TikTok and the Versatility of Video Marketing
By Easton Davis
How is Marketing Used on TikTok?
In accordance with its name, TikTok has taken no time at all to soar in the social media industry, becoming a predominant platform as it climbs the podium towards the most popular applications. With this fast-growing popularity inevitably comes the incorporation of a brand, product, and service promotion. These marketing trends are becoming increasingly noticeable in a variety of forms.
From small businesses promoting their products using eye-catching tactics, all the way to big brands such as Target and Amazon using comment sections as a means of marketing their companies. The diversity of promotion on TikTok has proved extremely successful for brands of varying sizes and services.
With the use of songs and sounds that appeal to audiences, companies can advertise themselves in short video clips using and incorporating limitless creative techniques to do so. This could range from the hands-on insight of the product, such as woodwork engraving for the older generations all the way to slime videos for the younger generations.
The opportunities are endless and bountiful. The primary means of marketing on TikTok is either through sponsoring the most popular influencers so they can advertise your product, or creating challenges and trends for all users of the app to partake in, all of which will be discussed further in this article.
TikTok Challenges Changing the Game
The application itself is primarily dominated by younger generations striving to follow trends, and brands have used this to their advantage with the creation of different challenges emulated in hashtags posted in the caption of the users’ videos. These challenges have revolutionized marketing on social media, skyrocketing audience reach and fast-tracking brand growth and image. Colgate, for instance, created an infamous #MakeMomSmile campaign to celebrate Mother’s Day, attracting millions of users and even getting other brands such as the Dallas Cowboys and New York Giants to partake in the trend.
Other brands such as Aerie introduced the #AerieREALPositivity hashtag asking their audience to share three things they are grateful for. The list of brands participating in the creation of these challenges is extensive, with challenges such as Chipotle’s #GuacDance, Chase Bank’s #ShowMeYourWalk, and Honey’s #PassTheCard.
Challenges and trends are traits of TikTok that make it more appealing to advertise on in comparison to other platforms, and brands of all sorts are gradually joining in on this wave. Challenges are created to market movie premieres, upcoming artists’ new song releases, or simply a brand in its entirety. It is a strategic and creative means of grasping audience attention, maintaining it, and rapidly spreading it to millions of app users.
Sponsored Influencers vs. Sponsored Marketing Messages
The most common form of digital marketing on TikTok are sponsored influencers and sponsored videos that appear according to an algorithm on the user’s “For You Page”. Although the two means sound very similar, there is quite a difference. Sponsored influencers, for example, include 150 million following Charli D'Amelio, partnering with Takis, and making every other video she posts one of her eating a bag and talking about their delicious taste.
Addison Rae is another extremely popular TikTok influencer, with her first sponsorship being from Fashion Nova, as she would make continuous haul videos of the clothes the company would send her to encourage her followers to purchase from their site. These are just two of thousands of influencers that have partnered with or are sponsored by brands, posting videos with their products and hashtags with the company name to garner attention from vast audiences.
Sponsored marketing messages, on the contrary, are the videos that inevitably pop up on user’s pages with a small logo beneath them in a small rectangular box reading “Sponsored”. Companies pay TikTok Ads Manager to advertise the videos they create, which are strategically placed to reach your target audience and drive results quicker.
Since the “For You Page” on the app is somewhat randomized, the algorithm can place the sponsored videos on a user’s feed and they inevitably watch them without noticing the sponsored message appearing beneath the caption. However, users tend to quickly realize when a video is sponsored and scroll within 3 seconds, which is why companies typically lean more towards investing in influencers to ensure high impressions and click rates.
TikTok has clearly revolutionized the advertising and marketing industry, introducing a plethora of new ways to promote your product or service through engaging with audiences, personalizing brand-consumer interactions, and offering opportunities that allow audiences to feel more in touch with a company.
About This Author
Easton Davis is a rising Sophomore at Texas Christian University, majoring in Strategic Communications with a General Business minor. She has a passion for creative writing, in addition to research projects that require more in-depth information. She hopes to enter into the Channel Planning or Media Buying fields of Strategic Communication, while simultaneously maintaining her inclination to write and relay messages to audiences of all interests and backgrounds.