By Alex Shukri

Beginning its life as just another video-sharing app, TikTok has exploded into an 800 million active user platform known for its viral dances and comedy. 

Until now, for the typical influencer campaign, Instagram would be the best bet since there's an entire community for advertising. Yet with TikTok, it's like a personalised commercial. Creators, consumers and brands are much more interactive with each other, so it feels more relatable than many Instagram brand deals. Big brands like American Eagle, Chipotle, and E.LF. makeup have partnered with the biggest TikTokkers on the app with exceptionally influential campaigns. 

But it’s not just the biggest influencers on the app that get the brand deals - even creators with very small followings can take part in ad campaigns thanks to innovative advertisement techniques. TikTok doesn't play by the typical rules of advertising or social media content. You don't have to be famous to get on the ‘For You’ page and to become famous all you (or brands) need to understand is the algorithm. Trends continually rise and fall on TikTok and sometimes they get out into the wider world. A successful and genuine-seeming brand campaign can lead to significant impact in the marketplace.

There are three primary ways that brands can utilise TikTok:

• They can work with content creators and influencers

• Have regular ads that appear when a user opens the app

• Or create their own account and build a rapport with followers just as with other social media platforms - like Wendy’s does on Twitter

The thing about ad campaigns on social media, however, is that they have to appear genuine. 

Gen Z, the key audience on TikTok, is wary of companies that try too hard to seem relatable in order to sell a product. Thankfully, laxative tea and other questionable diet products that have found their way via influencers on other platforms have not made their way to TikTok. 

Yet there have been some lacklustre ads and advertising techniques. One energy drink brand, for example, is a very common product advertised by members of the Hype House (a group of popular TikTokkers) but the ads don’t appear genuine. While they're not staged like a typical advert, the product integration isn't natural. The creators never drink the product on camera, they just hold them in the shot. That, in combination with the constant repetition of the products, makes it seem too forced. It’s not even a “funny bad” ad - it’s just, well, bad. One look at the comments shows that many of the people that see the ads have acquired a distaste for the drink. 

Good marketing departments know their target audience and understand homophily. Homophily, simply put, is like recognising like. So seeing someone you can relate to recommending a product, you’re more likely to consider buying that product, especially if that creator is genuinely promoting it. 

In October 2019, the makeup brand E.L.F. paired up with influencers to create a challenge called the Eyes Lips Face challenge. With a catchy song written by iLL Wayno with the same name, creators across the app were encouraged to post their best makeup looks with the corresponding hashtag. It was a monumental success with over 1.7 million videos (! - videos, not video views) using the song for the challenge. So, now, when people walk into their local chemist or supermarket, they recognise the brand and are more likely to consider buying the product. E.L.F. knew their target demographic, and it worked. And it wasn’t seen as a typical ad campaign, as E.L.F. already had an organic presence on the app, so it was seen as a fun challenge which happened to be sponsored by E.L.F. 

Hashtag advertisements on their own are not automatically successful- there has to be a multi-faceted approach, like that of E.L.F.’s, to achieve successful advertising on TikTok, but once the groundwork is laid the payoff is worth the effort.

Marketing techniques are changing constantly thanks to social media, and TikTok is no different. This should be a welcomed change - understanding a fresh market means millions of potential customers ready to buy a product simply because of how genuine a promoter can be. Thanks to TikTok, there’s no need for casting calls and long shooting days - now a simple 15-second video is all a company needs. 

Last week, TikTok kicked off its plan to show the advertising world what makes the platform unique and valuable to brands in Europe and the U.S. The platform’s pitch is keen to stress why advertisers should focus on “making TikToks, not ads” as a statement for what will work best on the platform. 

TikTok’s newly launched portal for brands can be found right here: https://www.tiktokforbusinesseurope.com/