Why TikTok should be part of your Social Media Strategy

You shouldn’t underestimate the power of TikTok. Besides being the procrastination tool of choice for many teens, the app has gained a broader audience in recent times and savvy clinics are looking at raising their brand awareness and building a community of followers and patients through TikTok marketing.

TikTok has been part of the social media landscape since 2018 when Chinese company ByteDance acquired an app called Musical.ly and improved and renamed it. Since then, it has surpassed 2 billion downloads to become the fifth largest social network.

There are currently over one billion active monthly users worldwide and an average daily view time of 52 minutes, making TikTok more popular than better known sites such as LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest and Snapchat.

Although it initially tended to be most popular with 13-17 year olds, over 7.5 million Australians over the age of 18 have TikTok installed on a device and this number continues to grow as you read this!

What is TikTok?

TikTok calls itself the “destination for short-form mobile videos” and is a video sharing platform in the same way that Instagram started as a photo sharing app.

It’s like a bite-size version of YouTube, with videos ranging between five seconds and 10 minutes in length (updated to this in February 2022). Creators have access to an assortment of filters and effects, as well as a massive music library.

Like every viable social network, TikTok has a host of stars and meme creators who cash in on views, likes, comments and shares. TikTokers like Khabane Lame and Charli D’Amelio are approaching 150 million followers each, and it seems most of the popular influencers are not mainstream celebrities. But the key to TikTok’s success is its algorithm, which uses artificial intelligence to make personalised recommendations for viewers. The video feed plays the minute the app opens, instantly sucking viewers in. Users can follow their favourite creators, but they don’t have to for the feed to be filled automatically with curated clips that they will invariably love. Think ‘Explore’ on Facebook.

TikTok makes content discovery central to its experience and this is what allows videos to go viral so fast.

What Content Performs Well on TikTok?

Unlike other social networks, TikTok has a huge trend culture. This means that although original, creative video concepts can work well, the best performing TikToks are often ones that are easy to replicate by the masses, or are a spin-off of an existing trend.

For example, TikTok’s dance trends are now an integral part of popular culture — and for music artists, securing a viral trend on the platform can be enough to send their track downloads soaring.

But TikTok trends aren’t just limited to dance routines. There are viral trends for almost everything: animals, lip syncs, fashion and beauty transitions, fitness workouts and tips, comedy moments, camera hacks and challenges. Often, the most basic and fun concepts are the most successful on TikTok. Cats jumping over walls of toilet rolls, lip sync impersonations and people throwing miscellaneous objects into a cup are all simple but hugely popular trends.

If you’re not sure where to start on TikTok, check out TikTok’s For You Page for inspiration. Here you’ll find all the trending hashtags based on your geographical location, as well as a breakdown of popular videos by category.

How Does the TikTok Algorithm Work?

Before we look at how the TikTok algorithm works, note that TikTok is notorious for keeping their ‘For You’ page algorithm a secret.

The TikTok algorithm is similar to the Instagram algorithm in that it places weight on how users interact and behave on the platform to understand what they might like.

It considers key data signals like videos they like, favourite and share, accounts they follow, content they create, comments they post, creators they hide and videos they flag as ‘not interested’.

To further narrow down on users interests, TikTok also considers how much of the video they watched. Watching a video in its entirety is a strong sign that a user is interested in the content, meaning that it carries more weight in the algorithm. Additionally, the algorithm also favours creators whose content the user regularly engages with over ones that are followed but often scrolled past.

When a video is published, it is served to a small number of TikTok users in between popular videos on their ‘For You’ page. Which is why when you’re scrolling through your ‘For You’ page, you’ll often see a video that has few likes. If your video is received well by the users who initially receive it, the chances are it will get delivered to a larger pool of users, and then to even more.

So even if you only have a handful of followers on TikTok, your video can still go viral.

What is a hashtag challenge?

Just like Twitter and Instagram, hashtags are an essential part of TikTok. But here, hashtags are used for challenges.

The creator launching a challenge needs to make a video and select a song to accompany the material. Then they will challenge the users to produce their own version with the hashtag.

So to launch a successful challenge you need to:

• Do your research – Look at the successful hashtag challenges in the past that went viral and apply the principles to what you’re trying to achieve.
• Create a share-worthy hashtag – The common element between successful social media challenges is that they have a specific hashtag for participants to use and share.
• Keep the focus on you – While the hashtag for your challenge needs to be relevant, the challenge itself should be focussed on your clinic or treatments/services that your wish to promote.
• Make it memorable – Successful social media challenges of the past such as The Ice Bucket Challenge, Ten Year Challenge, and Mannequin Challenge have a memorable task that easily comes to mind.
• Select the right audio – Most successful hashtag challenges have distinctive audio that is relevant to your challenge and also engaging for your audience.
• Lay down clear rules – You need to lay down the rules of exactly what the challenge is and how to participate. Do you want people to perform a certain task? Can they give it their own creative twist? This sbould remain constant in all the challenge videos.

Collaborate with Influencers

TikTok influencer marketing is one of the most effective forms of marketing when you’re using the platform.

Working with these stars to advertise your clinic could help you immensely, especially if you’re targeting younger patients.

TikTok influencer ads work best when the TikTok talent you’ve selected is given creative freedom, the partnership is authentic, and the content discloses the sponsorship. As the platform grows more sophisticated, the tracking capabilities allow sponsors to have more direct insights into the performance of TikTok influencer marketing campaigns.

Advertising on TikTok

There are a number of options for placing ads in TikTok.

In-feed Ads

TikTok’s standard ad format is similar to ads and sponsored posts on Instagram. In-feed ads allow a video ad to be embedded ad that will auto-play on your target audiences’ ‘For You Page’. Like every other video in the app, these ads are served up in sequence as a user swipes up.

In-feed ads are marked as paid advertisements but look like every other video. Users can like, comment on, share the video and shoot videos with the same TikTok sound. The ads also have a clickable call to action (CTA) button, unlike regular videos.

TopView Ads

These ads are essentially the same as in-feed ads, but they’re presented to users as the first video when they open the TikTok app. These ads can be up to 60 seconds long and allow brands to deliver more detailed messaging.

Like in-feed ads, users can engage with the video and follow a call to action where they can learn more about the advertiser.

Brand Takeover

A step above TopView ads, these videos will appear when a user opens the app, but they’re a full-screen video rather than being presented as regular TikTok content. Users can’t like or comment on these videos. Brand Takeovers usually last for 3-5 seconds — think of them like YouTube’s non-skippable ads.

Branded Effects

Like Snapchat filters, branded effects enable brands to create shareable branded stickers, filters, and effects that users can utilise in their video content. These effects can be a standalone campaign or integrated into a Branded Hashtag Challenge.

Branded Effects can be way more impactful than a simple advertisement. This is because they bringing the target audience into the campaign, resulting in much higher levels of engagement.

Why not Instagram Reels?

Both Instagram Reels and TikTok focus on sharing vertical short video content, but which platform comes out at the top?

With regards to quick growth and trendy content, TikTok wins by a clear margin. However, Instagram Reels’ less saturated marketplace is also an opportunity to expand your presence across the Instagram community. Determining which platform works best also depends on where your target market is. Most millennials and older are well-acquainted with navigating Instagram, while Gen Z spends most of their time scrolling on TikTok.

Businesses and content creators utilising video tend to use both Instagram Reels and TikTok to leverage their engagement. The two platforms may be almost identical, but it’s clear that they serve different audiences. In maximising your audience reach across Instagram Reels and TikTok, you can increase your engagement and improve your discoverability.

Instagram Reels and TikTok can coexist — all you need is fresh and unique content that will capture your audience for each platform. AMP