The world around us in the 21st century is competitive, specifically in advertising. People won’t notice a product unless it’s a brand or connects with consumers by using innovative techniques. Therefore marketing your product through TikTok advertising will appeal to a large number of young consumers in a matter of seconds.
It is a useful tool for advertisers from small & medium enterprises who want to target a large number of young customers. So if you’re going to use this medium, then start working on the ideas that you want to convey in a short video message that will work in your favor.
Otherwise approaching teenagers in a traditional way is really not going to work anymore.
Several new-age business entrepreneurs are going to gain a lot by tapping the potential of this app by advertising on TikTok. Now before moving to that part, let’s have some brief introduction about it:
What Is TikTok?
TikTok is a video sharing platform used for creating short time mobile videos on smartphones. It went online in 2017 for international users of iOS & Android smartphones.
By the end of 2018, Bytedance (the TikTok owner) acquired & merged ‘Musical.ly‘ with it and converted it into a single app. Users can create & share vertical looping videos with a time limit of 15 to 60 seconds with the help of this app.
Users are free to use the extensive editing tool-kits of this app. It contains a wide array of filters & effects along with a massive music library to tune & score their video contents on this app.
Who Uses TikTok The Most?
TikTok is popular among teenagers. Here are some of the demographics taken from the recent surveys are as follows:-
41% of its users are in the age group of 16 to 24 years old.
41% of users around the world are teenagers, according to the data of the Global Web Index.
Moreover, it also encourages users to make and post their original content related to comedy, dance, drama, or songs after following trending videos of other users.
This app is an excellent platform for lots of youngsters who want to show their talent to the world. Such an app is a great confidence booster plus a one-way ticket to get recognized for millions.
There are 500 million active users worldwide today.
That’s correct! The app is top-rated only because of its innovativeness. According to the survey conducted by Datareportal, 2019, for TikTok advertisement 2019, it has found that around 500 million active users are using this app globally.
Hence, it is also one of the few places where advertisers can target and convey their marketing messages to a large number of users by deploying various types of creative techniques.
It is also an excellent platform for people from the film & entertainment industry who are looking for fresh faces for auditions for acting & dancing.
Globally, 56% of TikTok users are male & 44% are female.
The demographics shown in the pie chart above suggest that 56% of TikTok users are male & 44% are female. Youngsters from both the genders are active on this app. Both male & female users use this app daily to get loads of fun & entertainment.
Besides that, they also make videos to entertain others as well as showcase their talent to garner instant fame. This app helps them to enhance their performance on a larger scale for gathering more views & followers.
Here, there is a good chance for advertisers to approach all such talented TikTok stars to convey their brand’s message via innovative videos.
In 2019, Indians Nearly 5.5 billion hours on TikTok.
Compared to all other parts of Asia, companies are specifically targeting India. The message of a particular brand has a better chance to reach out to millions of Indians through this app.
Netizens from India spend more time on this app than any other social platform. In this app, contents have more fun-filled activities combined with the scope of making your original videos.
According to a survey conducted by App Annie, marketers can find not only teens but also adults to influence who can take the message of the advertisers.
This app surpasses 1.5 billion downloads
Until now, branded companies have targeted all kinds of customers by using regular channels of communications such as TV, Print, and social platforms like Facebook.
As this app is new & famous in the market, brands can reach and display their ads to all kinds of young users on this app because it has already hit the 1.5 billion mark in global downloads, as per reports of Sensortower.
Yes, you heard it right. This app has outsmarted even Facebook & Instagram in the downloads race. It is one of the best apps of the century that can be a good target for marketing purposes.
In India, TikTok has 119.3 million users.
TikTok has penetrated more than 150 countries and currently available in 75 different languages that prove its capacity for global dominance in a short period, especially in a place like India.
There is a massive market for advertisers from different parts of the world to tap their market growth in India via this app. Hence, the list of these demographics shown by Statista & Priori Data states that India leads all other countries with 119.3 million users.
The count of users has surpassed even the United States that is far bigger than India. Hence the business of advertising has more scope in India than anywhere else.
TikTok Advertising In US & UK
As a result of the rising craze of this app, TikTok is looking for new ways to sell its services.
Inputs from various sources state that TikTok has outlined four types of ads in the testing phase in the US and UK.
If everything goes well as planned, then creators can start advertising for famous brands.
These ads are:-
- brand takeovers
- in-feed native videos
- branded hashtag challenges,
- branded Snapchat style lenses.
What are the TikTok ads?
TikTok ads are short-form video ads, and here are some of the ways they work. You can follow each one of them given below:-
Launch Screen Ad Type Or Format
Your message, products, or services will get displayed as a full-screen ad. It can be either in static, animated, or video form.
In-Feed Ad Type Or Format
This type of ad can create autoplay for the user when he/she is looking at the “For You” feed on their smartphone. It works like the launch screen ad.
Hashtag Challenge Ad Format
This format is a full-screen ad that is quite innovative. This type of advertisement aims to tell users to create content based on the hashtag you create or select.
Can You Advertise On TikTok?
Yes, you can advertise on this app. To do so, you have to take care of certain things that will make your promotion campaign hassle-free.
To use TikTok for advertising, you must fulfill the following requirements.
Here are some of the factors below use this platform for your business, are as follows:-
- Type Of Target Audience
The success of any form of advertisement depends on the type of audience you need for marketing.
This platform is not suitable for selling financial services. Otherwise, a business that deals with younger audiences will be able to hit a chord.
- Quality Oriented Visual Marketing Skills & Content
To become successful as a brand, you must have excellent visual marketing skills. Your business must create high-quality videos that can represent your brand.
As TikTok is a video sharing platform, every user shares several types of content videos.
So, if you want to popularize your brand, then you must create content that stands out from the rest. Thus, don’t hesitate & start now.
- Budget For Making Ads
Only some advertisers such as Disney & Grubhub have considerable resources to conduct such ads.
To create demand for this feature, more brands must have to visit, apply & create their ads.
Small-time businesses have to wait while preparing for the TikTok advertising budget.
The Cost Of Advertising On Tiktok
Currently, the TikTok advertising cost is more expensive compared to any other platform.
The price starts at an estimated worth of $10 per CPM(cost per mille) & can go up to $300,000 as the ad campaign gets larger.
Besides, the cost of the ad is small compared to all the positive results & recognition.
How To Promote TikTok Videos?
You can promote your ads on this video sharing site because all TikTok ads can ensure visibility.
Now here are some of the following ways that will tell you how to advertise on TikTok:
- Get Free Advertising From Your Followers
The hashtag challenges encourage thousands of followers to promote brands for free.
To become famous, users will accept any hashtag challenge of TikTok app advertising.
Once your followers post the videos of your challenge, others will be able to see them and your brand name as well.
You will get lots of free advertising from your followers who will pick up the challenge and get it viral.
- No Need Of Purchasing Niche Ads.
The best part of this video app is that it shows videos straight away without having to follow its makers.
Hence, your ads will be visible to different types of people without you having to buy niche ads.
Your ads will target the audience with both screen ads & the regular ones after placing them in the videos.
- Avoid Having A Marketing Fatigue
The average attention span of a user is eight or less than eight seconds currently. It is less than four seconds compared to the time that was in 2000.
It is the ratio before smartphones became very popular among youngsters. With such short attention spans, the era of minute-long videos is over.
Hence, make sure that all the users watching your video don’t have any marketing fatigue.
TikTok will place your ads between thousands of videos in a way that viewers will not get irritated.
TikTok Advertising In India
This app has penetrated all the countries, including India, due to a large user base along with 43 % new users.
Thus, all the big brands marketing their products in India can be able to do so by using TikTok for advertising.
One of the main reasons for doing business here because India is a massive market with a lot of users.
Hence, by creating suitable ads, you can attract lots of youngsters to get associated with your brand.
Almost anyone from any part of the country can post videos for gaining instant name & fame.
TikTok Advertising Campaign For Influencing People.
Until now, most of the ad campaigns used to influence people in traditional ways. Now, after the arrival, many social media apps in the age of the internet affecting people are a bit tough.
Campaigns must increase brand awareness among the young public on TikTok. Hence, here are some of the advertising strategies that can do the job for your brand, are as follows:-
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Using Hashtags
Always use your unique hashtag because the algorithm of this platform will place your videos in a section where people will view videos made up of similar hashtags.
Use hashtags on the bottom of the screen; otherwise, it will destroy the value of the video that you have posted.
Always use niche hashtags that will increase the chances of your videos shown to the right audience that you want to target.
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Try Imitating Relevant Trends
Like new trends rule the fashion market, and youngsters start imitating them. You can also do the same on TikTok by replicating popular videos.
Whenever you are remaking a popular video, always add a unique new flavor to it so that people will watch your video with more interest.
For example, In case you are replicating a popular comical video, try to use your styles, gimmicks, and humorous acts to make the video new & exciting for the viewers.
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Add Musical Flavor To Your Videos
To make your videos more attractive, enjoyable & entertaining, you can add some musical flavor to it. It will increase the chances of getting spotted by promoters & marketers.
You can take the help of lots of musical tracks available in the TikTok music library for making your videos.
Noticing your videos will not be a problem for members who search for videos using musical tracks.
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Using A Popular Personality
For attracting viewers more, you can use the services of familiar personalities who are famous on TikTok or in the world of media.
You can create content-oriented videos around an influential personality on this app that can provide the ability for your brand to engage a more extensive range of audiences.
Hence, engage influencers who are quite famous among teens, such as TikTok stars known for their charm, beauty, acting, singing, or dancing skills.
For example, Charlie D’ Amelio, Addison Rae, Dixie D’ Amelio, and many more who are popular among teens under the age of 20 on this trending app.
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Use The “Effects” Tab To Your Advantage
There is an “Effects” tab given in this popular app for a reason. With the help of this tab, you can discover new & trending effects for differentiating videos.
All these effects have different categories that include Trending, New, Interactive, Editing, Beauty, Funny, World & Animal.
It means that you can recreate many popular videos on TikTok by using the in-built effects tab inside the app.
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Keep On Posting
To create brand awareness among your followers on this app, you have to post videos because the number of videos will have a direct impact on the speed of the account growth.
Post your videos using various types of features, and content like hashtags, musical tracks & effects will make it easier for it to get discovered.
For example, companies like Flighthouse & Sports Association, Like NBA, can generate massive numbers of followers because of posting a large cache of videos using the avenues mentioned above.
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Add Comments & Generate Comments For Your Videos
Comments get a rank on TikTok based on likes that they receive for the videos posted. Moreover, displaying a liked comment on this popular app will draw immense attention from the members.
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Adding A Crispy Description For Your Video
Solid video description helps the algorithm of this platform in ascertaining the category of the video and the type of audience viewing it.
To make it easy, add a copy to describe what the video is all about & encourage people to reply. While typing a description, also keep it short & simple.
How TikTok Advertising on Snapchat Will Work?
TikTok has recently launched an audience network for making more money through advertising that appears in other apps such as Snapchat.
Due to this specialized audience network, an advertiser buying ad spots on TikTok can also buy ad spots on other platforms at the same time, and Snapchat is one of them.
Currently, this network is available in Japan, and as far as the reports suggest, it is in the testing phase in East Asia, including China.
The network for advertising on Snapchat, along with TikTok, will be rolling out to other markets soon.
How To Change Your Account Into A TikTok Pro Account?
TikTok Pro account is similar to that of a standard profile. The Pro Account helps users in getting & going through the analytics data for the past 1-4 weeks after posting a video.
With a pro account in hand, a user can see video views, trending videos & statistics of his own & other users as well. Moreover, he can also follow growth, gender age & top areas.
Most importantly, the Pro account is free. Here are some of the steps to get your own Pro Account.
Step 1. First, go to the profile page & tap on the Privacy & Settings tab.
Step 2. Now tap on ‘Manage My Account.’
Step 3. Press’ Switch to Pro Account’ and then Press continue.
Step 4. Choose a category for your customized analytics.
Step 5. Then press ‘OK’ on the popped up page, and your ‘Pro Account is all set.
Is it Possible To Make Money On TikTok?
This app doesn’t offer this platform to make money, as it is still working on that arena. You can generate awareness for your brand by posting TikTok advertising videos.
But any creator can secure sponsorship & brand deals for individual video posts. Here, the catch is that he has to achieve those deals without any help from TikTok.
What Are TikTok Ad Formats?
On this platform, you can select the format of your choice that is suitable for your ad campaign.
Six different ad formats will help you in conducting your ad campaign:-
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In-Feed Video Format
It is a simple ad format that uses the immersive short-form video style seen in TikTok user videos.
Ads made under this format are 15 seconds of video spots that appear when users survey through the posted content.
In-feed video advertising helps in gaining exposure & also call users to action.
Brands can use in-feed video ads to redirect their audience towards its website page or take part in the hashtag challenge.
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Hashtag Challenge Format
This format allows brands to engage with all the online users of this app & take part in them.
With this type of ad-format, any brand can create a video followed with a song, dance, or stunt and then encourage members of the app to add a touch to the challenge by creating their videos.
All such hashtag challenges create user engagement by fusing brand messaging with user creativity.
This format also helps brands to leverage influencers or celebrities of this platform for generating buzz around the challenge of the brand.
For getting more exposure, brands can also sponsor all such hashtag challenges & feature them on the discovery page.
Just watch in the above page, how Dettol encourages its followers not only for a social cause but also for picking a challenge.
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Brand Takeover
This kind of ad format usually is one of the most expensive ad purchasing options for a brand.
The specialty of this format is that its full-screen ad appears whenever a user opens TikTok for the very first time.
A brand takeover ad can be a three to five-second GIF image or three-second video conveying its message.
The designing of the ad-format helps in linking back to the brand’s profile or hashtag challenge.
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Branded Lens
The branded lens of TikTok is an ad format that brings 3D objects, face filters & many more such features for brands to design their ads before posting.
It also helps in bringing a profound level of user engagement as well as assisting users in selecting from a variety of branded lenses to enhance their ad content.
By integrating a branded lens into a hashtag challenge, a brand can create a stronger bond for promoting its products.
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Custom Influencers
Like in any other social media platform, TikTok also has its share of celebrities with a massive number of fan followers. As these influencers are very powerful, they can inspire their fans in many ways.
When a brand partners with the stars of this platform, a brand gains more exposure & also reaches out to a target audience more.
Hence, the brand must work with an influencer whose goal aligns with your vision.
It is also worth noting that at some selected locations, you need to organize influencer partnerships on this platform for promoting your brand.
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Top View
It is another version of a brand takeover ad that fades into an in-feed video ad.
Buyers of this 15 seconds ad format can enjoy category exclusivity. It means that a brand can top the charts of his category on this platform.
Throw Some Light on TikTok Advertising Opportunities
This popular social platform has opened self-serve advertising for the first time but limited to direct advertisers in some countries only.
This platform is also working with partners in other countries such as Japan, Indonesia, Thailand, Taiwan, Malaysia, Vietnam, South Korea, and India.
Likewise, there are many others to explore the prospects and new ways of advertising that is compatible with their region. For advertisers, 5-15 second video ad slots are available with external links or to an in-app hashtag challenge.
These ads go through optimization to target users for converting them into prospective customers. These ads target age, location, language, operating system & interest. Even’ audience lookalikes’ group option is also available for dispensing ads.
Note:-Audience Lookalike means the algorithmically-assembled group of social network members who resemble another group of members in a social networking app.
Go Through Some Finest TikTok Case Studies
Due to the popularity of this app, there are some most exceptional case studies for the brands to learn & plan their advertising strategies, are as follows:-
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Song Promotion
Brands such as famous music labels can use this app and its influencers on it to promote a new song of any nature to popularise it.
As a marketing strategy, you can use this app to reach a vast number of users in a couple of days.
Apart from brands, even independent artists can turn into overnight stars by creating global hits & sensations by using this app.
One of the best examples is none other than Auckland based Benee for her viral dance video ‘Glitter.’
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Educational Platform
Some brands, such as Educational insights with their innovative marketing campaign, used TikTok to educate customers about their product known as ‘Playfoam Puffle.’
With the help of this app, they were able to generate a considerable number of followers with millions of views, likes, and comments.
Conclusion
Given these points above, earning through TikTok paid advertising will take some time for now as it is still experimenting on setting up a formal profit-sharing system for its clients.
Until then, you can popularize your brand through posting lots of videos and garner an unlimited number of likes, comments, replies, and followers.
Most of the young followers following your brand’s videos will grow a liking for your company & will turn into your customers.
It will take some time for your brand, but you will master all the skills needed for promoting your brand among teenagers by connecting with them on a social level via this app.
To know more about paid advertising strategies on TikTok, please do write to us & we will come back with more answers.
Nowadays, Tiktok is the best social media platform where we can promote our products and boost sales in small enterprises. A very informative blog. Keep posting.