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TikTok has passed the 1 Billion monthly users mark and continues its reign as the top downloaded app for 2019, 2020, 2021, and into 2022. However, it's not just lip syncing and comedy skits anymore. More than half of all TikTok users are over the age of 30 and, on average, they're spending 52 minutes a day on the platform, allowing brands to capitalize on a large and engaged audience.
When I say engaged, I mean capital 'E' Engaged. TikTok influencers have engagement many multiples higher than on other social media platforms. These influencers are showing an engagement rate of 17.96% on TikTok compared to 3.86% on Instagram and 1.63% on YouTube.
It is critical to know how to use TikTok for business! The marketing opportunities for brands targeting this demographic are unrivaled, and the platform shows no signs of slowing down. Working with TikTok influencers boasts multiple benefits.
Let’s dive into why a company should do it and how it’ll help grow its business.
The Importance of TikTok Influencers for Brands
With the countless platforms you can focus your marketing on - not to mention the various other digital marketing techniques - you might be wondering why you should concentrate on TikTok. As one of the fastest-growing social media platforms on the planet, it’s a central hub for a potentially large number of customers. You should also learn how do you go live on tiktok to market your brand!
It’s not something you’ll pay to advertise to a wealth of uninterested people, however. It’s an interest-focused platform, with users only being shown accounts and ads they’re likely to engage in. Advertising on TikTok puts you in front of customers likely to buy from you.
While you’ll need to tailor your content to take advantage of this, exposing your brand to people with your own TikTok slogan will have a genuine interest in what you offer is essential. Coupled with this are the high engagement rates you’ll see compared to other platforms. As mentioned above, you could see four times more engagement on TikTok than any other platform. It is worth taking the time to learn how to promote tiktok videos for your brand!
When done correctly, you'll be discovered by more potential customers and start cultivating a relationship with them. Your TikTok influencer marketing efforts can make or break your success as this is the next iteration in product placement and user generated trust.
Why are TikTok Influencers So Popular and How Can You Work With Them?
TikTok influencers are one of the best ways to develop a customer base on the platform. While partnering with someone like Charli D'Amelio who has more than 140 million followers on TikTok seems like the only way to succeed, there are millions more social media influencers with a smaller number of followers who can greatly impact your brand.
Content creators regularly release videos on TikTok on everything from fashion to food to business ideas to comedy skits to... you get the picture. In many cases, they even post several times a day - though, this varies significantly depending on the specific influencer. In doing this, they show their authentic selves, express their beliefs, and build trust with their followers.
You can see them as people with a large following of potential customers to whom you can advertise your company. Since these influencers usually focus on a single topic - or related topics - they’ll fit into specific niches and categories.
That makes identifying the right talent to work with more straightforward. But, how exactly do you work with them?
How to create a successful campaign with TikTok influencers
Working with TikTok influencers leads to greater brand awareness, higher engagement, more leads (our goal), and, ultimately, more sales. However, most brands tend to limit their outcomes when working with influencers. They think of the relationship as promotional or advertorial and miss out on the opportunity to effectively transact from the partnership. By driving leads, brands are able to build a direct relationship with the audience and effectively market (and convert) those audiences over and again.
Doing this requires thorough research and effective planning from the outset. Here’s how you’ll need to go about it.
The first step in this is to have clear goals and expectations for the campaign. It’s worth doing this before you target and reach out to any TikTok influencers.
It’s also worth asking yourself a few questions to lay out your TikTok campaign’s details, including:
- What’s your budget?
- How many TikTok influencers do you want to work with?
- How long do you want the campaign to run?
- Do you have the resources to capitalize on the campaign?
Now that you have your goals and expectations in mind, let's tackle the three core areas of your TikTok influencer campaign.
How to Identify the Right Influencers
Now that you’ve set your campaign’s goals, it’s time to find TikTok influencers that will help you achieve your goals. Your first instinct could be to find accounts in your industry that have thousands or, even, a million followers. However, that might not be the best option based upon your goals.
The quality and engagement of an account’s fanbase matters much more than how many followers they have. Sure, working with Addison Rae means you're able to get in front of her 88M+ followers, but it would also cost 6-figures. However, by working with 25 creators who are 1/25 the size or 100 creators who are 1/100 the size would allow you to spread your budget across micro or even nano-influencers. This is the ideal method to mitigate your risk and get your brand in front of active, engaged accounts that are more closely aligned with your brand.
Going for something more niche makes sure audiences have an interest in your type of business and product. Is there a quick way to figure out how to identify the right TikTok influencers? Five tips help:
- Look for accounts already talking about your industry, specifically your brand
- Ask your community about TikTok accounts they follow
- Identify accounts your competitors have worked with in the past
- Spend time going through TikTok
- See who your target market is already engaging with
This process can be simplified through various influencer marketing tools or competition monitoring solutions. Once you’ve identified the influencers you’ll use, it’s time to go about contacting them and making an offer.
Sending an email is recommended. Most content creators won't have their email linked in their TikTok profiles, but they can easily be found in their hyperlinked Instagram profiles, websites, or link in bio tools.
In your outreach efforts, do not... I repeat, DO NOT send mass, connectionless emails asking for posts or videos that recommend your product. Even if templated, make the emails personal. Show them what value your product offers for their followers. Connect on something they've done in a post. And ALWAYS offer some form of compensation. Whether a solid affiliate commission or upfront flat fee or product equivalent to the value received, make sure it's fair. This is one of those areas that you truly get what you pay for.
Create a shortlist of the TikTok influencers you want to work with, and then:
- Research Their Contact Information - Influencers prefer different ways of being contacted. While some don’t mind being contacted through the platform, others will have agents or business emails to contact them through. Find out what they’d prefer and go through the appropriate channels.
- Introduce Yourself - Be clear about who you are and what you do. Highlight your business when you’re doing this and why you think they’d be a great fit for the campaign.
- Ask For A Media Kit - Many influencers have media kits, no matter their social media platform. Ask for this when you first reach out to them. It’ll include a detailed breakdown of their audience, sponsorship rates, and all other important information. Make sure you do this before making any offers.
With that, it’s time to start managing your workflow.
How to Manage Your Workflow
Managing your TikTok campaign’s workflow can seem as tricky as finding and working with influencers in the first place. It doesn’t need to be. Having a comprehensive and planned-out workflow doesn’t have to be complicated. It’s worth putting this into place before you start researching accounts to work with and reaching out.
Keeping this as simple as possible makes it go smoothly and makes sure nothing is overlooked. Here’s a six-step workflow to manage your influencer campaign, which shouldn’t be too different from managing an email marketing workflow. It includes:
- Planning - You’ll need to understand and define your objectives while being realistic about your timeline and key performance indicators.
- Finding Influencers - Selecting the best TikTok influencers for your brand is essential. Spend time researching this, as we outlined above.
- Contracting - With your influencers on board, it’s time to agree on and finalize a contract. There could be some back and forth with this.
- Execute - Now that everything’s in writing, it’s time to execute the contract and let your influencer campaign unfold.
- Measurement - You’ll need to measure your campaign based on the KPIs you set at the start of your workflow.
- Review - Once the campaign is finished, it’s time to measure the results against the expected results. You can plan future campaigns based on these.
Having a clear and straightforward workflow makes it much easier to manage and get through, increasing your odds of nailing those partnerships and developing leads.
Generating and Capitalizing on Leads
Generating leads - and converting them - is our desired outcome here. Without these, you won't see the sales growth you want. While there isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach, you’ll need to tackle several areas when you’re putting your campaign together.
First, you'll want to ensure that you know where you're driving the influencers' audiences. Many brands make the mistake of using influencers to drive people back to their homepage. Big mistake. Each potential customer should be driven to a campaign specific landing page where you'll build your email list. You'll want to ensure that your influencers have a clear offer (i.e. '20% your first purchase', 'download for free now', 'enter to win', etc.) and a compelling reason to give you their information.
Focus on these from the start and work with the TikTok influencers you’re partnering with to customize your lead generation to their audience. You’ll have to focus on specific areas when you’re doing this and follow particular lead generation best practices, including:
- Use high-quality calls-to-action
- Optimize videos and any text for conversions
- Consider the stage in the buying cycle the audience is in
- Create a CTA-oriented video storyline
- Use branded and targeted hashtags
- Drive to a campaign specific landing page
- Give a compelling reason for customers to leave their contact information
Remember, this is an iterative process. Getting feedback from the influencers you’re working with is recommended. They'll have real-time feedback from their audiences on what's working and what's not through engagement rates, view rates, and link click metrics. Take their feedback and ideas into account when you’re putting everything together. Your campaign is more likely to convert because of this.
After you've generated the leads you'll want to continue to engage them. Having a robust email marketing plan in place, will help to ensure that you're able to actually convert leads into customers.
Real Examples from Real Companies
When you’re planning a TikTok influencer campaign, it’s helpful to have a few examples to see what can be done on the platform. To start, consider searching TikTok's Top Ads or, even, Facebook's Ad Library for popular Reels to find high-performing content. Here are a few recent examples of successful brand partnerships:
- Brooklinen - Over the years Brooklinen has become a masterclass in using influencers as an acquisition channel. To see how they operate, log into your TikTok account and search 'Brooklinen'. If you filter for 'this week' and 'relevance', you'll see countless videos like this one by Blake Swanson that received more than 64K+ 'likes'. However, the thing to note is that Blake includes her link in her bio and her unique discount code within the comments to spur further engagement.
- Jones Road Beauty - Bobbi Brown recently sold Bobbi Brown Cosmetics and used her years of experience in pioneering influencer marketing on YouTube and Instagram to influence (pun not intended) her efforts on TikTok with her new brand, Jones Road Beauty. Partnering with talent like James Charles, JRB has been able to drive people to their landing page where they offer a 'shade match quiz' in order to find the perfect shade for your skin type and simultaneously making their way into your inbox with weekly tips, tricks, and incentives to purchase.
While you shouldn’t steal ideas from competitors and other companies for your influencer marketing efforts, it’s worth using them as inspiration.
Final Thoughts - Grow like a Pro
TikTok has quickly become one of the largest social media platforms in the world, with the interest-based video sharing site boasting more engagement than alternatives. It offers a wealth of untapped potential for marketing professionals and brands.
Partnering with TikTok influencers is an effective way of increasing your brand awareness, growing your leads, and increasing your sales. Taking advantage of this is far from complicated, but it does require some strategic thinking. These tips should help you get started on the right foot with your influencer marketing campaign.
