Advertising on TikTok: Everything You Need to Know About Advertising Your Brand

September 25, 2020

TikTok Growth Trends

TikTok, the leading platform in video social sharing, saw an overall increase in users in 2019, with 44% of all-time TikTok downloads happening in this year. To put this into perspective, that’s 738M total installs in 2019 alone.

Now with 2020 in full swing and Q2 business taking an interesting turn with COVID-19, TikTok has seen another recent growth spurt with 140M recent app downloads as the world continues to Shelter-In-Place.

This growth has led TikTok to recently open up its advertising channels in a fun, light-hearted matter. It seems the market is in demand for this light, heart-felt content in these COVID times.

TikTok’s mission is to inspire creativity and bring joy to their audience. It comes as no surprise then, that the best performing content showcases comedy and dancing, and the ad campaigns follow this same light-hearted guiding principle. With this approach, TikTok has mastered the art and science of real-time engagement.

TikTok ranks the highest for engagement amongst 100,000 influencer profiles in research project conducted by Influencer Marketing Hub.

TikTok Ad Strategy Tips

Try the Hashtag Challenge

Similar to Instagram, TikTok hashtags are an important tool for visibility on this platform. Hashtags are the primary way users create, share and find relative content. Think of this hashtag as the “theme” or overarching story for your video and content.

           

For example, Kroger , leading online retailer and grocer, launched the #TranfsormYourDorm challenge, encouraging college-age viewers to redecorate their dorm rooms in style and shop at Kroger. Kroger was an early adapter and saw great engagement success reaching a new younger demographic and generating over 806M Views and 304K new followers. #Winning!

Brand Takeovers Showcase your Unique Brand

So how does the brand takeover strategy work exactly? Upon opening up the TikTok app, the viewer will typically video content curated based on their current viewing trends. With the brand takeover strategy in play, the viewer will see a few seconds of branded, relevant content before viewing the clicked content. This strategy is often coupled with the hashtag challenge for effectiveness.

Both small and large brands are seeing success on TikTok with Nike running a recent campaign called “The Show Off Why You’re It” challenge with a hashtag acting as a modern play on “Just DO It”. This was a successful campaign generating 54.3M views

Success Stories

Universal Pictures also saw early success with TikTok upon launching the film, “The House with a Clock in its Walls.” With a noticeable trend in magic tricks, pranks and other illusions being up at the time, a hashtag challenge was launched called #FindYourMagic. TikTok users were encouraged by Influencers to film their own interpretation of the hashtag, posting videos of pets dressed up as magicians and even card tricks. This campaign resulted in an 11K follower gain in 6 days time.

TikTok By the Numbers:

  • 77% of TikToks users are under the age of 34
  • 62% of TikTok users are female
  • 800M total users with 30M in the US
  • 5.5 Times User Growth in 18 months
  • 90% of TikTok users visit more than once per day.

Bottom line is TikTok has mastered the engagement game and the world is craving feel-good content right now, and with 800M active users worldwide, there is an audience just waiting for the next feel-good campaign.

Is TikTok Right for Your Brand?

As an agency partner with TikTok, adQuadrant has direct insight into current trends and can create custom messaging, creative and positioning for your brand on TikTok. Let us help you connect and convert.

To find out more about adQuadrant; request a complimentary consultation today!