How Apps Can Lip Sync Their Way to Gen Z

There’s a sort of social app out there that you as a Millennial or Gen Y app developer, may not even have heard about. It’s a goldmine for any brand looking to reach a huge Gen Z audience. For mobile games and photo/video editing apps, lip syncing your way to Gen Z may just be the way to a huge user acquisition channel. What am I talking about?

Keep reading.

The Rise of Short-Form Video

Vine introduced the world to short-form video. With only 6 seconds to impress, Gen Z got creative. The Vine app was quickly filled with physical comedy, crazy comedy, impro comedy, and everything meme-able from the north to the sourth pole. Videos were watched over millions and all together billions of times. Unfortunately for the Twitter owned company, all of this was not enough and the proceeded to shut down.

But that doesn’t mean short-form video died a similar death. 15 second, 30 second and 1 minute video started popping up on Instagram and Snapchat. Viners moved their hilariously viral vines onto both of these platforms and Youtube as well.

Then 3 years after Snapchat’s initial launch a new and sort of odd player entered into the video hosting field. It was an app called Musical.ly, on which teens around the world would start recording 15 second lip syncing videos, many filled with crazy outfit changes, filter swaps and probably more times than fewer cringe-worthy material. Nevertheless Musical.ly blew up and in 2016 was acquired by Bytedance, a Chinese company that owned a similar app named TikTok.

After the aquisition Musical.ly was officially merged into TikTok, leaving many Musers (Musical.ly users) wondering whether they should too undergo an identity change and become TikTokers.

What exactly makes TikTok so appealing?

Teens all over the world have latched onto TikTok. The short-form video app has even made its own stars. Lisa and Lena, for example, are adopted teenagers from Germany who grew to fame initially on Musical.ly then on TikTok. From their lip syncing and twin dancing earned fame they've sat front row at Louis Vuitton fashion shows, garnered more than 14 million followers on Instagram and even started their own fashion line.

Although Musical.ly/TikTok and now Instagram mega-stars, Lisa and Lena, have recently deleted their TikTok profile, the app still has a tight hold on Gen Z. Many of their fans clamored on Youtube about the despair they felt over the loss of an official Lisa and Lena channel on TikTok.

So what exactly makes this specific app so appealing to the younger generation?

Mobile users’ attention spans are now shorter than ever. A 15 second video spot fills that craving for constant content. In addition, the restrained time frame forces TikTok creators to really push the boundaries. They’ve got to grab the attention of scrollers with something 9GAG worthy. These short-form videos are most of the time highly planned out and produced, paralleling the 6 second comedy skits that brought Viners, such as Amanda Cerny and Lele Pons, unparalleled internet fame.

The Path to Social Media Survival

But for true survival, TikTok needed to monetize and that’s exactly what they did. Earlier this year they released ads for the US market. Brands can place insertion orders (IO), directly buying and placing ads with TikTok. At the moment there is no automated bidding platform, however, rumors are circulating of one being released as soon as this summer.

For brands who need a large Gen Z audience, I’m looking especially at you mobile game developers, TikTok Ads is going to be the place to get it.

TikTok Ads are still brand new. So a lot of testing and optimizing is still going on. In addition, the price point for placing an ad seems unclear. Although, numbers have been circulating in the high 10,000s.

But there's no doubt that this growing social media platform targeted at younger generations is going to continue to find ways to monetize itself. That's the only true securement of survival in this digital day and age. I wouldn't be surprised to see a more affordable and transparent ad buying system rolling out in the near future.

TikTok Ads are NOT for Copy and Paste

TikTok Ads are not for the lighthearted. You can’t just copy and paste Instagram and Facebook ads into TikTok and pray that they work. As a brand, you’ll have to mirror the creativity that thrives in the app or you’ll surely lose TikTokers attention.

Ad formats come in the following forms:

• Native In-feed Video: A video ad that lives in the user’s feed
• Brand Takeover: A full screen ad which displays after the splash screen
• Challenge: A hashtag challenge where a brand prompts users to post videos with a certain hashtag/theme
• Filters and Stickers: Branded filters and stickers which users can use when creating videos

Some cautions to take During ad ideation, you have to mindful about the TikTok audience. Many users are in their teens. This means your ads should be first and foremost age appropriate. Secondly, you have to speak their language. Find out what Gen Z is talking about nowadays. What trends are they following, which influencers are they liking. Staying up to date with these pop culture items are going to be key in making your mobile game a success with TikTok Ads.

What do you think of TikTok? Let me know in the comments below.

#tiktokads #socialmediamarketing #genz #appmarketing