A huge thank you to everyone who attended our recent masterclass “How to use TikTok to supercharge your brand”.
We received a series of insightful and thought-provoking questions from the audience, which we have shared a summary of below.
Oh, and if you missed the workshop and want to get yourself up to speed with the key takeaways, check them out here. You can also actually watch the full workshop on our YouTube channel here.
1. If you’re just getting started with TikTok, what do you suggest as the best first steps?
Start with organic content. Get one person in the office – or at home, normally the one with the best smartphone, and just start putting out content. See what works and what doesn’t. Experiment as much as you can. Make use of some of the advice we gave in the masterclass about quick, snappy clips that contribute to a story. There aren’t any limits in the music you can use or the content you can create. See what works organically and then start to transition this content into your paid content.
You will need to be patient, it’ll require some hard work, but the reward will be worth it! If you want to go down the brand ambassador route, whoever feels most confident in front of the camera, start with them. Then think about whatever makes your brand unique, then explore that in any of the ways we discussed. Have a bit of fun and get the whole team involved – there is nothing wrong in trying something and finding out what works best. Explore what your brand puts out there, what works well for your brand already, then talk about this on TikTok. You could pick an ambassador that’s client facing or has a particular interesting aspect of their role. Talk about your day-to-day work in the office and take the plunge.
2. With regards to advertising, are you able to target by location?
At the moment you can’t boil down to individual cities, or target a radius around a location, or postcodes either. In the UK targeting can only go by nation, so England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Nationwide campaigns still get great results within the local area people might want to target. At the moment it isn’t as specific as things like Facebook or Google, but we expect it to be within the next 6-2 months.
3. How would you explain to stakeholders that TikTok can help with conversion, or would you say that it is better suited to brand awareness?
Organic content that doesn’t contain a link or CRA is definitely for brand awareness and engagement within communities. The level of reach that you can get on TikTok means that when you do run a campaign you can get high engagement and conversion, for very little money. When this is used in conjunction with retargeting and lookalike audiences, conversion rates are very high.
4. How do you choose a brand ambassador on TikTok?
It can be anyone, but for us, it was someone that is comfortable in front of the camera. There’s a user on TikTok who is a lawyer and they answer questions that people have about their job – it’s almost like they get free service from the lawyer! Any role or company can be interesting, just explore who’s going to be comfortable in front of the camera and then take it from there. It is also helpful if the ambassador is someone with a bit of time to put into this and who is able to bridge across different teams, showing a variety of sides of the business, rather just one department.
5. I am a one-man-band, can I still TikTok and garner and sustain interest?
Creative or alternative careers really lend themselves to TikTok as a largely creative audio platform. Start looking at TikTok, the content people make by themselves and the way they interact with their audience. You can set up a tripod, go out into public and engage with suppliers / customers (when allowed!). Just have a look at the platform and see how creative some people on the platform really are.
6. Is it not a risky strategy to use one person as an ambassador, what if they leave?
People switching jobs and careers happens, but rather than it feeling uneasy or a dead-end, you can almost celebrate it – think of it as the passing of a baton or torch and make light of the situation. There can be some funny and genuine content in there. Just like players retire from football, someone sets the precedent and then another person can come in and take things in a new direction. Don’t be fearful that a person might leave, it just means that the next person to come in to take the TikTok ambassadorship role can take the reins and they don’t have to start from scratch.
7. What do you suggest for product orientated content?
If your content is product orientated, that is absolutely fine and can be a great way of showing it off, but you can take it to the next level by showing someone using them, making it relatable and showing people the benefits of the product. If you can get someone that feels confident in front of the camera, that will give the viewer the chance to associate the brand with that person and will mean that you can show the application of the product, or top tips or recommendations. This has proven very successful before and can take your product orientated TikToks to the next level.
If you’re thinking about jumping into the world of TikTok or are after some advice about how to fine tune your creative and boost your reach with advertising, get in touch with one of our experts today.
