Unless you’ve been living under a rock, it’s hard to ignore the flurry of news surrounding this highly popular app. For anyone who’s spent even a short time on the TikTok app will attest, TikTok is downright addictive, and gaining incredible momentum. With over 1 billion monthly active users, it’s right on the heels of the mega popular Instagram that has 1.386 billion users. Keep in mind, it took Facebook and Instagram almost a decade to grow to that user base. Fascinating data, and in terms of a marketing tool, let’s go over some valuable reasons why you may want to use TikTok for business in 2022.
You may think that TikTok is just another social media app, but diving deeper you’ll find it is quite distinctive from other social media platforms. It’s still new enough for your business to get in early and take advantage of the many advertising and marketing opportunities. It’s also large enough so your business can get access to an audience right away.
Let’s go over some intriguing aspects and opportunities TikTok offers, who they cater to, and several reasons why you should consider using TikTok for your business!
TikTok is a social networking site that was launched in 2016. Since then, it has gained a massive following and is used in over 150 countries.
Content creators and influencers have flocked in droves to the TikTok app. Along with Instagram, the app is now testing subscription-based services for their most popular influencer’s feeds. It is now open to just a few popular creators, but in the future both social media giants will be expanding this option to others.
Creators on the app have the ability to use a wide range of fun filters, multiple effects, text overlays and the option to enhance videos with a wide variety of music ranging from pop to rock, rap, oldies, classical and everything in between.
Some of the most popular video content on the platform contain short comedy clips, trending dances and skits, informational and educational videos and even lip-synching.
Prior to posting a video, TikTok users have the option to customize and optimize it by adding relevant hashtags, and sharing it to other social media platforms, thereby increasing its discovery on search engines.
TikTok also has a popular ‘Challenges’ feature that allows creators to participate in growing trends, contests and themes. Those who follow the challenge, get their video displayed to those following the specific challenge, which increases the chances of your video going viral.
Businesses are recognizing that with the massive and growing popularity of the app, TikTok has the power to reshape the way brands and businesses communicate with their customers, convey events, share information, and connect to communities and culture worldwide with relevant displays and conversations.
Unlike other major social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn, TikTok lets users create 15, 60 second, and now recently, up to 3 minute videos that allow users and businesses to create content targeted to a wide variety of audiences.
TikTok is unique in that it’s all about sharing relatable, engaging, and natural bite sized videos where users can create captions and distinctive overlays often set to popular music. It also has the ability to integrate automatically with the other social media networks making content easily shareable.
This in itself opens up a whole new level of connection with the audience your business wishes to target.
If you think the app is used primarily by GenZ you may want to look again. Indeed, the largest demographic of users are between the ages of 16-24, with 47.4% of their active users are between the ages of 10 to 29 years.
But interestingly enough you’ll also find people 40-80+ years are creating content and frequenting the app more and more.
With these numbers in mind, and considering that Social media influences 71 percent of consumer buying decisions – businesses would be wise to pay attention. After all, every funnel starts with peaking interest and awareness. Millennials and Gen Z in the U.S. alone are turning to mobile entertainment on social media as a primary source of information, education and awareness.
You can’t ignore the fact that this has led up to $350 billion dollars worth of buying power.
On average, U.S. adult users spent 33 minutes per day on TikTok ranking it 2nd by daily engagement after Facebook.
Another interesting stat: American adults using TikTok grew 5.5 times in the last 18 months alone, with a 2:1 female to male gender ratio.
TikTok has evolved from a creative video platform meant solely for creators to express their creativity to a bonafide advertising and business marketing haven.
You may be thinking, I don’t need another social media platform. While this may be valid depending on your business, your audience and your niche, keep in mind that it may be an investment worth making for your brand long term.
Due to the enhanced creativity and exposure it offers, many companies have found success on TikTok simply by offering access to an audience other platforms don’t have.
In a nutshell, by building your exposure, the better chance your business will have in retaining customers, acquiring new ones and building your overall brand awareness. By using a less formal, video focused approach, your business can relay its information in the most natural, fun, realistic and authentic way possible.
TikTok for business has a centralized platform especially for advertisers and marketers. They have an e-learning center (ads manager platform) where businesses can go to learn how to create specific ads to cater directly to your audience, set budgets, as well as analyze pertinent campaign data. There are 5 different formats available to help assist.
If you’ve used other social platforms in the past you may be aware that some of the algorithms are constantly changing, which can be frustrating, and they don’t often listen to what their users actually like and dislike.
TikTok is known for listening to the feedback it receives. When certain features or trends are ‘liked’, the app can create new editing features and effects allowing users to create similar content easier.
The inverse is also true, when a new feature releases only negative feedback, the platform swiftly adjusts to its user’s liking.
If you decide to use TikTok as a strategy for your business in 2022, your digital marketing ability could have the potential to multiply significantly simply based on these factors.
Now that you know a bit more about the TikTok app, and who uses it you may decide to test it for your business. The next thing you want to do is understand exactly what you want your brand to get out of the platform.
Here are 8 reasons and ideas to think about that will help narrow down your goals and reasons for using TikTok for business:
If you decide to use TikTok for business there’s even an option to design a branded challenge and invite popular creators on the app to participate. If it goes viral then that generates even more publicity for your business as more people share it and it becomes popular with the masses.
In-feed ads appear on a user’s For You page. With in-feed ads for example; Tiktok advertisers can use these ads to drive more conversions by adding CTAs to the videos.
Top View ads are the prime product offering for TikTok for business. These video ads appear once per day once a user launches the app. They can last up to 60 seconds and are perfect for businesses that need increased time to showcase their product.
Hashtag challenges let businesses invite the user community to create content around a particular TikTok challenge. Hashtag challenges run for 6 days and have exclusive access to the hashtag unlike any other social media network.
Brand takeover ads provide a powerful visual impact display for your business. Advertisers can use a GIF or a 3-5 second video for the ad as well as static displays. Along with a link to your business’s website.
Branded effect ads allow businesses to use AR (augmented reality), along with 2D or 3D effects to add images of their products to their videos. These branded effects have been shown to increase user engagement across the board.
Although TikTok is predominantly for a youthful demographic, things are changing. There are more Gen-Xers on the app now more than ever. TikTok for business is definitely a vital and growing force to consider for your business to connect, engage with, and interact with particular members of your audience and make them more aware of your business.
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