7 Ways To Make Your Influencer Marketing Pop This Holiday Season

It’s officially time to map out your influencer marketing for the holiday season and begin booking influencers. With talks of inflation, which is expected to top 6% by Christmas according to the Pew Research Center, consumers are expected to spend less this year and be more mindful of purchases in general, which means your marketing campaigns must be expertly crafted and launched with plenty of time in advance to catch the attention of holiday shoppers.

There’s never been a better moment to lean heavily on influencer marketing, partnering with personality-driven creators who can demonstrate your brand’s key products and benefits through engaging and relatable content.

Strengthen your holiday campaigns by:

Planning ahead and launching early.

Holiday shopping starts earlier each year, with 31% of consumers in 2021 starting their holiday shopping before Halloween and 55% before Thanksgiving, according to a survey done by Jungle Scout. Expect that number to rise this year as consumers seek to avoid supply chain delays and seek out the best deals. With this in mind, you should plan to begin promoting holiday offerings in early October and ramp up in November to capture holiday consumers before they’ve checked off their shopping lists for the year. Even date-specific sales like Black Friday and Cyber Monday should launch earlier than their traditional start so that you can advertise deals early.

Getting a head start on your holiday campaigns also means securing influencers before they become booked and locking them in before they charge a premium for last-minute holiday campaigns as well.

Partnering with strategically selected creators.

The creators you select for holiday influencer campaigns will be integral to the success of your marketing efforts, especially if you are seeking sales conversions. Creators who excel in short-form video content, have highly engaged audiences, and have a proven track record with sales conversions will be your key partners. Our extended network includes thousands of creators that we can match with your brand to ensure your goals are met.

Crafting creative that emphasizes value.

Consumers are inundated with a surplus of options these days, which is why emphasizing your brand’s benefits over the competition should be a focus of your campaign messaging. Provide influencer partners with unique discount codes to increase the campaign’s success and use influencer marketing to bring awareness to limited-time offers throughout the holiday season.

With consideration to the current economic landscape, consumers may be shopping for practical gifts, especially in the home and travel categories, while younger shoppers will likely still have trendy items on their wish lists. Take your brand’s target audiences into consideration when deciding what products to highlight for the holiday season and how influencers speak to your brand.

We can work with you to craft effective messaging that drives these points home and provide you with the right influencer partners to bring these messages to life through their content.

Activating Story content for limited-time offers and last-minute promotions.

Think of influencers as your valuable partners in informing consumers about important sales, back-in-stock items, and other informational content during the holiday season. Stories are a great way to highlight limited-time offers and time-sensitive information, like letting audiences know that a best-selling item is finally back in stock. This is why building up strong influencer relationships will give you a leg up during this busy season, as pre-existing business relationships will make it easier for you to add on last-minute campaign additions if needed.

Bringing company values to the forefront.

When faced with an overwhelming amount of choices on where to shop, consumers are mindful of supporting brands that have similar values. Showcase your charity partners and craft a campaign that features a charity component to bring your brand’s values to the forefront, using influencers with like-minded values to amplify your message.

Optimizing content.

Ad amplification is a necessary component of holiday marketing, but it is important to know that the digital ad space will become crowded as we near peak holiday shopping. Plan out your ad strategy in advance and monitor performance continually so you can make the best use of top-performing content and maximize your return on investment. Lytehouse’s team knows how to monitor and optimize ads across platforms, and can run your amplification program on your behalf.

Using the holiday season to jumpstart your 2023 ambassadorships.

Holiday is an important time for marketers, but don’t forget about a new year of marketing just beyond that! It is never too early to start thinking about your 2023 plans, and your holiday campaigns can be a great opportunity to test out influencer partners and assess potential 2023 ambassadors based on top-performing talent. With our team of influencer experts who can analyze campaign performance and provide key learnings for a new year of marketing, we can help you kick off your 2023 efforts on the best foot forward.

TikTok Analytics, Explained

Brands can no longer ignore TikTok when it comes to influencer marketing. The platform’s unmatched algorithm presents a unique opportunity for content to go viral and reach millions of potential consumers, and TikTok creators are savvy about developing engaging video content that converts viewership to patronage.

Whether you’re launching a TikTok account for your brand or simply working with influencers on the platform to create branded content, you’ll want to understand TikTok’s available analytics and how to interpret them in order to perfect your TikTok marketing strategy. So let’s break down everything TikTok analytics!

How To Access TikTok Analytics

First thing’s first: how do you access TikTok analytics?

You’ll need a Creator or Business Account on TikTok (don’t worry, it’s free) to view analytics. Head’s up: you’ll only be able to access analytics for content after you sign up for a professional account, so go ahead, visit your settings, and switch ASAP so you’ll have access to metrics.

Now that you have your Creator or Business Account set up, go to Settings > Creator/Business Tools > Analytics, and you’ll be greeted with your Analytics overview.

Understanding Your Analytics Dashboard

There are 4 main tabs under your analytics: Overview, Content, Followers, and LIVE. Each tab provides important data for you to understand your account performance. Let’s take a deeper dive:

Overview

Overview shows the overarching trends of your account analytics over a given period of time (the default is “Last 7 Days”, but you can also view “Last 28 Days”, “Last 60 Days”, or enter a custom date range), including:

Engagement: how many times audiences are viewing and interacting with your account’s content *click the arrow to view this data represented in graph format*

1. Video Views: the total number of times all videos on your account were viewed

2. Profile Views: the number of times your profile was viewed

3. Likes: how many likes videos on your account have received

4. Comments: how many comments have been left on your videos

5. Shares: how many times your videos have been shared

Followers: how many followers your account has, including net gains

Content: how many TikToks you have published during the set time frame 

Live: how many Live sessions you have hosted over the set time frame

Content

This is where you can see view numbers for recent posts and also find your Trending Videos.

The Video Posts section is pretty self-explanatory; it shows you all the videos you’ve posted in the past 7 days, their view numbers, and compares your number of posts to the previous 7 day period.

Below you’ll find the Trending Videos section, which is really valuable for you to understand what content of yours is performing best. This section shows the top 9 videos with the fastest growth in view numbers over the past 7 days.

How to use this data: Take a look at these videos and try to identify any trends or commonalities: maybe a certain topic you’re posting about is performing really well, or perhaps you started a trend that’s garnering a lot of engagement. Look at your popular videos and lean into that content!

Followers

This tab is where you can access demographics on your followers, as well as how your followers interact with other TikTok content.

First, you’ll see your follower count and growth rate over the past week. You can use this and the Followers information from the Overview tab to track increases in following.

Below, you’ll see a pie chart illustrating the gender of your followers.

Below that, you’ll see a percentage breakdown of where your followers are from, by country. Pro tip: Depending on where your followers are from, you may want to consider ensuring your content is accessible and relatable to international audiences (for example, adding translated captions if you have a large international following).

Further down, you’ll see Follower Activity that shows when your followers are most active on the platform, both by hour and by day.

Pro tip: this data is all recorded in UTC, so adjust for your time zone to understand when the best posting times are for your audience. (And if we’re being honest, we wouldn’t worry too much about posting at specific optimized times, as TikTok’s algorithm boosts content old and new alike to the “For You Page”).

LIVE

This tab specifically shares analytics regarding live stream content on TikTok. You have the option to view data for LIVE sessions either over the past 7 days or the past 28 days.

First, you’ll be provided with an overview of LIVE video data, including the number of LIVE videos hosted, the total number of views, new followers, total time of LIVE videos, and top viewer count.

Below that, you’ll also see how many unique viewers have watched your LIVE videos at least once.

Last, you’ll see how many “diamonds” (aka digital gifts viewers can send you during LIVE videos that can be redeemed for money) you’ve earned during LIVE videos.

Viewing Individual Video Analytics

Now that you have a better understanding of your account analytics, let’s talk analytics for specific videos!

To view your video’s analytics, click on your video and click the 3 dots on the lower right corner. One of your options will be “Analytics”, so go ahead and click that. You’ll now be able to see your video’s performance.

At the top, you’ll see 4 icons with numbers below each: a play button, a heart, a comment bubble, and an arrow:

The play button represents the total number of views the video has received.

The heart represents how many likes the video has received.

The comment bubble represents how many comments have been made under your video.

The arrow represents how many times the video has been shared (which includes link copies and DM shares).

The next section displays total play time (in hours), total views, the percentage of viewers who watched the full video, reached audience, and average watch time.

Pro tip: Average watch time is one of the most important metrics on TikTok and can make or break a video’s frequency on the FYP. A short average watch time means that viewers aren’t interested enough in the video’s content to watch through to the end, while a high one means your video is doing a great job keeping people engaged. Make note of your videos with high average watch times vs. low ones, and strategize different ways of getting information across if you’re seeing consistently low watch times.

The next section showcases traffic source types, meaning where your content is being seen on the app. Your viewers can find your videos from the following sources:

For You

Personal Profile

Following

Sound

Search

Hashtag

The last section shows audience territories for your specific video; in other words, where your viewers are from. 

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Now that you have a better understanding of TikTok’s analytics, you can now interpret content performance both from your brand’s account and from influencer partners and create a successful future TikTok strategy.

Have more questions about TikTok or interested in running a TikTok influencer campaign? Lytehouse can answer your questions.

4 Ways To Use Instagram Guides

Extend your brand identity and partner with influencers to make the most of your Instagram profile.

We’ve laid out the basics of Instagram Guides. Now it’s time to discuss some applications for this feature of Instagram. We find Instagram Guides so valuable because they provide a number of ways for you to build out your brand identity, share products, and provide information about your company, all without users having to leave the Instagram app. Frictionless brand experiences are essential to converting viewers into customers, so the more they can access in a centralized location, the better.

How Can You Use Guides In Your Next Instagram Campaign?

1) Curated Shopping Picks

Product Guides are a great way to showcase your brand’s latest collections, curate best-sellers, or display influencer favorites. If your brand has an Instagram Shop, a Product Guide will help encourage social media followers to shop your brand with ease. You can also add photos, either from your account or from another user’s, and tag shoppable items below it as a clickable, shoppable catalog that lives within your Instagram profile.

2) Mini Blog

Influencers have been turning to Instagram Guides as a way to write out mini blog posts that can live on the Instagram platform rather than a separately-hosted website. The ability to combine text and imagery allows for powerful storytelling, and for smaller accounts that are unable to include swipe-up links in their Instagram Story, they can share a clickable preview of their Guide and drive readers.

For brands, a blog-style Guide could highlight user-generated content, share inspiration imagery for the latest collection, or feature interview questions with team members or interesting individuals who relate to your brand’s ethos.

3) Travel Guide

Places Guides are so helpful in creating travel and location-based recommendations for your audience. This could include a guide to a far-off locale that’s influenced your brand, a list of local recommendations where your brand headquarters are located, or anything else related to destinations near and far. 

4) Tips & Tricks

A great way to utilize Guides is as a visual FAQ. What do people want to know about your brand? Are there secrets to making the most of your product? Different ways to wear or experience items? You can use Instagram Guides as a place to centrally store different Reel and IGTV tutorials, answer frequently asked questions, and provide expert tips on making the most of your product.

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No matter how you decide to implement Guides into your Instagram marketing strategy, we see this as a perfect opportunity to partner with influencers to develop innovative Guide content. Whether they’re sharing the must-have products from your brand or showing your followers through a tour of their hometown, Guides present a unique way to extend your brand and find creative partners to help curate the content.

Ready to work with influencers on an Instagram Guide? We can help pair you with the perfect creators.

How Social Media Platforms Are Wooing Creators

As competition for users heats up, social media platforms are offering new incentives to encourage creators to prioritize their app.

If you feel like you’ve read more headlines in recent weeks about social media platforms offering new creator incentives, you’re not alone. In recent weeks, Instagram, Twitter, Clubhouse, Snapchat, and other apps have made splashy announcements about new tools and funds made to win over creators who feel stretched thin across the different platforms. The goal? Incentivize creators to use their app the most.

From affiliate programs to subscription services, here are the ways the major social media players are attempting to woo creators to stay active on their platforms, as well as what it means for marketers moving forward:

Instagram Gets On The Affiliate Train

The creator benefits they’re offering: Instagram has made a lot of headlines in recent weeks as they work to lure creators back to their platform with creator-focused features. These new features include Milestone Bonus Badges for hosting Instagram Lives and an Affiliate Program for creators to earn money for items they share that are on Instagram Shops. After years of influencers relying on external affiliate programs like LikeToKnowIt and ShopStyle, Instagram is finally making a play to bring a native affiliate program to the app.

Twitter Introduces Subscriptions & Tips

The creator benefits they’re offering: Twitter is entering the subscription business, introducing a “Super Follow” option that allows users to pay to receive exclusive subscriber-only content. Twitter has also introduced a “Tip Jar” as a way for followers to monetarily support their favorite creators.

TikTok Refines It’s Creator Program

The creator benefits they’re offering: TikTok set itself apart from other social media platforms by prioritizing creator growth in its early stages, introducing the TikTok Creator Fund as a way to pay top users for creating strong-performing content. The benchmarks for entering into the program have changed; initially only 10,000 followers were needed, but as of March 25, creators now need 100,000 followers to qualify for the Creator Program. 

Clubhouse Facilitates Creator Growth

The creator benefits they’re offering: Clubhouse is also investing in providing its creators tools to succeed on the up-and-coming platform. Their “Creator First” Accelerator Program launched in March to assist select creators with developing their Clubhouse strategy and grow their audience. The app has also introduced Payments for users to send money to creators as a way to show their support.

Twitch Provides Tiered Programs For Creators

The creator benefits they’re offering: Twitch offers two tiers of programs for creators: Affiliate and Partner. The Affiliate program serves creators who are building their platform and growing, offering tools like subscriptions and affiliate payments for game sales. For established creators, the Partner program allows creators to display ads on their channel and earn revenue from ad views, channel customization, access to opportunities to participate in panels, meet & greets, and other events, as well as the subscription and affiliate opportunities presented at the Affiliate level.

Snapchat Rewards Viral Content

The creator benefits they’re offering: When Snapchat introduced their TikTok competitor Spotlight, they did so with a big draw for creators: a $1 million-per-day fund to distribute to creators with top-performing Spotlight content. Since the launch of this program, some creators have become literal millionaires off of their Spotlight earnings, with $110 million given out across all markets since the program launched in November. 

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So, what does all this mean for brands?

You might be wondering what all these creator-first developments have to do with brand marketing. While brands may not be directly involved in these creator programs, these pushes to bring creators to certain apps will guide the landscape of social media for the next several years. 

If Successful, These Programs May Influence Where Creators Spend Their Time

Platforms that can successfully lure creators to prioritizing their app over others will succeed in the long run. Keeping an eye on where the creators are flocking to will help you, as brand marketers, know where to look for influencers and what platforms to prioritize in your social media marketing efforts.

Not All These Programs Are Sustainable

However, some of the splashiest creator incentives may not be sustainable forever. While some platforms are adopting a revenue-share approach or providing monetization options where users are the investors, other apps have introduced funds that are worth hundreds of millions of dollars, or even billions. Unless usership and revenue skyrocket drastically for the latter, these valuable funds may disappear, further influencing the popularity of different apps amongst creators.

Creators Will Shift How They Approach Brand Partnerships

The most immediate effect of these creator programs is also the most impactful for brand marketers. With creators earning money off of their organic content, they will approach brand partnerships in a new way. As a result, creators may be pickier about the partnerships they do accept, or raise their rates for sponsored content. This is why cultivating long-lasting relationships with influencers is essential for brands, as is developing a thought-out strategy that targets influencers who are a natural brand fit. If you’re not sure where to start with influencer casting, Lytehouse can help you out—let’s chat.

Instagram Guides, Explained

One of Instagram’s newer features is also one of its most underutilized. We’re breaking down the basics of Instagram Guides.

The debut of Instagram Guides went under the radar for most. When they were first introduced to a select number of wellness-focused accounts in May of 2020, the world had more pressing matters, understandably. By the time Guides became a feature that all users could access in November 2020, other, flashier features like Reels and the revamped Shops tab captured the headlines instead, leaving Instagram Guides an unexplored feature for most.

We see Instagram Guides as an exciting way to make the most of your brand’s Instagram profile. In fact, we use it across both Lytehouse and Socialyte to highlight the brands and influencers we work with.

Let’s break down the basics of Instagram Guides so you can understand why they could be a big part of your next Instagram marketing initiative.

What Are Guides?

Guides are a way to share content, locations, and products as a collection. You can think of them as mini blogs or catalogues that are accessible directly on Instagram.

There are 3 types of Guides you can create:

1. Places - Ideal for local recommendations and travel guides

2. Products - To share product recommendations or curate catalogues using items available on Instagram Shops

3. Posts - Can share either posts from your own profile or posts that you’ve saved from other creators

How Do I Create A Guide?

To create a Guide, click the “Create” button on Instagram (that little Plus sign in the top right corner) and select “Guide”. You will then be prompted to select one of the 3 Guide types (Places, Products, or Posts). From there, you’ll be able to add entries to your Guide.

For Places and Products Guides, you can add saved places or products or search for ones you’re thinking of. You also have the option to add in saved photos, either from your own profile or from other creators, to accompany each listed place or product.

For Posts Guides, you’ll have the option to add saved posts or posts from your profile.

Once you’ve added in your entries, you’ll need to select a cover image, title your Guide, as well as each entry. You also have the option to add a Guide description as well as captions beneath each entry, if desired.

You can save Guides as a draft if needed. Once you’re satisfied with your Guide, press “Publish” and the Guide will appear as a tab under your Instagram profile (with a map icon).

How Many Posts Can Be Added To A Guide?

Guides currently allow up to 30 entries per Guide. 

What Types Of Posts Can Be Added To A Guide?

If you can save it, you can add it to a Guide!

In-feed posts, Reels, IGTV videos, products, and places can all be added to Guides.

How Can Guides Be Shared?

One issue with Guides is that, currently, you cannot share them to your main “feed”; instead they live under their own tab on a user’s profile. Because of that, they’re not as visible as other post types, but there are ways to share them.

Guides can be shared to your Story or sent via Direct Message to accounts. You can also share a link to your Guide and share across different websites or messaging platforms that way.

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Now that you have the basics of Instagram Guides down, read this post for some ideas on how to incorporate Guides into your brand’s channel or next Instagram marketing campaign.

Have more questions about Instagram Guides or anything else social media? Let’s chat.

4 Ways To Create Campaigns That Break Through The Noise

The pool of influencers has never been bigger, but that also means the competition for eyeballs is fiercer than ever before.

This means that the standard one-and-done Instagram post approach to influencer marketing is not going to have the same effect that it did just a few years ago.

So, what content will cut through the noise in 2021?

1) Embrace Long-Term Partnerships

For one, long-term partnerships are going to help you tell a story through weeks or even months. According to the popular “Rule of 7”, people need to see an ad interact with a brand 7 times before they remember it, so seeing an influencer speak about a product once and then never again probably isn’t going to have much of an impact on converting those views to customers. On the other hand, if an influencer constantly mentions a brand month after month, followers are more likely to remember the brand, take it into consideration, and finally purchase the product. By incorporating repetition into your influencer marketing strategy, you increase the likelihood for an influencer’s followers to translate into customers.

2) Lean Into Relevant Trends

Social media apps from Instagram to TikTok to Twitter thrive on trending content and viral hits. Creators hop aboard popular sounds and hashtags to make their content discoverable, taking trending formats and making them their own. When it makes sense for brands to do so, they can also join in on viral trends and give it their own branded spin.

Take Nathan Apodaca’s insanely popular TikTok video of him skateboarding while drinking a jug of Ocean Spray cranberry juice while Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams” plays. The video was viewed over 78 million times, spawned countless remakes, and even got multiple Fleetwood Mac band members to join TikTok to talk about the unexpected reemergence of their 1977 hit. When clothing brand KJP put a preppy autumnal spin on Apodaca’s video, they received over 5 million views. KJP’s take on the “Dreams” video worked because they tied it into their brand personality and made it their own (in this iteration, the skateboarder is wearing one of KJP’s pumpkin sweaters and has a carved pumpkin head; the cranberry juice is replaced with a preppy classic, a Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte). The organic plug of Ocean Spray came full circle for Apodaca, too: Ocean Spray turned Apodaca’s video into an official #DreamsChallenge trend and also gifted him with a brand new truck (plus all the cranberry juice he could ask for).

3) Capitalize On Authentic Moments

Which brings us to another opportunity for innovative marketing: take advantage of authentic moments in the space when you see them. When TikTok’s biggest star Charli D’Amelio was constantly sipping iced Dunkin’ Donuts drinks in her popular dance videos, Dunkin’ saw the opportunity to partner with D’Amelio and created “The Charli”, a signature drink that fans could order at Dunkin’ locations. Because the partnership stemmed out of D’Amelio’s natural love of the coffee, it proved to be a major success. It also required minimal effort on Dunkin’s part, as they didn’t need to develop a new product, just market Charli’s signature order.

Other food companies have taken this approach in recent months, like McDonald’s with the Travis Scott meal. With both of these campaigns, the brands noticed natural affinities and transformed those into official partnerships, and because D’Amelio and Scott were already fans of Dunkin’ and McDonald’s respectively, their audiences saw these partnerships as natural progressions rather than disingenuous, money-motivated collaborations. 

4) Do It For The Meme

Similar to capitalizing on trending content, Instagram itself declared 2020 the Year of the Meme. Their year-end review highlighted the most popular memes that took the Internet by storm last year, from the Dolly Parton Challenge to Tiger King to relatable jokes about working from home in quarantine. Such memes succeeded on Instagram not only because they were witty and clever, but because they were inherently sharable. Shares and saves have become increasingly valuable analytics to monitor on Instagram and other social media platforms, and we suggest this be one of your key metrics to focus on when developing your social media content strategy.

Take the recent proliferation of Bernie Sanders memes: one iconic photo of the Vermont senator donning his favorite Burton jacket and a pair of hand-knit mittens sitting by himself at President Biden’s inauguration became an instantly viral meme that flooded the internet in record time. Here he is, joining the cast of Sex and the City as the fourth member now that Samantha isn’t returning for the reboot. Here he is with fellow meme icon Guy Fieri. In fact, one man even created a website where you could insert an inauguration Bernie into any photo you desire, should inspiration for a meme strike (and over 9 million photos were created on the site in the week that it was live). Or you can transform yourself into the mittens-wearing senator with an Instagram Story filter. You get the idea.

As a case study, the Bernie Sanders memes encapsulates so much about the content that succeeds in 2021: it tied into a timely event, was easy to transform and turn into a trend where everyone could add their own spin on the image, created for hilarious memes that were highly shareable, and the image itself was incredibly relatable. Who among us hasn’t felt like a curmudgeonly old man looking moderately annoyed with everything after this past year? 

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Gone are the days of obsessing over magazine-quality photography and vague three-word captions. Social media users want content that is sharable, saveable, and relatable; in other words, content that educates, entertains, and inspires. With every new social media post and influencer campaign in 2021, ask yourself how each piece of content is achieving one of these 3 main goals and you’ll see your brand grow and foster a community of its own.

For more on the latest social media trends and where the influencer marketing industry is heading, download our State Of Influencer Marketing 2021 report. 

Creating Content That Resonates

As influencer marketing and social ads grow in volume, so does the competition for capturing new consumers.

Social media behavior moves at the speed of light, and influencer programs that worked a few years ago may feel completely outdated now. So what type of content can hold audience attention in 2021? Here’s our advice:

Embrace Long-Term Partnerships

It’s time to look at influencers as true partners rather than one-off contractors. When an influencer speaks about a brand multiple times over the course of weeks or months, their audience is more likely to trust the partnership and take the influencer’s recommendation into consideration and sales clicks.

Lean Into Relevant Trends

TikTok, memes, and trending hashtags have all contributed to the rise of trend-based content, and brands can benefit from the virality of popular trends by adapting relevant trends for their own channels.

Be warned: trends move quickly on apps like TikTok, so if you are going to try your hand at trend-based content, you’ll need a quick turnaround. Most trends come and go in about a week.

As the FTC gets stricter on how music on apps like TikTok and Instagram are used, you’ll also need to be wary of copyrights around trending music.

Capitalize On Authentic Moments

Lean into authentic brand moments when you see them. Brands like Dunkin’ Donuts have hosted successful campaigns centered around organic brand affinities, such as “The Charli”, a rebranded drink based on TikTok star Charli D’Amelio’s favorite Dunkin’ order. Her fans have seen her sip Dunkin’ coffee all over her social media, so the partnership was a no-brainer.

Do It For The Meme

As with trending content, memes are all about contributing your own spin on zeitgeist cultural moments. From Tiger King jokes to Bernie Sanders appearing literally everywhere after an iconic photo from President Biden’s inauguration, memes are everywhere. They’re also sharable, relatable, and easy to digest, making them primed for extended reach and impressions. 

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Looking for more ways to step you your digital marketing plans and learn about the latest trends driving influencer marketing? Our State of Influencer Marketing 2021 Report breaks down resonating content and so much more. Download it here.

Should You Be Advertising On TikTok?

Whenever a new social media app grows in popularity, brands are quick to ask, “Should we invest in marketing on this platform?” For every Instagram success story, there are dozens of apps that fizzle out quickly, but one trending app that we think will only continue to grow is TikTok. Beyond just popularlizing Kombucha Girl or dancing cat videos, TikTok is increasingly becoming a new space for brands to advertise.

We’re breaking down what TikTok is, who is using the app, and the types of brands that should consider adding TikTok to their social media strategy in 2020.

What is TikTok?

TikTok describes itself as “the leading destination for short-form mobile video”. Most commonly compared to defunct video app Vine, TikTok allows users to upload short, 15-second clips to their feed, usually featuring music from the app’s vast library of songs. Similar to Snapchat and Instagram Stories, users can add fun filters and effects to their videos.

There is a tremendous ability to “go viral” on the platform since the app’s home feed prioritizes popular videos. Trends, memes, and challenges rule the platform.

Who is on the platform?

TikTok is most popular amongst Gen Z audiences, with 41% of active users between the ages of 16 and 24. It also has a female-skewing audience, making the app a big draw for fashion and beauty brands in particular.

How can brands market on TikTok?

As with any popular social media platform, brands are excited to find ways to advertise on the app. Currently, there are a few different ways that brands can advertise on TikTok:

In-Feed Ads: Just like ads can cut between stories on Snapchat and Instagram, brands can create in-feed ads that run in between TikTok posts.

Hashtag Challenge: Brands can sponsor a Hashtag Challenge to encourage users to create content, usually around some sort of dance or stunt. Chipotle recently hosted a #GuacDance challenge in celebration of National Avocado Day and saw over 250,000 video submissions on TikTok.

Brand Takeover: Another way brands can activate on the app is to take over the TikTok homepage. Your brand’s logo and call to action appear as soon as users open the app, as Grubhub tried out recently.

Branded Stickers & Filters: Similar to other social media apps, brands can also create custom stickers and filters around a certain event or product.

Influencer Marketing: TikTok influencers are growing in popularity and brands are taking notice, partnering with popular users on sponsored content.

What types of brands will succeed on the app?

Because the majority of TikTok users are in their teens and early twenties, high price items like luxury goods probably won’t succeed on the platform. Likewise, products aimed towards older consumers should not expect a strong return on investment advertising on the app.

Lower price items in categories that are important to teens, like food, beauty, fashion, and entertainment, will find greater success on TikTok. If your brand is targeting the Gen Z audience, you should highly consider focusing advertising efforts on TikTok.