Up to 60 seconds long videos, underlaid with music and spiced up with graphic effects – this is how users put themselves in the limelight for their audience. TikTok is, if you like, a mix of Snapchat, Vine and Instagram, a karaoke function and a mature one
Video editor – and immensely successful with this concept.
Emerging from the musical.ly app launched six years ago, TikTok is now one of the fastest growing social media platforms with over 800 million users worldwide. And one with the youngest audience: 69 percent of users are between 16 and 24 years old.
That makes TikTok an exciting marketing channel. Also for tourism professionals, because travel topics are among the popular content on the platform. The first tourist players are taking advantage of this. Destinations such as Dubai, Japan, Seoul and Thailand are active under the hashtag #tiktoktravel. You counteract the wanderlust of young users in the Corona crisis and offer suggestions for future trips. Innsbruck Tourismus is one of the TikTok pioneers in Austria.
However, very few brands are currently using TikTok as a marketing platform. This is an advantage for newcomers because the platform is not yet inundated with marketing content.
Currency is interactions, not followers
Another argument in favor of TikTok: content counts more than the sender. The algorithm favors those posts that generate a lot of interactions in the first hour. With the right content, it is no problem at all for an account with only 100 followers to achieve tens of thousands of views. The relevant “currency” on the platform is therefore the number of interactions, not that of the followers.
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Appropriate content is mandatory
What do you have to consider if you want to use the platform? First of all: Your own target group should be affine for “young” video content. And you should expect a certain amount of effort for content production. Simply posting the same content as on Instagram and Co. will not work. The TikTok audience has special demands, the platform follows its own rules.
So-called challenge videos, for example, are very popular. The users encourage each other to imitate and participate. Another promising strategy can be to present brands with the help of protagonists who attract the attention of the community and actively involve them. The more interaction, the higher the chance that the video will “go viral” and appear prominently on the so-called “For You” page.
Real-Time-Marketing in Reinkultur
As always, the key to success is knowing your target groups exactly and tailoring the content to their interests and needs. TikTok is a fast moving platform. In order not to lose the interest of the community, real-time marketing is the order of the day. This means that companies must react promptly and always take current trends into account. The challenges mentioned above are only interesting for the community for an average of 48 hours. The content must therefore not only have a so-called “creative twist”, but also be up to date – and designed in such a way that it “picks up” the target group. As always with moving images on social media, the first three seconds decide whether a video is liked or not.
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Advertising options still immature
As exciting as TikTok may be as a marketing platform, it still poses a number of challenges for professional users. For example, you cannot create a company profile yourself, only TikTok can do that. Finding a contact who will do it for you is not that easy and once you have found one, the waiting times are long. The platform has meanwhile developed a tool similar to Facebook Business Manager for displaying ads, but this is not yet available in Austria. Instead, advertisements have to be booked via the agency team by request – a comparatively time-consuming procedure. Various formats are available for ads. “In-Feed Native” videos appear in the “For You” feed, including a call-to-action function for forwarding to landing pages or app downloads. With “Top View” a video is played in full screen for 5-60 seconds, immediately after opening the app. There are also paid hashtag challenges and branded effects and filters. During the “Brand Takeover” a still image or a GIF appears as a full image for 3-5 seconds – the time is selected by the algorithm.
Facebook is following suit
Charles Bahr, “Generation Z Guru” among the social media experts and Brand Partnerships Manager at TikTok since July 2020, is convinced: “TikTok is massively changing the way content is created. It’s not a passing trend like Snapchat. The platform shapes the communication of an entire generation and thus creates its own community. “
TikTok is without a doubt an exciting channel in tourism marketing. Österreich Werbung has also already checked the deployment. We have refrained from advertising for reasons of data protection law.
Alternatives are now also opening up. The social media giant Facebook, for example, has already reacted to the success of TikTok and, with the Instagram Reels, has also created the opportunity to enhance short clips with effects, music and creative animations. However, compared to the original, the copy is still in its infancy.
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