For marketers working on a particular brand, every single online campaign must achieve a certain level of traction to be classified as a success. With every passing year, social media is evolving and so are campaign strategies. With social media users seriously making purchase decisions on the platform, marketers on social media today swear by influencer marketing and its effectiveness. More than half of all digital marketers would vouch for the fact that an effective influencer campaign helps generate more engagement and organic leads. With an income of $6.5 for every marketing dollar invested, the return on investment (ROI) increases by more than 10%.
With TikTok, the short videos make it more challenging to package influencer content in the tightest way possible to garner any tangible benefits. But when it works, it is worth the effort. And this has made it the social media platform to invest in 2021. The world has migrated to this easy-to-consume platform that is equal parts engaging, informative and entertaining. To get started with influencers on TikTok campaigns, here are a few things to keep in mind.
Figure 1. Social videos are becoming an indispensable marketing tool, heavily influencing purchase decisions. A report by Brightcove shares the statistics of the viewers who made a purchase after watching a branded video on social channels. Source: Growing Search
Challenges Addressed By Influencer Marketing
While the audience on TikTok is primarily Gen Z, marketers need to find a fine line between entertaining content and campaign-related content. The demographic doesn’t like being bombarded with branded data. Influencers are a window of hope as they package marketing content into super entertaining and original videos. Brands need to put an effort to find the right influencer that aligns with their brand and voice, as well as has an engaged fan base that can be tapped into. Brands need to know everything about influencer marketing before they dip their toes into it.
As TikTok is the birthplace of trends, influencers are constantly on top of what works and what satiates the users’ needs to be treated to the newest viral phenomena. The positive, though, is that the new age audience isn’t ashamed of being brand conscious and hence brands don’t need to be too subtle in their marketing efforts through influencers who resonate with the audience.
Setting the right campaign goals
Based on the product life cycle of your brand, the goals of an influencer marketing campaign may vary. It could be to build awareness of the product/service, generate leads and sales, or advertise a new particular promotion. It is crucial to set the goal of the campaign up top to help measure its effectiveness. The crafting and curating of the campaign also vary significantly based on the campaign goals.
If the goal of a campaign is to raise awareness, it would be smart to use a mega influencer who can reach as many people as possible. Similarly, a campaign that is looking to increase sales or leads would rather utilize a less famous but super niche influencer to target a hyper-specialized audience base. Puma, for example, uses a superstar like Sergio Aguero to raise global awareness, whereas a brand like Beardbrand uses super-specific grooming influencers that result in a constant stream of sales.
All this goes on to say that TikTok is the platform to promote your business.
Finding an engaged audience
TikTok is no different from other social media platforms when it comes to the basics of influencer marketing strategies. Just like other platforms, here too knowing the audience is the basis of any campaign. Knowing them in terms of their demographics and geography as well as their likes and dislikes go a long way in crafting an influencer campaign. There is also enough data available through analytics to know the kind of brands they interact with, and influencers they engage with. This helps pinpoint their affinity towards the particular niche you’re targeting on TikTok as well as their relationship with your competitors. Marketers can chart use cases and buyer personas to track the behavior of consumers based on common traits to better understand the audience. This information can be extrapolated across sections of the campaign to accurately depict the effectiveness of different influencer campaigns on TikTok. You can reach massive audiences if you use TikTok and influencers well.
Identify the brand’s tone/voice
Brands spend a lot of time and resources online creating a specialized tone of communication. This helps humanize the brand and present itself as a persona to the audience. Given the effort put into this, it must be preserved through all their marketing campaigns as well. This can be achieved only if the influencer’s original online personal and brand values complement the brands. If an influencer is meant to put on a fake persona just to fit the needs of a brand campaign, it comes off as fake and is detrimental to both the brand and the influencer.
It is important to give the influencer the necessary creative freedom. They are the creative part of the collaboration and need the necessary space to express themselves and bring their creative best to the fore. Creating content for TikTok isn’t like creating content for YouTube, where the entire engagement can be scripted in advance. Hence, it helps if the influencers are encouraged to be their most original selves.
Observe past performances and metrics
Just like an interviewer study, the resume and past work experience of a potential candidate for their organization, the brand in an influencer campaign has access to the influencer’s past campaigns and the measurable outcome from each. The brands they have worked with, the tone of the campaigns, the audiences engaged and the leads generated – these are all readily available data that can help a brand assess if the influencer is the right fit to collaborate with them. Brands are encouraged to think outside the box and not stick to conventional campaign patterns.
Experimentation, sometimes, can help one spot a diamond in the rough. Every campaign costs a certain amount of resources and the marketer’s performance is also judged based on its outcome. Hence, it is necessary to find the right balance between tangible risks and guaranteed success when selecting the right influencer for a TikTok campaign.
Set clear and tangible terms
This is a natural progression from the goal-setting phase for the campaign. While some influencers accept the brand’s products as a form of remuneration, most successful influencers usually have a fixed price they charge. While agreeing on compensation for a campaign, brands should also include essential details such as the influencer’s timelines and deliverables. Be ready with the chain of command that can discuss the content before posting.
The contract that is drawn up between the brand and the influencer should address some additional aspects, given that TikTok is a fairly new and volatile space. These aspects include endorsement disclosures, exclusivity, content ownership, pre-approvals & termination, and IP details. TikTok is a space that has the potential to benefit both parties, and hence, partnerships shouldn’t be skewed either in the favor of the brand or the influencer.
Performance on other social media platforms
Most of the influencers who have managed to establish themselves as TikTok celebrities have a history of creating content on social media across earlier platforms as well. While Instagram has been the traditional hub for influencer marketing, TikTok has caught up quickly. Given that TikTok is completely different from other platforms in terms of its format, there is potential for newer faces as well. The experienced influencers, though, find a way to adapt. By reviewing an influencer’s process of tweaking a brand message across platforms, brands can assess the creative potential of an influencer and its probability of translating on TikTok. King Bach, Jake Paul, and Amanda Cerny are bankable examples of true blue content creators who can adapt to any brand and any platform, given the right support and resources.
Figure 2. Covid-19 seemed to have escalated TikTok’s new user growth. TikTok broke records by having more than 115.2 million installs during March 2020. For comparison, in 2019, Instagram only averaged 111.5M downloads per quarter. Source: Mediakix
Analytics and engagement rates
Like any good brand marketing exercise, brands need to stay on top of campaign performance through analytics and metrics. Especially on TikTok, where trends change every day, brands need to constantly evaluate and evolve based on the performance of every individual post in a campaign. Working closely with the influencer and sharing insights with them based on analytics also helps craft better content that is better suited to the needs of the campaign. Follow the newest trends and think of ways to put your own perspective on them. This way, you can make them more engaging, fun, and informative. And you should also know which metric is important and how to measure them.
There is no second-guessing the fact that TikTok is the right avenue to advertise your brand and influencers are the de facto celebrities of this platform where content is king. Investing in this form of brand marketing helps reach new audiences, increase brand performance and establish a niche within the market. Follow these steps while establishing a rapport with an influencer to get the best out of your marketing campaign.
If you’ve got any questions, we are happy to help you. At AtisfyReach, we provide services that help brands establish a strong presence across social media platforms, and connect them with influencers through tailored marketing campaigns. Register your interest, and let us help you build a true connection with your audience.
