In its relatively short life so far, the TikTok app has seen phenomenal growth, with this video-sharing app’s number of monthly active users having surpassed 800 million since it was launched in 2016. However, right now, TikTok is also tempting to dismiss as simply a fad.
Does this mean that, if you are looking for a new place to market your small business, you should ignore TikTok? Not quite. Here’s why, for your firm, it could actually be ripe in unrealised potential…
TikTok’s userbase is largely young
While Facebook and Twitter seem to attract users across a broad spectrum of ages, a significant chunk – over 40%, according to Business News Daily – of TikTok users is in the 10-19 age bracket. Therefore, if you want to attract attention from Generation Z, TikTok is a good place to do it.
Economically, this particular demographic cohort is a sleeping giant; though Gen Z members are tricky to reach through conventional marketing channels, their financial influence is growing. Therefore, by marketing to them now, you could reap impressive rewards later.
You could land cut-price deals with influencers
As pointed out in this Entrepreneur article, TikTok’s influencer community is growing, too. This bodes well for the long-term returns if you strike partnerships with TikTok influencers now, before they attract more attention from other companies and increase their prices as a result.
All big-name influencers started somewhere, after all – and Pewdiepie, to cite one example, started out on YouTube when it was yet to mature into an online behemoth.
You don’t need an overly professional-looking approach
You might have gathered by now that TikTok is an emerging social media sensation, but we wouldn’t be surprised if you are still wondering, when it comes to its functionality, “what is the TikTok app?”
Basically, with this app, you can put together short-form, music-backed videos and sprinkle them with eye-catching visual effects like lenses and filters. Much like Snapchat, it’s shamelessly silly, and so you would do well to follow a quirky approach with your TikTok-based marketing.
It seems fair to assume that, if your business is still small, it probably lacks a substantial marketing budget. Fortunately, though, TikTok isn’t a particularly snobby social network, so you don’t necessarily have to hire Jony Ive to create content that resonates with the app’s users.
It’s a rare opportunity for you to jettison corporate guidelines and let your imagination run wild. However, whatever you share on TikTok, remember to make sure it somewhat faithfully reflects your brand, even if you opt to soften that brand’s usual tone.
TikTok has recently introduced various advertising options
While teaming up with an influencer is an informal way to market on TikTok, the app itself has since introduced an array of comparatively formal alternative options.
Influencer Marketing Hub provides a rundown of these options, which were only introduced in January 2019. The metrics which you can use to measure the success of your TikTok ads include impressions, clicks and unique reach, so you can monitor what’s working.
