If you’re on the fence about the idea of leveraging TikTok for your business, it’s time to hop on the trend. TikTok has witnessed massive growth in popularity with content creators and brands that are aiming to grow their audience, elevate engagement levels, and reach millions of people.
Even though TikTok is the new kid in the realm of social media, the app has had an astronomical rise in popularity. As of 2020, TikTok has so far been downloaded 2 billion times, making it one of the most popular platforms in the world.
Now, with brands and influencers warming up to this platform, it has truly begun to show its potential as a marketing tool. In this post, we’ll elaborate on the case studies of brands using this social platform, along with some tips.
Case studies of brands leveraging TikToks
#1. Ralph Lauren
In 2019, Ralph Lauren collaborated with the actress- influencer Diana Silvers to produce TikTok engagement videos. The distinguished fashion brand decided to tie this campaign in with the US Open Tennis Championship. The event uses an immensely popular hashtag, #USOpen, which now boasts of a whopping 8 Million views.
This allowed Ralph Loren to tap into two sets of audiences, the followers of Diana Silvers and individuals who search for the #USOpen hashtag. Ralph Loren used the custom hashtag #WinningRL to join the two audiences together. They tied the hashtag around a unique challenge where the audiences are asked whether they’re winning in real life and use #WinningRL to describe their winning moments. The brand also declared that the videos with the highest engagement on Tiktok would receive a package of official Polo Ralph Lauren U.S. Open apparel.
The custom hashtag managed to garner 750 million views. This indicates how the brand capitalised on the popular sporting event and leveraged Tiktok, leading to magnified results.
#2. Chipotle
Every year Chipotle comes with its annual “Boorito” offer for Halloween, offering food at a lower price for customers who place their orders in a spooky outfit. And TikTok became an intrinsic part of Chipotle’s promotional campaign last year. The challenge requires the users to post a video showcasing their before and after Halloween costume transformations, using the custom sound bite created specifically by Chipotle just for the campaign.
The top five posts (depending on the number of likes) that incorporated the #Boorito and #Contest tags would give winners free burritos for a year. Throughout this campaign, the #Boorito tag generated an astounding 3.6 billion views. This is because of the influencer collaborations, who created and promoted viral videos for the brand.
In fact, the association between Chipotle and TikTok goes way beyond his campaign. The brand has had a string of successful campaigns on the platform. Chipotle previously did a promotion for National Avocado Day using the tag #GuacDance, urging fans to post a video showing off their dance moves. The campaign received nearly 250,000 submissions and 430 million video views in just six days. And this latest #Boorito campaign hit those numbers out of the park and received 3.9 billion views.
#3. Walmart
Even the world’s largest brick and mortar retail chain has leveraged TikTok influencer marketing. Walmart collaborated with TikTok influencers for a Black Friday-themed campaign, using the hashtag #DealDropDance.
These videos generated massive engagements through Tiktok. The posts by the six influencers that Walmart had roped in alone reached over 17 million followers, and the hashtag #DealDropDance had over 2 million impressions. The campaign encouraged both influencers and everyday people filming themselves dancing in the aisles of Walmart to win a $100 gift card.
#4. Doritos
The brand owned by PepsiCo has marketed alongside Super Bowl for over a decade now. Obviously, much of these campaigns have been presented through traditional TV marketing. However, the Doritos brand decided also to leverage TikTok for their 2020 campaign.
One of their 60-second ads featured Oscar-nominated and Grammy winner actor Sam Elliott in a comedic dance battle over Cool Ranch tortilla chips. The ad also featured Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road” song. The actor and the rapper “duelled” with amazing dance moves, with the rapper winning the battle for the bag of chips.
#5. EA Sports
Famous video game company EA Sports serves as a pertinent example for TikTok influencer marketing. The Millennials and Gen Z account for a huge proportion of gamers. In fact, TikTok’s gaming subculture is massive (a quick search will tell you that the videos with #Fortnite have over 14.3 billion on the platform).
EA uses TikTok to promote many of its popular games, such as Apex Legends, for which they collaborated with well-known Youtuber Brent Rivera. The posts from the influencer feature a comedy skit of him playing the game, which has so far got 700K likes from his 17 million followers.
Partnering with smaller influencers turns out to be a sophisticated strategy that fosters collaborations with a range of different influencers.
#6. HP
HP hosted a unique hash tag challenge called #HP Coachella Dreamland at the Coachella music festival in 2019. The brand collaborated with many brilliant TikTok influencers to help promote the contest.
The aim of the campaign was to make TikTok users aware of the brand. While at the same time present the brand through an inspirational lens. The music in the background helped evoke these emotions into the viewer’s mind.
The major takeaway from this campaign is that leveraging popular events and influencers allows brands to initiate a viral challenge. The reason behind it is there’s already so much attention on both (the events and influencers) that the brand is able to generate a massive amount of traction with minimum effort. In the end, the branded hashtag challenge video had over 176 million views.
Quick tips for using TikTok for your business
#1. Check out current TikTok trends
One way to use hash tags as part of your TikTok marketing strategy is to keep an eye out for trending hash tags. You can create and share videos that are connected to these trending videos.
Understand that trends can be fast-moving. So, always keep an eye on TikTok trends and be prepared to change your content to keep up with the craze.
“If you’re sharing your version of a trending video, don’t just make it a copy of everybody else’s videos”, suggest Lucy Palmer, a marketing case study assignment help expert from Essaygator.com. Look for a way to make your video unique.
#2. Invite TikTok Influencers to collaborate with your brand
Influencers build their reputation for the quality of the content they share on social platforms like TikTok. Hence, it’s wise for most businesses to develop productive working relationships with the people who influence their potential consumers.
TikTok has given rise to a new generation of influencers. These influencers have far more connections with today’s teens and tweens than a more conventional movie or television stars. These are precisely the kinds of people you want on your side when you plan your TikTok marketing campaigns.
#3. Initiate a hash tag challenge
Hash tag challenges are exceedingly popular on TikTok. They are a brilliant way for businesses to maximise their engagement and brand awareness. You initiate a challenge for users who share videos of themselves attempting the challenge.
An innovative hashtag challenge succeeds in generating curiosity about your product offline and on other social sites. Even distinguished companies like McDonald’s have been involved in intriguing challenges.
#4. Make the videos appealing with clear descriptions
TikTok videos can be at least a minute long. This means you don’t have a lot of time to convey your message. You need the videos to be visually enticing, without looking like they’ve been created by a professional advertising agency (even if you have worked with an agency to help your creativity).
Also, there are times that you’ll use your descriptions as teasers; in many cases, you’ll want to include a clear description of what your video has to offer its audience. If possible, present the descriptions in a manner that people feel the urge to comment.
Writing a compelling description is also significant for SEO purposes. Essentially, you want Tiktok to be aware of what your video is about when it indexes your clip and hopefully suggests it to your target audience. Remember to add the most relevant keywords in your descriptions, but they need to make sense and not just appear like a random collection of words.
#5. Determine when and how often you’ll post
As with any other social media strategy, it’s a nice idea to prepare a content calendar for your TikTok profile. With this calendar, you can brainstorm ideas and plan the scope of your TikTok content for the coming week or month.
Much like other platforms, TikTok rewards consistency. But instead of posting three times a day, become overwhelmed, and then not post for weeks, begin with 3-5 times a week and work your way up from there.
It’s also essential to track analytics to learn what resonates with TikTok users and what isn’t working.
Parting thoughts
Using TikTok is an excellent way to highlight another side of your brand, nurture a niche community, and target a younger generation of audience. It’s a fun social platform for experimenting with videos, and with proper strategy, you can use TikTok to grow your business in the right direction.
About the Author!
Deborah Roughton is a senior marketing professional in a multinational organisation in Australia. Conrad has pursued his MBA in marketing from Federation University. She has been part of several successful marketing campaigns for his company. She’s also a member of MyAssignmenthelp.com and offers homework help to students.
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