TikTok is the hot new social media right now, and reports show that it may very well be here to stay. Since 2005, YouTube has been king of online video, averaging 230.6 million monthly users. But as so often happens with kings, challenges to the throne appear. In this case, #TikTokChallenges.
TikTok, from surface level, is a small potato to YouTube; with less than half of YouTube’s global monthly users. If we dig a bit further into these numbers though, TikTok reveals itself to be a powerful tool for advertising.
Of the 138 million monthly active American TikTok users, 40.2% reported an annual household income of more than $100k, and a whopping 49% of users reported purchasing something that they saw advertised on the app. This is a huge market with some cash in their pocket ready to splash.
While TikTok users certainly have money to spend, the primary age range of their users is under 30, with 25% being in the 10-19 year old age range. This is not necessarily a bad thing. Social networks tend to be adopted by younger audiences first and then impact older demographics as they become more noted in societal consciousness.
Creating Your Ad
First and foremost, the key to video ads on TikTok is kineticism, and using sound to your best effect. Think about the most viral TikToks, usually they are highly kinetic dance or cooking videos and use viral sound effects to help tell their story. These can be sponsored as either TopView, the first thing a user will see upon launching the app, or they can be InFeed, where they will appear between other user generated videos.
If video isn’t your thing, TikTok offers alternative ways to advertise. You could sponsor a Branded Hashtag Challenge where TikTok’s userbase organically creates the content for you in response to your hashtag. Allowing users to participate in the campaign also helps grow brand loyalty and the sky is the limit for reach if a user’s hashtag challenge video goes viral. TikTok claims that their Branded Hashtag Challenges create four and a half times more engagement than a standard mobile advertisement.
Another organically generated video option is to sponsor a Branded Effect. These are interactive games, stickers, filters, and special effects that can be customized to fit your brand. Upon sponsorship, these will be made available in TikTok’s suite of effects for users to use in their videos.
TikTok’s options are decidedly unique to their platform, but as more and more internet advertisers adopt TikTok style video (such as YouTube Shorts or Meta’s Instagram Reels), expect to see these options for advertising increasingly in play.
This post is courtesy of MMC Media Production Manager Avery Lane