Should your brand be on TikTok? Surely, you’ve heard this question posed no less than four-thousand times on LinkedIn, in marketing webinars, social media luncheons, and content marketing industry seminars. Let me just give you the short answer to the question right here in this first paragraph so you don’t have to read any further: YES. Yes, it should. 100%.
Now, if you want the long answer - and it does come with many qualifications - please continue reading.
First, the abridged version of the TikTok backstory. Who remembers Musical.ly, the lip-synching app from 2016? If you’re a career marketer, you probably don’t. Your kids might. After all, it wasn’t that long ago. By 2017, just a year after Musical.ly launched, it was acquired by the Chinese developer ByteDance and renamed TikTok – which began expanding into markets across the globe.
ByteDance has completely capitalized on the TikTok acquisition. They obtained $3 billion in funding from Softbank Group Corp. among others, and have become the world’s most valuable startup at $75 billion.
In November of 2019, according to Business Insider, TikTok has reached 1.5 billion total downloads. And over 614 million downloads this year alone. Amazingly, it’s the only app in the top five not owned by the Facebook company, including Facebook itself, Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp.
But success doesn’t just come from downloads. A successful platform also needs engaged users. And according to recent data, TikTok now has more monthly active users than Twitter or Snapchat.
And yes, the main user base of TikTok is Gen Z - kids, for sure. But celebrities and other influencers are beginning to move away from other platforms (Instagram) and are now developing content for TikTok. Reese Witherspoon (who hilariously learned how to TikTok from her son), Howie Mandel, and Will Smith are among the big name celebs on the platform, while a whole new crop of viral-going content creators are populating the feed. Ultimately, it is ushering in the next generation of influencer marketing and providing yet another avenue for brands to reach a gigantic engaged audience through social media personalities.
Men generally use social media less often than their female counterparts, but young men in particular (a demographic notoriously difficult reach) are fully engaged on the platform. This is probably because the TikTok aesthetic is up-close, front-facing, lip-synching or dancing. It goes without saying that the boys probably enjoy watching the content the girls publish.
Sports culture is also a natural fit for TikTok, which may be another reason why men are using the platform more often than, say, Snapchat or Facebook. The NFL included TikTok in their 2019 #WeReady kickoff campaign, and will most likely create unique content for the upcoming playoffs and Super Bowl. Many professional football teams individually include TikTok on their list of social channels for which they regularly create content, as well as MLB, NBA, and NHL teams. Because of TikTok’s younger audience, it’s imperative for professional sports organizations to be utilizing this channel. With the way people consume sports nowadays, connecting with fans at a young age - so they become lifelong fans - is more important than ever.
So that brings us to you and your brand. Obviously, you shouldn’t jump right into TikTok without a plan - a plan for creating the content and a plan for the publication strategy. But, if you’re one of those forward-thinking, brand-building, smart marketers, you know the value of nurturing relationships over the long haul. Maybe the people buying your products or your services aren’t in the TikTok demographic right now. But if your brand has staying power, those people on TikTok will eventually become your clientele. I firmly believe that if you can authentically engage the younger audience in a completely unforced and natural way, you will win in the long run. So plan, plan, plan.
Do your research, too. The first thing you should do is download the TikTok app and just absorb it. Spend 15-20 minutes with it every day to get a feel for the content that is going viral and take note of the aspects of the platform you like and dislike. Start envisioning how you can incorporate your message into this type of format, and don’t be afraid to ask your 16 year old niece to give you some pointers.
So, should you be on TikTok? If you’re not going to do the research and plan a realistic content development/publication strategy to showcase your brand in a younger, fun, lighthearted way, no. But, if you can package your brand standards and voice/tone into a format that resonates with real consumers (or future consumers) at a human level with the intention of building a longterm relationship, by all means yes.