TikTok Advertising: Changing the Game
In 2016, the video sharing app, TikTok, was launched. Within just one year, they accumulated over 100 million users, and launched internationally, setting the stage for global competition with the likes of Instagram and Snapchat.
In 2019, many businesses are just learning about TikTok for the first time, but in the first quarter of this year, it became the most downloaded app on the apple store.
Through their extensive advertising efforts on free-to-download apps, such as InShot, along with a lucrative partnership with the NFL, they’re quickly showing the U.S. audience that TikTok is here to stay.
While it’s tempting to shun the jump to yet another social media platform, TikTok doesn’t face the saturation problems of Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at the moment. Even Snapchat, which is still figuring out its advertising offering, is more in danger of hitting that saturation point first.
This creates two problems for local businesses:
Your ads are going to have to be more creative to stand out amongst others.
The price for securing advertising results on these platforms will be much higher compared to the infant-stage TikTok.
But even with this lower saturation, the sacrifice in audience isn’t as bad as one might think. At the end of September, TikTok beat out Snapchat for search popularity for just the first time, showing that their potential is just beginning.
A large part of this potential will come by way of TikTok’s advertising options available to businesses and brands worldwide. Right now, there are three key advertising types:
Brand Takeover Ads
Cool name aside, this ad type allows a brand to consumer the entire screen for up to five seconds, employing a still image, animation, or video. The goal is to have a user click the link, sending them either to a TikTok profile or a separate website entirely.
But here’s the kicker: This ad type will also have country limits, meaning once a country hits a certain number of advertisers for a given day, others will be blocked out of it. That limit is currently unclear.
In-Feed Native Video Ads
As we’ve mentioned before, native advertising is an incredibly effective method for generating engagement, actually helping brands to “win out” on last year’s Black Friday.
Essentially, this will be play automatically, and similar to the Brand Takeover Ads, consume the entire screen. The goal here offers some variance to users, allowing advertisers to like to a landing page, hashtag challenge page, or the app store. This ad is especially ideal for new developers trying to create exposure for their apps.
Hashtag Challenge Ad
Probably the most unique advertising solution from TikTok is the Hashtag Challenge Ad. This enables businesses to encourage users to create content around a certain theme or hashtag.
The fascinating concept is that you’re encouraging others to directly engage with your brand, reaping the benefits off original content that you don’t even have to create.
Summary
TikTok continues to climb the social media ranks, both in terms of downloads and daily usage. With its budding NFL partnership, additional advertising solutions are on the way, too.
But for now, local businesses should highly consider finding ways to implement TikTok into their digital strategy. Low saturation and novel advertising capabilities make it platform worth watching for years to come.
For help with developing your TikTok strategy, send us a message at RizzoYoungMarketing.com.