It’s been a busy few months for TikTok. Downloads of the app for making and sharing short video content have skyrocketed as people stuck at home seek entertainment, and maybe even stardom. In the first quarter of this year, TikTok was downloaded 307 million times, more than any other app in the world. (Since its 2016 launch, the app has been downloaded about 1.9 billion times globally.) Just this week, Kevin Mayer, the top streaming exec at Disney, was named TikTok’s chief executive and COO of its parent company, ByteDance, a Chinese conglomerate.
ByteDance’s Machine Learning technology (aka the TikTok algorithm) is famously mysterious. It learns fast, quickly tailoring content to an individual’s taste based on their behavior, location, and demographic data. For an individual creator, there’s no formula for instant success. But for advertisers, there are a few pointers, namely this: content that resembles most of what’s already on TikTok does best. Ad content that mirrors organic posts are more likely to appear on a user’s curated “For You” section and perform better than ads that take a user out of the viewing experience.
A good case study comes from E.l.f. cosmetics, a mass-market beauty brand that leveraged organic popularity on the platform to create one of the most influential campaigns in the app’s history. In an interview with beauty trade magazine Glossy, Chief Marketing Officer Kory Marchisotto said that there were over 3.5 million views of #elfcosmetics before the company even started with paid media last fall. Once those numbers hit the brand’s radar, TikTok marketing became a central part of E.l.f.’s overall rebranding strategy, which included a packaging redesign and social media presence upgrade.
The brand used a hashtag challenge, which capitalized on the create-and-share ecosystem of the platform. Because it’s reliant on user-generated content (UGC) that’s easy for creators to provide, this format has a high potential for “baked-in virality.” Users posted over 3 million videos with the challenge hashtag. Celebrities like Reese Witherspoon and Lizzo participated organically. The original song E.l.f. created for the challenge was extended from its original 15 seconds and made available on Spotify and iTunes, where it was streamed millions of times. With upwards of 35% of users participating in challenges, there’s a real upside to encouraging potential consumers to be creative and engage with a brand without necessarily having to make a purchase. Brand awareness is a long-term investment. For those looking for something more immediate, there are also in-feed influencer posts, which can include purchases through the app. Levi’s recently had success with this, doubling views for products it featured in a shoppable TikTok campaign.
But it’s not just consumer brands — everyone wants a piece. As The Hollywood Reporter recently reported, labels have been paying “as much as $25,000 to debut new songs with creators on the app in an effort to gin up buzz and get the track to chart.” Beauty brands, clothing companies, record labels, all of them see the value of reaching consumers through authentic content. At Studio71, we work closely with the platform to amplify creators and help brands connect with and expand their audience. So the real question is: what can TikTok do for you?
