Should Your Brand Be on TikTok? Spoiler Alert: Yes.

It’s time to finally answer the age-old question (well, maybe the question of the last two years) of whether or not your brand should be on TikTok. In this post, I’ll go through all of the most important questions: Should we be there at all? How do we handle creative for this platform? Why is nothing we’re doing working?

Should Your Brand Be There In The First Place?

The short answer to that question is most of the time — Yes! The long answer to that question is — Yes, but with a few caveats. If your brand caters to a demographic that’s primarily over the age of 50, then TikTok might not be the right fit for you, at least not yet, since 93% of users are 50 and under. (Wallaroo Media). For anyone else, you’re in luck, because with the right voice, a deep understanding of how the platform works and great native video content, you can and should absolutely take advantage of this incredibly fast-growing social video app that has shown it’s capable of having a hugely positive business impact with brands and now has over 130 million active users in the U.S. (Wallaroo Media).

“TikTok Is Confusing! Our Creative Doesn’t Work There!”

One of the biggest pushbacks we’ve seen from brands on not wanting to be on TikTok is simply a lack of understanding about the platform, how it’s different and how to approach it from a content standpoint. Some initial concerns we’ve fielded included statements like:

• TikTok is only for kids under the age of 18.
• I don’t understand it. I got an account and when I scroll, it’s only serving me dancing videos. I don’t want my brand surrounded by those videos.
• It’s overwhelming and the turnaround time is too fast. Why can’t we use our normal creative here? We don’t have budget for more creative.
• We made a page, put up some organic TikToks about our brand but we didn’t get much exposure, so we stopped.

Any of those sound familiar? While all of those concerns are valid, we are able to walk back those concerns by highlighting the following:

• While 30% of TikTok users are under the age of 18, that means 70% of the platform consists of users over 18. (Business Of Apps)
• To really understand TikTok and how it’s different, you must download it and make a point to use it for at least two weeks to understand it. Avoid simply scrolling the videos it’s showing you automatically the first time you log in. Those just consist of popular and trending videos overall on the platform because they don’t know you and your interests. Instead, go to the explore area and view the trending hashtags and related videos and also search for content that is important to your business. Once you start liking those videos, the TikTok algorithm will quickly learn what you like, and your initial login page will start curating to your interests.
• It can definitely seem overwhelming if you think you need to go out and produce high-quality content for your videos, but that is not the case. Videos on TikTok aren’t meant to be polished with commercial-grade quality. When those kinds of videos are served, it’s very clear to the users that it’s an “ad” because it doesn’t feel native to the platform. Videos should almost look like you’re video calling a friend. That quality is native to the platform. That makes it much easier to capture content via just cell phone video for TikTok content.
• The key to making your video content stand out is to make sure your first 5-10 videos do well enough to be served to more people on the platform. TikTok uses a bullseye targeting effect for serving creative, presenting to a small amount of people first, and then if that small group responds well to it, then it will expand to the next layer out, then the next one. If it doesn’t do well with the initial exposure, the reach stops right there. That’s why it’s important to make those videos ones that people will want to see. An easy way to do this is to jump on current user/song trends that are on the platform. TikTok works best when the same trends, hashtags and sounds are being used by the most users and brands. The repetition of the sound and the expected content of video makes the user more likely to watch your video as well, leading to more frequency and exposure of your video.

Reach Out For Help

Need help navigating TikTok, video content across platforms or other paid social/paid media opportunities for your brand? The Brandon Agency can help with all of your digital and traditional needs. Contact us today to get started.