How To Utilize TikTok For Influencer Marketing

Tiktok influencer marketing has gotten a lot of traction since its founding but it has skyrocketed even more in 2020. While the platform did begin as a music and dance video app for teenagers, it has undoubtedly reached plenty of adults, brands and businesses too.

Although as a marketer, the thought of including another social media platform into your strategies may seem overwhelming but it should be strongly considered. This is because the app has a very unique algorithm for showing content that people are already interested in.

But before that, let’s take a look at and check if TikTok influencer marketing would be a good fit for your business.

Who’s Using TikTok?

As of 2021, TikTok has an impressive 1 billion monthly active users and is the number 1 most downloaded app of 2020. TikTok is quickly catching up with YouTube and Instagram espcially as the platform allows its users to shoot, edit, and share their videos for up to one minute long.

It has greatly evolved from its former dominant audience, the Gen Zs, into a mass social media platform with a powerful potential for businesses to successfully market their brand.

Currently, TikTok is popular with young adults with more than two-thirds of their users being 18-24 years old. Here’s the full age breakdown of their platform with 60% female users and 40% male.

• Age 13-17: 27%
• Age 18-24: 42%
• Age 25-34: 16%
• Age 35-44: 8%
• Age 45-54: 3%
• Age 55+: 4%

Just in case you didn’t know. These TikTok users are very active especially when it comes to engaging with the user’s content. As in the U.S. alone, the average user opens the app 8x a day and spends 46 minutes at minimum browsing through videos which is more than Instagram users who spend only 28 minutes a day.

READ ALSO: 15 Digital Marketing Strategies For COVID-19 Affected Businesses

And thanks to the platform’s unique “For You” feed, the users are sucked into a cycle of video contents of brands they follow which helps to explain why they have such a high engagement rate.

So check out your branding manual and see if your target audience is hanging out on TikTok or not, as you might need to work with influencers to create those fresh and authentic content for your brand.

And don’t worry, we will talk about that more below.

TikTok Influencer Marketing: How to Work With Influencers on TikTok

Have A Specific Goal

Before you decide to work with any influencer online, you need to set clear goals for your brand and business.

While there are plenty if not thousands of influencers to choose from, you need to make sure that they have content that is relevant to your brand and are speaking to your target audiences.

Don’t forget to stick to the rules

TikTok actually has very strict FTC regulations. Meaning the influencers you collaborate will be required to disclose the sponsorship with a clear and visible messaging that the content is in fact an advertisement.

This means that TikTok influencers are tasked to use e.g. #ad or #spon. 

But talking about hashtags, you may want to start incorporating it to your content. Why?

For one, hashtags can help generate huge engagement for your content and will leave a lasting impression on your viewers.

So it is crucial for you to find the right hashtag by doing ample amounts of research. Check for themes and commonalities across a few existing content to understand which works and can be associated for your brand.

Hashtags can also make your contents to be easily discovered which can help it be shared as widely as possible. Just make sure it has a simple spelling to make it easier to be discovered.

But don’t forget to measure how well your hashtags. Check out the tool provided by Tiklytics.

Give Your Influencers Freedom

In addition, it is imperative that you give your influencers some room to create their own content or advertisement. Since top hashtags and challenges are commonly launched by TikTokers who already have a big following. 

So if you decide to collaborate with influencers on TikTok and enjoy its full potential, you must let go of your strict brand guidelines or give them some freedom to promote your products and brands in their own positive way.

Can TikTok Be Used The Same Way As Other Social Media Platforms?

View TikTok as an entirely new tool that is separate from Instagram and YouTube for three simple reasons:

The content needs to be aesthetically pleasing with an unfiltered, authentic look. If you’ll notice, most successful videos are shot in an amateur style highlighting the audience appreciation for content than how it looks.

Second, TikTok has a different type of Trends which are also known as TikTok Challenges which is a very unique way to encourage other users to create their own content which is the most common way to increase the brand’s viewability and engagement.

So note that on other platforms where copying someone else’s content has been looked down on, TIkTok actually encourages them.

Lastly, TikTok’s “For You” feature where users are provided with videos that the algorithm believes they’ll enjoy. And this section is the first part where you’ll land upon when using the app which is totally different from IG and YouTube.

Check If Your TikTok Campaigns Are Working

User engagement is the number one metric you want to pay attention to when running your campaigns. This includes the likes, comments, shares and user generated content.

The platform can also be measured in a similar way to other social tools such as impressions, sentiments and media value, ROI and conversions using Affiliate Links. The best way to test whether TikTok is a perfect fit for your brand is to do more tests.

If you want to work with several influencers on the platform, our advice is to find the most engaging influencers that you can build a relationship with for long-term partnerships and results.

3 TikTok Influencer Marketing Campaigns To Inspire You

1. Walmart

@cameronfromwalmart1_

Teaching a customer how to dougie! 🔥😂 #customer#teachmehowtodougie#trend#cameronfromwalmart#foryou

♬ original sound – ❤💙CiiNnY WaLkEr💙❤

Walmart is not a stranger to TikTok influencer marketing campaigns that even with their #DealDropDance, where users are encouraged to share videos of them dancing or performing in the aisles of Walmart gives them a chance to win a $100 gift card.

Walmart’s campaign received more than two million impressions and even won a Shorty award. And their success can be attributed to a variety of influencers who helped increase the reach of their hashtags and the fact that to participate, you just gotta dance to the eight simple moves making it enjoyable and super simple!

2. Levi’s

@everettwilliams

Here are the photos! #greenscreen #foryou #mensstyle #fashion #photoshoot #myoutfit #fyp

♬ Savage – Megan Thee Stallion

In celebration of its “Shop Now” button, TikTok partnered with Levi’s on their most recent TikTok influencer campaign where Levi’s personalized their denim to use its Future Finish 3D customization technology.

And on April 13, the creators’ videos appeared as ads and encouraged users to clock on “Shop Now” button on April 19 to get their hands on the unique designs.

Levi’s reported that their pages views doubled for every product that was included in the videos.

3. Gymshark

@twinmelody

HEY,STOP EVERYTHING💜😂What are u doing now?Qué hacéis?Amazing Outfit @gymshark #gymshark66 #foryou

♬ Face Filters Are Not Funny – lucaselvis

In order to boost their sales, Gymshark tapped six influencers for their 66 Day | Change Your Life challenge. Where users are encouraged to set personal goals for themselves and continually share their progress under their hashtag #gymshark66.

And what made this more interesting was that six influencers Gymshark worked with were twins who were able to dance, do fitness, comedy, challenges, beauty and even fashion. 

So by partnering with this TikTok creators, each with more than a million fans, Gymshark reached 19.8 million fans and the hashtag #gymshark66 earned more than 122 million views.

Conclusion

Having a presence on TikTok might just be a fit for your brand and business in 2021. So remember to set some pretty specific goals whether you want brand awareness or meet your goals.

Try creating videos with popular audio and add some trending hashtags to increase your chances of going viral.  And when creating your account, you got to be strategic on the types of videos you choose to watch and interact with as the algorithm is very sensitive about what they will show you/ 

A well-planned TikTok influencer marketing strategy can bring a lot of brand awareness and user engagement to your brand which in turn open up to plenty of new customers. So when you pick this strategy, you can rest assured that only those interested in your offers would see your ads and content.

Just never forget that the best TikTok influencer campaigns are born from the meaningful relationships and collaborations that people do with you and your influencer. But never be afraid to show the human side of your brand.