Our Top 5 Takeaways From TikTok World
Last week, the Homies attended TikTok World 2021, a virtual event introducing new creative, branding, and commerce solutions and opportunities for brands on TikTok. In case you missed it, no worries. Read on for a few of our top takeaways!
THE BEST ADS LOOK AND FEEL LIKE TIKTOKS
TikTok began by sharing that when brands join their platform, they tell them to think like marketers and act like creatives. Why? Because the best performing ads look and feel like TikToks. They are enjoyable, entertaining, and feel native to the TikTok community. When advertising is delivered like ads but looks like entertainment, brands see incredible results and are able to connect with their audience.
So how do brands create videos that really resonate with users? TikTok shared two ways: brands can either partner with Creators to leverage their expertise or the brand can become the Creator themselves.
When partnering with Creators, there are four features available to those with a TikTok ad account that can assist with the process:
This is a self-serve portal that makes it easy to find Creators that best align with your brands. You can filter based on the type of content they post, where they’re located, their average views, and more! You can also open campaign applications for Creators to view and self-identify if they’d like to apply to participate.
This is another self-serve portal that matches brands with vetted creative service providers to help you produce high-performing ads suited to your brief and objectives. You can manage projects, approvals, insights, and more with this feature!
This feature enables brands to boost organic content in a user’s feed, whether that organic content comes from a Creator’s account or a brands’ business account. TikTok even shared that this feature pulls in 3x as many likes and 240% greater view-through rates.
COMING SOON: INDUSTRY FIRST INNOVATION
Launching in 2022, this feature will be a new advertising solution that TikTok claims will blend media, creator branded content, and user participation like never before.
That’s not all! TikTok also shared a few resources to help brands looking to become a Creator themselves:
This feature helps advertisers learn what’s working on the platform in real-time. You can explore top-performing ads, see details on the latest trends, case studies, and more!
This feature allows brands to edit and customize content on a desktop. It includes TikTok copyrighted music, fonts, text colors, creative dimension, and more. The platform even shared that using this tool can improve performance as it has already reduced cost per action by 46% among advertisers.
COMING SOON: DYNAMIC SCENE
In the coming months, TikTok will release Dynamic Scene, which will build creative from pre-existing content. It will use machine learning to break apart a video from multiple scenes and then reassemble them in hundreds of variations based on audience preference. It then tests these ad variations with different audiences. It can even add elements like music, transition effects, and text to keep the creative fresh and extend its lifespan!
TikTok has partnered with Vimeo and Canva to create templates that make content creation that much easier!
FOUR TACTICS EVERY BRAND SHOULD MASTER
TikTok went on to share four important tactics that every brand should master in order to succeed on the platform. Every tactic has three levels and every level unlocks new features to improve your campaign performance.
The tactics include:
ATTRIBUTION (WEB AND APP)
Passing conversion and value data back to TikTok is the first requirement for building a winning strategy. TikTok’s Attribution Hub has everything your CTO or developer teams need to review and advise you on the best solution for your business.
Here are the three levels for web attribution:
Level 1: Standard Pixel
Level 2: Developer Pixel
Level 3: Events API
Here are the three levels for app attribution:
Level 1: MMP Install Postbacks
Level 2: MMP Events Postback
Level 3: TikTok SDK
TARGETING, BIDDING, AND OPTIMIZATION
It is crucial for your organization to have resources dedicated to the day-to-day running of your TikTok campaigns on our self-serve platform. Why? Because 1.) these three things are the central levels that impact and improve campaign performance and 2.) the platform evolves quickly and it is important your team is always up to date.
The levels include:
Level 1: Targeting
Level 2: Bidding
Level 3: Optimization
CATALOGUES
Catalogues, also known as product feeds, are the central piece to your commerce ecosystem on TikTok - from Tiktok Shopping, Dynamic Showcase ads, to all commerce ad solutions.
There are three levels of catalogue integration:
Level 1: Manual Products Upload (No Catalogue)
Level 2: Catalogue Template File
Level 3: Catalogue Feed
CREATIVE PRODUCTION
Every TikTok is a full-screen, sound-on video, meaning every piece of content is: more memorable, sees higher engagement, and richer interactions. It is vital to have a steady and fresh supply of creatives fed into your account on a weekly basis.
Here are the three levels of creative production:
Level 1: Adapting existing creatives
Level 2: Build creatives specific to TikTok in-house and/or via Creators
Level 3: Leverage Creative Partners Ecosystem
This level is considered best practice. At this level, you have a TikTok creative API partner on retainer feeding you 5-10 new creatives per week.
TIKTOK IS AN ENTIRELY SOUND-ON ENTERTAINMENT EXPERIENCE
One thing the brand seemed to place an emphasis on is that TikTok is an entirely sound-on entertainment experience, which demands the full attention of users. This full sound, full screen, and full focus environment leads to full engagement for content and advertising. This is unlike anything we’ve ever seen before, so use this unique sound-on platform to your advantage!
TIPS FOR CREATION AND CO-CREATION
When partnering with a Creator, TikTok revealed that you’ll gain a lot by giving up a little. Instead of being a helicopter marketing manager, provide guardrails for the Creator to be themselves and allow them to bring their own creative touch to your campaign.
Whether you’re partnering with a Creator or acting as the Creator yourself, TikTok also shared a few tips:
Comments are the new creative briefs for social. Think of every new comment like another great idea waiting to be shared. Drive connection and engagement with your audience by peppering in reactive content (aka video replies to comments) into your content calendar.
Take advantage of sounds, filters, and effects.
Don’t just show the finished product, show people how you got there. TikTok’s audience values authenticity.
Harness the power of smaller audiences (hellooo, #FoodTok) in order to reach bigger audiences on TikTok. Get involved in those smaller communities by using their hashtags, creating content tailored to them, and engaging with pre-existing posts.
TIKTOK STATS YOU SHOULD KNOW
TikTok shared some notable stats throughout TikTok World that truly showcased the power the application has in the realm of social media marketing.
Here are a few:
In the past year, TikTok has become the most downloaded app in the world.
The app has seen a 94% growth rate, while the top five other largest social apps have only seen 11%.
It has one billion users on the platform.
TikTok has evolved into a “shop and tell” place (hellooo, #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt). In fact, people are 1.7x more likely to purchase products discovered on TikTok.
7 out of 10 users say TikTok ads are enjoyable.
TikTok sees 10% better ad receptivity on average compared to other platforms.
Ads on TikTok are 23% more memorable than television ads and even outperformed TV ads by 40%.
We hope you found this blog post helpful in learning more about the current and future opportunities for brands on TikTok. Interested in learning more? Click here to watch the entire recording of TikTok World 2021.
Looking for help with TikTok management? Fill out our intake form here.
xx,
The Homies
