A question often asked nowadays is what is TikTok? And how can you use it for business? Video is continuing to show the world why it is king. Business and brands are all looking for new and creative ways to get their content into the hands of consumers. TikTok has stepped up to the challenge and has taken a significant role in the social media industry with its ability to make someone or something an overnight viral sensation. In this blog, we’ll dive deeper into what TikTok is exactly and how you can use it for your business.
What is TikTok?
TikTok is a video-sharing social network that is best known for its viral dance trends, challenges, and lip-sync videos. TikTok, in some ways, is a fun-sized version of YouTube, with videos ranging between 15 and 60 seconds in length. However, creators have access to a unique assortment of filters, effects, a huge music library, as well as other tools to help create unique content. Most TikTok videos are accompanied by music soundtracks.
How Did TikTok Get Started?
TikTok initially launched under the name of Douyin in China in September 2016 and later merged with Music.ly, a social media platform that allowed users to create and share short lip-sync videos to popular songs. It was pushed out the following year as TikTok. In the first half of 2018, it was the most downloaded free IOS app with over 100 million downloads. Fast forward to 2020, according to data from SensorTower in January, TikTok was the most downloaded app in the world.
Celebrities, brands, and content creators are now all riding the hype and using TikTok’s easy-to-use video editing tools to create entertaining content that has shown to gain overnight viral success. An example of such is the 2019 viral dance challenge of Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road” which started out as a meme that Lil Nas X promoted for months until it caught on to TikTok which then garnered near 67 million plays on the platform and helped the single trot to #1 on the Billboard Hot 100, where it stayed for a record-setting 17 weeks.
How Can You Use TikTok For Your Business?
TikTok is experiencing a time of exponential growth — which means there’s a significant audience ready to be tapped into by creative and fast-thinking businesses and brands. Although TikTok has its roots in dance trends and lip-syncing challenges, there are tons of new creative and innovative trends emerging every day on the platform. Here is a list of a few ways TikTok can be used for your business:
In-Feed Video Ads: These 5 to 60-second-long ads are essentially promoted TikTok videos.
Branded Hashtag Challenge: this challenge is one where a brand asks users to perform a certain task and tag them using a specific hashtag often using a specific song or set of dance moves. Several musicians and companies have been successful with these campaigns.
Influencer Partnerships: A lot of brands have teamed up with influencers to promote hashtag challenges, or simply to promote products.
Brand Takeover: Is an ad that pops up when someone opens TikTok. It can be a 3-5-second-long full-screen video, GIF, or image, and links to an external or internal landing page.
Branded Lenses: Brands can partner with TikTok to create 2D and 3D lenses for users to “try on” and share via the camera in their mobile devices. Users can interact with the brand and play with it by using their filters.
Linking Options: Currently TikTok allows users to add a link in their bio and has been experimenting with various linking options for some time since last November. In China, Douyin, the local version of TikTok, now facilitates a range of eCommerce options, which has helped the app become a significant platform for online shopping.
Need help strategizing a video or social media content calendar for your business? Or perhaps you need someone to help you with video production and editing. Contact us and we’ll be happy to help evaluate your need for video to help your business.
Check out just a few video projects we have helped our clients with:
• Financial Aid Made Simple: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5oDeq2f7AM
• Online Program Sizzle Reel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfK0xwk4nnU
• Outreach Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCcHbPQjRRs
