TikTok is a video-sharing social networking service that places an emphasis on creative and knowledgeable video sharing. Unlike Facebook and Instagram, the TikTok social media platform is fairly unsaturated, with many brands only now realising the potential of TikTok as a marketing channel. TikTok enables users to show a different side of their business. It gives the opportunity for a more personal approach to marketing while promoting creativity and humour with its users. 

Due to the complex nature of social media applications, it can often become overwhelming for a brand to start using a platform without having a basic understanding of its mechanics. To help, we have devised a basic guide to understanding this quickly expanding social media network below.

The Basics

Home Screen: This is the landing page of the platform containing two feeds- ‘Following’ and ‘For You’. The ‘Following’ feed shows updates made to any account you follow. The ‘For You’ page shows trending videos as well as those videos TikTok believe best suit your interests.

Discover: Pre-selected videos containing trending hashtags will show up as default when first entering this page.  However, once on the page, users can search for videos, users, sounds and hashtags. Users also have the option of selecting the ‘Scan’ button by which you can scan other users TikCode in order to quickly find users. 

Upload: Once you have selected ‘Upload’ a record screen will open. Here, you can film, edit and create videos.

Inbox: This area holds all your notifications from the activity undertaken on your shared videos. Here, you will also find all your private messages and be able to filter comments and mentions from the drop-down menu at the top.

Me: This is your public profile. Your likes and public videos are viewable from this page. Your followers and who you follow are also visible, with your linked social media highlighted at the top of the page.

Advertising Options

With such rapid growth of the program, TikTok has chosen to expand its target users to include those aiming to utilise their platform for marketing practices. This has been highly successful for many brands, with each of the four key advertising options TikTok have made available to the public creating better brand awareness and interaction with their targeted market. These advertising mediums are outlined below.

Infeed Native Content: Native Content is video advertisements displayed between user videos in the TikTok feed. These advertisements are required to be 9-15 seconds long and can be skipped by any user. This advertisement type supports call-to-action and is full screen, high impact. You can measure the campaign’s success through tracking clicks, impressions, click-through rate (CTR), video views and engagements.

Brand Takeovers: This option allows one brand to take over the application for one day. Only one brand can appear per day and TikTok gives access to the user to create GIF’s, images and videos all linkable to the brands landing page within the app. Users will see these advertisements in their feed before any user-generated content appears with success measures including analysis of clicks, impressions and reach.

Hashtag Challenges: Hashtag challenges provide businesses with the possibility of increased user engagement. Businesses can create unique banners to drive user engagement with users participating through music, acting, and tricks. You can measure the degree of success of a hashtag challenge by analysing banner views and clicks, the number of user-generated videos and the number of users using your brand’s music.

Branded Lenses: Similar to the lenses used within SnapChat, TikTok enables brands to create lenses based on their company for users to then apply in their videos. This helps create brand awareness in an interactive and immersive format.

What you Need to Consider 

It is important when deciding on your marketing approach to consider key factors that drive the success of your business. These can include your demographic and geographic target as well as the trends within your market. This is a key factor to acknowledge when determining the value of TikTok for your business. 

Notably, TikTok predominantly targets the Generation Z market and is extremely popular within the teenage bracket. Understanding your businesses target market, vision and values will therefore become a factor in the success of your business within TikTok and be area’s to continue to maintain throughout your campaign. 

To find out what social media channels are right for your business, enquire with us here