TikTok Marketing, Overhyped Or Underrated?

We all know TikTok has been grabbing the world by storm for the past three years. Its short-form video content allows regular people to become unique and creative, giving them as many tools as possible to keep reinventing themselves in front of the world.

With its socialist-like algorithm, TikTok gives all creators equal access to reach and engagement, allowing almost anyone to go viral. A freak of nature in the social media ocean, a red whale in the blue ocean like Facebook once was in the days of myspace.

So with this, we can assume Tiktok is a no-brainer for marketers and business owners. After all, this novel beast has a tight grasp on the next generation that any sane capitalist would want to leverage.

While writing this piece, however, I found that there would be a decisive challenge for businesses looking to market on the platform.

But before we talk about that, let's look at some of the benefits.

Volume OF Users

TikTok currently has 50 million daily users, 60% from IOS and 20% from Android, respectively. These numbers aren’t as impressive as Instagram’s massive 500 million daily users. However, we can’t forget that it took Instagram 2 years to reach 50 million overall users while it took TikTok just four years to achieve the same amount of users per day. Also, when you look at the growth of annual users on both apps, it tells an even more compelling story.

TikTok annual users 2018 to 2021 (mm)

Instagram annual users 2013 to 2016(mm)

When comparing their growths over similar timeframes and starting points, you’ll see that TikTok has the upper hand in user growth. In the same amount of time, TikTok gained a 9x increase in users, while Instagram only achieved a 5x increase. Double the growth power.

Time On The App

I was taken aback by this upcoming stat. According to multiple sources, TikTok users spend an average of 95 minutes on the app per day, that’s 1.5 hours every 24 hours. Instagram users only spend around 28 minutes on the app per day, so users spend three times as long on TikTok than they do on Instagram. Other apps don’t even compare.

User Open Rate

TikTok users open the app around 19 times per day, while Instagram has experienced an increase in inactive users and a reduction in repeat opens the same can be said for Facebook as well.

CPM & CPC

TikTok averages a CPM of around $1.80, while Facebook and Instagram’s combined CPM and CPC sit at $6.70.

I was fortunate to speak to Peter Watson, director of Distract, a digital agency that offers TikTok services to brands. He was able to outline how some of these facts can impact brands looking to market on the platform.

Number If Users

With such a large amount of active users and new ones coming daily, TikTok can build a large pool of demographic and behavioural data making it the perfect place to set another foothold online. And this, coupled with the time users spend on the app, means the possibilities for traffic generation are huge compared to other advertising platforms.

Advertising costs, CPM & Production

Along with the large user base, there’s also the low CPM, which allows brands and advertisers to extend their active campaigns while keeping costs low. Using TikTok, brands can get the same amount of reach and engagement at a cost 20% below that of other platforms like Meta, Google and Twitter.

The last thing we spoke about was ‘User Generated Content’ and its effects on how businesses ‘must’ market on TikTok. Because most engaging posts on TikTok are user-generated, companies looking to make an impact must create content that aligns with the organic content users see on the app. Meaning brands with the right approach can drastically reduce the cost of production for their content by using the same techniques afforded to users If they have a talented enough team to do it.

This doesn’t mean brands must use TikTok to create their content however, using the TikTok format could simplify your production process, making it cheaper and potentially less time-consuming depending on your approach and personal.

What are the cons of TikTok Advertising?

I’ve decided to talk about just one drawback to TikTok advertising because I’ve found the others have more to do with in-house personal capabilities, basically how well someone understands TikTok and its advertising potential. Things like that can be mediated fairly easily with training or hiring outside specialists like Distract.

I’ve already mentioned the drawback we’ll be looking at, and that’s the User-generated content. There are two parts to this.

One is how businesses and brands approach content production and the restrictions they place on themselves.

The second is how coming up with ‘user-like content’ is a more challenging curve than it seems at first glance.

Hiring an agency or freelancer won’t solve these two issues. Dealing with them from within is the only way to mediate the negative impacts.

How businesses approach content and how it could hurt their TikTok aspirations.

When I think about most medium-sized businesses creating content and how it compares to TikTok culture, the words that come to mind are ‘Stiff’, ‘Tone Deaf’ and most important of all, ‘Cringy’. Remember those.

If you’ve ever used TikTok, you’ll notice how it’s an app that rejects mediocrity and rewards creativity or nuance. If you think of most small to medium-sized businesses, their branding is the last thing you’d call creative or nuanced (in this context, anyway). These brands could be very creative and fresh everywhere else, like LinkedIn or Facebook, but even the most ‘creative’ of creative agencies would fail the TikTok litmus test.

Our current business culture just isn’t compatible with TikTok. (yet)

Industries like Ecom won’t have too much trouble with this because, in my eyes, the platform is perfect for clothing and jewellery. It also has a predominantly female user base.

But serviced-based businesses will have a very uphill climb.

There is, however, a fast-growing business segment of TikTok full of creators posting content targeted at entrepreneurs and business owners. I think this is very interesting, and we should all be watching how this branch of TikTok will evolve over time.

The second part of this con is the actual content creation. As we said, brands must align their content with what users see from organic creators.

Creating user-like content can get very expensive if not planned properly. On top of this, lacklustre content will lead to more skips, which means more impressions, resulting in more money spent while campaigns are live. All this is on top of your production costs. Trust me when I say this could be a bigger problem than it seems because TikTok campaigns are known to skyrocket in spending, which has to do with the algorithm but falls more on the content itself. Companies cannot be apathetic because being lazy makes you seem what? Yes, ‘Stiff’, ‘Tone Deaf’ and most importantly ‘Cringy’. I told you to remember them.

Because of TikToks’ short-form video content, brands have a small window to grab user attention. You can see how devastating this can be to a brand that’s rushed the process or, even worse, approached its campaign like a Facebook Ad.

However, with the right in-house team, you’ll avoid this. Your team must be proactive with a deep understanding of TikTok culture.

If not, then rely on a specialised agency like Peters.

In Closing

There are some massive benefits to marketing on TikTok. And In my eyes, it would be nonsensical for a capable brand not to market on TikTok as long as they have the right approach, an adventurous team and realistic expectations for the work and planning they’re willing to invest.

I stand by the opinion that hiring a specialised agency is the best approach. This way, a company knows it’s in good hands with a clear plan that fits the business goals.

If you or someone you know has been thinking of giving TikTok feel free to contact Peter on LinkedIn or email his team.

Casey Willow, WB

My LinkedIn — https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/casey-willow-0b2a0a16a/

Our LinkedIn — https://www.dhirubhai.net/company/43359641

Distract — https://distract.co.uk/tiktok/

Peters Watson Linkedin — https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/pwats/

Distract LinkedIn — https://www.dhirubhai.net/company/chatty-imp/