What are the benefits and challenges of using TikTok for B2C marketing?

TikTok is one of the emerging and far-reaching platforms for B2C. In addition to achieving a large reach with organic content, it also has great chances of vitalization and increasing engagement.

Tiktok shop and market place is also converting Tiktok from being a mere social media platform to a sales platform making it viable for marketers to understand the ROI on the platform

TikTok offers various ad formats, such as in-feed ads, branded hashtags, and branded challenges, providing marketers with creative options to engage with the audience.

Their algorithm strategically places your content in front of the right people growing content engagement and reach. You can also use TikTok Shop, which allows you to sell products to users now, which is another great feature and allows you to increase revenue sources while growing a conversion based audience.

The best way to create effective content for B2C marketing is by understanding how your specific niche/industry within B2C uses TikTok. You also want to have a plan in place for when you will post your content and ensure it's done so on a regular basis too! Be sure to fully optimise your account too by switching it to 'Business'.

The content created for TikTok must be humanized, cozy and with transitions. Users like to see real cases, people using products, giving comments. What is widely used are the dubbing and songs of the moment as well, this helps in engagement.

Tiktok is one of the most challenging and yet rewarding platforms to navigate for a B2C brand. Users of the platform are most of the time interested in creator mode content and not branded content which provokes brands to utilize influencers and content creators on continuous basis to drive the brand. However this comes with the challenges of ensuring the brand tonality, memory structures and look and feel maintenance on a long run. This problem sometimes get even more amplified with you conduct 'branded missions' and other viral workstreams converting normal users of the platform into content creators for the brand with their UGC content. This could negative impact the brand positioning and the imagery on long term.

Being consistent on TikTok is a huge challenge. Some content may perform better than others, which can be discourage you from using the platform, especially for smaller B2C organizations. The other challenge many will face is competition. The content needs to be interesting, authentic, and of high quality. While 67% of users like to shop on TikTok according to a recent Shopify study, there's still plenty of room to go elsewhere for your product or service.

One of the biggest challenges early-stage B2C companies run into with TikTok is not having a face of the brand who can consistently represent them on the platform. Tiktok, unlike many other social channels, demands face-to-camera video content that feels natural and authentic.

TikTok can be a very effective platform for reaching younger audience, but if you're not already a beloved brand in a high-interest category, it helps to have an informal, attention-grabbing and humourous tone-of-voice to really get noticed. Very few brands really make it work. Those that do are the likes of Duolingo and Ryanair, who've essentially updated their brand to fit with the platform. Most brands who try and play it "safe" go completely unnoticed.

Don't underestimate the time and effort that is needed to build an account that is performing well organically. We often think social media is "free" when is can be quite resource intense.

100% - business owners need to understand this. (Good) Short form video content in general doesn't just involve point and shoot.