media done well can increase brand awareness, boost conversions, and improve your company’s bottom line. When it comes to new and rapidly growing social platforms, stay flexible, collect and analyze performance data, and then adapt your platform strategies accordingly. If even a segment of your target audience is teenagers and young adults, consider exploring the opportunities available to your brand via Tik Tok.
The experts at Strategy Driven Marketing love everything social media. From writing content to optimizing images and video to digging into analytics, we can help you learn more about Tik Tok and make the most of all of your social media accounts. Contact us today!