7 key trends to power your TikTok marketing campaigns

If you’ve somehow missed falling into a vortex of cleaning hacks, decorating on a budget, plant care, and DIY project videos featured on TikTok, you are missing out on more than a cultural phenomenon. You are missing out on what may be the latest disruption of social media marketing and advertising.

TikTok is a short-form video platform released in 2016 and made available internationally in 2018. TikTok leapt to popularity during the pandemic and was the fastest growing digital entertainment app in 2021 — this past September, TikTok announced that they had reached 1 billion users worldwide. According to Reuters, TikTok’s advertising revenue is expected to triple this year to more than $11 billion, exceeding the combined total of X, formerly Twitter and Snap, with more than half of the ad revenue expected to come from the United States. This bouquet of opportunities for marketers means that there is something for everyone on TikTok.

Why run TikTok marketing campaigns?

TikTok’s popularity is increasing and, with it, the untapped potential to reach future customers. To understand why it’s important to leverage TikTok as a marketing strategy, let’s first look at its potential reach, breadth, and value.

According to Datareportal, analyzed data from TikTok’s self-service tools in January 2022 reveals seven key trends you should keep an eye on:

• TikTok is the fastest growing social media platform in the world
• There are more than 131 million active adult TikTok users in the United States
• The potential reach of ads on TikTok is estimated at more than 884 million adult users
• TikTok’s advertising reach in North America is estimated at more than 142 million
• 57% of TikTok’s global users identify as female; 43% identify as male
• It is estimated that 43.7% of TikTok users are between the ages of 18-24
• TikTok’s reach of adult users versus the total population of US adults is 50.3%

Considering TikTok’s growing popularity and the fact that social media users continue to increase overall, (there are more than 4.62 billion social media users worldwide,) the number of TikTok users will also continue to expand. By gleaning the relative data and demographics, there is an easy case to make for marketers to incorporate TikTok into their current and future social media marketing and advertising campaigns. This is especially true for brands that typically market to customers under 35 and for brands trying to reach people who identify as female. And with monthly active users now equal or higher than competing social media platforms, TikTok has increasingly become an important platform for brands to incorporate into their marketing strategies.

Social advertising on TikTok

Brands that have already waded into TikTok advertising waters are likely seeing positive results. TikTok commissioned three Nielsen Media Mix Model Meta Analyses and found that TikTok drives positive paid media return on ad spend (ROAS) and offline sales efficiency across the CPG vertical. They state, “The US, for example, saw a 14% higher paid media ROAS versus all digital media measured in the models and 2X the offline sales efficiency, while the numbers for Europe and Southeast Asia were even higher.” TikTok also shows an impact on culture and gives brands an opportunity to highlight their brand image and reputation. In a study cited on TikTok’s website, 56% of users reported that they “feel closer to brands they see on TikTok, particularly when they publish human, unpolished content” and 43% felt more connected to brands that informed or taught them something new. Additionally, 61% of users like brands better when they create or participate in a trend on TikTok.

The potential power of TikTok to positively impact marketing and advertising efforts is profound, but before realizing these benefits, marketers need to understand some of the challenges.

• Unlike other social media platforms, TikTok requires advertisers to have a high volume of content variation in their ads to remain relevant with the platform’s trends. Producing large quantities of varied content requires a lot of creative time and resources.
• Brands need to ensure cross-channel execution, including TikTok, and run reach and frequency campaigns.
• When marketing teams manually run campaign content through the native platform, it is difficult to monitor ongoing ad comments and conversations. Without the ability to moderate comments, brand reputation is at risk.

There is no full-proof success plan for social advertising on TikTok... yet. It is difficult to predict what content may work on TikTok as opposed to other social media platforms. This underscores the importance for brands to create optimized and personalized creative content that builds trusting relationships and authentic connections with their potential and existing connections.

With Sprinklr Marketing, part of Sprinklr’s unified customer experience management (Unified-CXM) platform, brands can create, test, learn from, and democratize content on a unified platform that allows you to create connections, engage with your audience, and increase your brand’s awareness and visibility.

Learn more about social advertising for TikTok and other social media platforms and how Sprinklr Marketing and Advertising can lead your company to better results.