Digital advertising is constantly evolving which can make it difficult for many businesses to keep abreast of the new tools, trends and targets that emerge. That means that while you might feel as though you are on top of your existing social media ad planning, if your brand isn’t on TikTok in some form, you’re probably behind the curve.
TikTok is a relatively new social media platform. However, with an active user base of around 1.5bn – and rising – and a super high level of engagement, it might be time to get your business on the still growing app. As far as social media goes, TikTok is THE app for the younger generations and if you want to begin building brand awareness among the population that has a growing influence in the discretionary portion of household spending, you should consider getting up and running.
If you need a little more convincing, then here are 10 reasons to take the plunge.
1. TikTok Takes Time Away From Other Platforms
We mentioned the high level of user engagement and what that translates into is taking time away from competitors. TikTok gained over 1 billion subscribers in just six years and many of the teen or gen Z users spend a LOT of time scrolling and engaging with content from all kinds of contributors. So, while your ads on Facebook and Instagram are slick and perfectly on message, the people you want to engage probably aren’t spending enough time on those platforms to see it.
2. Affordability
The cost of advertising on TikTok is affordable when compared with other apps. One of the reasons for that is that you don’t need to publish professionally made content. The whole premise of TikTok is that content is real, raw and can be posted by anyone with a mobile phone. While that might sound scary from a brand perspective, it does mean you can try it out for a small initial outlay to see how it works, how you feel about it and if you want to increase your activity on it.
3. TikTok Is Changing the Digital Advertising Landscape
We briefly touched on this in our previous point; the type of content on TikTok that users typically engage with is different to other platforms. That’s because while many users on the platform switch off direct online ads, it directs users to similar content to the clips they already engage with, through a curated For You page. That means that even if the user has never heard of you, if your TikTok content follows recent trends or challenges then it could be shown to millions of users who like the content you’re producing, regardless of what you make or sell.
4. It’s A Great Tool To Build Brand Awareness
Of course, there is direct advertising on TikTok, allowing you to share your existing campaigns, but you can also just get onboard with fun trends, show some personality and build some basic brand awareness among the still expanding user base. You can worry a little less about tone of voice and image with TikTok and have a bit of fun that is both entertaining and engaging.
5. A Different Range Of Ad Options
Not only can you show off a different side of your brand’s personality on TikTok, you can also access a range of advertising options; Topview ads, Brand Takeover ads, In-Feed ads and Branded Hashtag Challenge ads. Some of them don’t give the users the option to like them but they can’t be skipped, while others have more engagement options and can be more of an opportunity to share a bit of your brand story and personality.
6. Join A Trend
When you want to post something but are unsure what’s suitable from a brand creativity perspective, you can take a look at what hashtags are trending or what challenges are popular and create something to fit in with that. Thanks to the real and candid user created content, anything you post doesn’t have to be perfect to fit in with the often raw and real look that TikTok’s users love.
7. Fancy Going Viral?
Thanks to the way TikTok works and the high level of engagement among users, there’s a real possibility of your content going viral, even if you’re a relative newcomer and don’t have a huge number of followers. The For You page brings new brands and influencers to users’ attention on a regular basis as suggestions are based more on the type of content than who’s posted it. That means if you hit the right note with a trend or challenge, your ad could be shared and viewed millions of times pretty quickly.
8. Collaboration
If you have a product to sell you can collaborate with existing TikTok content creators to help drive interest in your brand. One way to do this is to contact users who have previously posted popular content in line with your brand or products, send them some items or sell to them at a large discount, in return for them creating unboxing content with your goods. This is yet another way of indirect advertising that is popular with the platform’s user base.
9. Be More Authentic
Returning to the theme of the authentically created content that’s so popular with TikTok users, showcasing your brand’s authenticity through a real and quick video has a way of really connecting with the audience. This is one of the key reasons for the super high level of engagement on TikTok; users know their content is authentic and they are attuned to that same feel or look from other content creators.
10. TikTok Has Real Global Reach
If you’re working on broadening the reach of your brand TikTok’s presence in around 150 markets means that your ads and content can be seen around the world pretty easily. By identifying those existing content creators who are popular on a global scale or in the markets you want to break into and collaborating with them, you can test new markets with your brand and products relatively easily.
As you can see by these few reasons to advertise on TikTok, it is changing the social media advertising landscape and giving brands new, interesting and often less challenging ways to reach a huge base of highly engaged users. What advice or reasons have you got to advertise on TikTok? Comment below.
Click here or get in touch to find out how I can help setup and run your TikTok Advertising.