5 Reasons to Add TikTok to Your Digital Marketing Mix

When I first heard of TikTok I didn’t think about a watch or Big Ben or the opening of 60 Minutes. The first thing that came to my mind, as horrific as it is, was the opening line in the horrible Color Me Badd Single – I want to Sex You Up. Their terrible video and regrettable wardrobe choices aside – ‘TikTok you won’t stop’ was a memorable hook that has been burned into my brain since 1992. If you never saw the video before, I’m sorry, kind of.

Flash forward to 2021 and TikTok – It Won’t Stop. My kids won’t stop talking about it (ages 16 – 18), my wife won’t stop laughing at the videos (age permanently 29) and I’ve recently created my own account (age 50). TikTok won’t stop and it keeps gaining momentum, which is why you need to jump on the bandwagon.

Here are the 5 Reasons to Add TikTok Your Digital Marketing Mix

1) It’s Easy to Create a TikTok Business Account

Fortunately, TikTok was smart and made it easy for you to set up your business account. Getting started is simple and outlined below:

Here’s How to Set up your TikTok Business Account

• Download and open the TikTok app.
• Login with your email, Google, Twitter or Facebook account. If multiple people will need to access the account, choose login credentials you are comfortable sharing.
• Set up your account. Tap ‘Me’ in the lower right corner, then click ‘Edit Profile’ to add a profile picture and bio. You can add links to your Instagram and YouTube accounts, too.
• Tap the three dots in the upper right corner, then ‘Manage Account’.

This week everyone experienced a 6-hour Facebook/Instagram/WhatsApp outage that forced marketers to explore, expand and consider their social media channels. With Facebook continuing to struggle with privacy issues, censorship, terrible customer service, whistleblowers and Apple (you can learn all about Facebook’s battle with Apple in this CNET article), it’s time to add TikTok to your digital marketing mix.

2) It’s the Best Social Media Platform to Reach Gen Z

Generation Z (age range 9 – 24) characteristics are interesting and specific. Generation Z features avid gamers and music fans, and they are known for being ever-present messaging, on the internet, on social networks, and on mobile systems—they are truly the “Digital-ites.” Put simply, they are the perfect audience for TikTok. If your target audience is Gen Z, TikTok is the perfect marketing channel to reach them.

Below in the eMarketer graph, you will see that Gen Z uses TikTok more than Instagram this year. So why aren’t you on it already? TikTok – it won’t stop!

3) TikTok is Still Growing Among Millennials…And Gen X

In this non-scientific Survey Monkey poll in Fortune Magazine from February of this year, TikTok is still growing among both Millennials and Gen X. The latest data trends indicate that TikTok has 80 million accounts in the US and is still growing. So if your target audience is 40+, there will be a portion who will be active on TikTok. The bottom line: creating an account to have a presence on this exploding platform is a good idea.

4) Everyone Loves Videos

This is not an exaggeration or hyperbole. The most engaged-with content type online is video. In case you’re not familiar, TikTok is based around short videos that max out at 15 seconds. People can combine short videos for a total of 60 seconds. A typical TV spot is 30 seconds but then again, when was the last time you were watching TV with commercials?

TikTok makes video production easy – which is one of the reasons it’s so popular. You can add background music, add lots of cool editing effects similar to the ones you are familiar with on other platforms, and most importantly – you can track engagement by ‘likes’, shares and comments. Even simple videos get high engagement on TikTok – because TikTok it won’t stop! (Burned into your head yet?)

Here’s a link to some of the Top Trending TikTok videos so you can see what’s popular.

5) Growing Your TikTok Account is Easier and Cheaper Than Facebook

In the past 12 months, Facebook has been a terrible partner to small and medium sized businesses. Facebook continues to change their algorithm so organic content has less and less visibility to those you ‘like’ or ‘follow’ your page. Which means you have to pay more and more to engage with people who already said they want to hear from you. Facebook will continue to be a challenge, from never responding to customer service requests, to restricting access to accounts, to their recent blackout – Facebook is becoming unreliable and too expensive to help your business. Facebook should be included in your social media strategy but consider yourself warned.

Unlike the shackles of Facebook, TikTok allows you to grow your followers and engagement easily and effectively by using hashtags. You can find hashtags by going to the TikTok discovery page and scrolling through there to find trending hashtags you find relevant for your brand. This is the most cost-effective means to create engagement and increase followers. While larger brands with 6-figure budgets create hashtag challenges, most brands are not in that spending category. To get more information about advertising on TikTok you can click here.

Connect with us to learn more about how we can strategically support your business goals on TikTok and through all of our digital marketing services.