Time To Get Severe About Its Content material Advertising and marketing Promise?

TikTok is a participant.

With over 1 billion energetic customers who spend about 20 hours a month watching movies on the platform, TikTok has an enormous viewers hooked on its content material.

That viewers spent $824 million by means of the platform within the fourth quarter of 2021 alone. And even a Google government acknowledges the platform’s energy, estimating that 40% of Gen Z use TikTok as a search engine to search out issues like locations to eat.

So, the query isn’t whether or not TikTok is an effective platform for content material advertising and marketing. The query is whether or not TikTok is an effective platform on your model.

However there’s one other query to contemplate whether or not you take part on TikTok or not: How does the recognition of TikTok’s short-form movies have an effect on our viewers’s content material expectations and preferences?

We requested this query of the presenters at Content material Advertising and marketing World 2022. They shared their ideas on TikTok’s direct and oblique impression – and so they didn’t dance across the query.

Are @tiktok_us’s short-form #movies reshaping #content material expectations and preferences? #CMWorld audio system share their ideas with @AnnGynn by way of @CMIContent. Click on To Tweet

Take it as a reminder to get actual

At its core, TikTok is emblematic of an overarching pattern during which viewers tastes – together with however not restricted to Gen Z – are basically altering.

How and what does that imply? Audiences are more and more rejecting the overly curated, picture-perfect imagery that had dominated platforms like Instagram. Customers crave authenticity, creativity, humor, and perspective – traits now synonymous with TikTok (and ostensibly rewarded by its algorithm.)

For a real-world instance, look no additional than Duolingo’s TikTok account, pushed by their actually sensible social media supervisor Zaria Parvez. By giving her the autonomy to experiment and push boundaries, Duolingo has grow to be one of the vital profitable manufacturers on the platform. – Michael Bordieri, senior content material options marketing consultant, LinkedIn

Choose a lane

Use it (in case your prospects are there) or lose it (if they’re primarily elsewhere). Delusion: It’s important to be in all places. Actuality: You solely should be within the proper locations – and be good if you end up in these locations. – Kate Bradley Chernis, co-founder and CEO, Currently

Expertise the impression

Even when your group just isn’t on TikTok at the moment, it is going to be within the close to future. Even if you happen to don’t consider me, TikTok is already having a huge effect on content material advertising and marketing in two alternative ways.

First, except you’ve been sleeping below a rock (or don’t have youngsters), TikTok is turning into the default search engine for Gen Z. Whereas Boomers have Google and millennials have YouTube, Gen Z is additional adapting their content material consumption tendencies. With an increasing number of eyeballs going to TikTok looking for options, and with the fundamental tenet of content material advertising and marketing about being seen in all places, TikTok merely can’t be ignored anymore.

The opposite cause is that TikTok is really impacting social media advertising and marketing, the first place the place content material entrepreneurs distribute content material. Even when your group just isn’t on TikTok, your push in direction of creating extra Instagram Reels and probably venturing into YouTube Shorts is because of TikTok’s emergence and growing impression on how we eat content material. – Neal Schaffer, president, PDCA Social

Undertake a search and repurpose mentality

TikTok – and all social media – can have a terrific impression in your content material advertising and marketing. Increasingly more searches for info occur on social platforms, and your content material must be optimized to reply these queries. Digital natives (influencers, model followers, and prospects) – in the event that they’re loving your services or products (or hating it) – will submit about it on social. Consumer-generated content material is very large.

TikTok itself is a good platform for repurposing a few of your finest content material in artistic methods, however please, please, be sure that somebody who is aware of TikTok and genuine engagement creates the content material. – Jenn VandeZande, editor-in-chief, SAP Buyer Expertise

Welcome the beforehand inaccessible

TikTok has opened up an entire new creator economic system that reaches an viewers that isn’t at all times accessible by means of extra conventional channels. Content material entrepreneurs ought to embrace TikTok if their viewers spends time there.

However, most significantly – they shouldn’t simply be making their very own content material on their very own channel. Harnessing the authenticity and energy of TikTok creators to talk genuinely about your model can do wonders. This implies you want to let go of some management. However if you happen to do it proper, everybody wins. – Inbar Yagur, director of content material and product advertising and marketing, Lusha

Don’t simply make your individual @tiktok_us #content material. Harness the authenticity and energy of TikTok creators on your model, says @Content_Fairy by way of @AnnGynn @CMIContent. #CMWorld Click on To Tweet

Say hello to all ages, however don’t power it

The hashtag #TikTokTaughtMe has greater than 6 billion views on TikTok. Whereas TikTok is understood for dance crazes and viral sounds, extra manufacturers discover a captive viewers for his or her content material advertising and marketing on the platform. It’s not only for teenagers and younger adults. It’s turning into a go-to place for folks to search out info that’s instructional, too.

However manufacturers must be cautious how they implement the tendencies on TikTok. Movies must be pure and never pressured. Many manufacturers have even assigned or employed particular people to be their face on the platform. – Andi Robinson, international digital content material advertising and marketing, Corteva Agriscience 

Expertise the most effective or the worst

It is dependent upon how a lot of your viewers is on TikTok and if it’s an acceptable channel on your model. Most individuals will say it’s. For them, it’s straight diverting consideration and sources away from the extra funnel-driven content material actions that assist produce enterprise outcomes. However the consciousness and engagement that may derive from good TikTok content material may pour gasoline in your content material advertising and marketing hearth. Relying on the enterprise and the savvy of your content material staff, TikTok might be the most effective factor affecting your effort. It is also the worst. – Jason Falls, senior affect strategist, Cornett

Take into account the return (or lack thereof)

What’s TikTok? Present me the ROI from any program in TikTok (or Snapchat, for that matter.) – Michael Brenner, CEO, Advertising and marketing Insider Group

Get good at short-form tales

TikTok straight impacts content material advertising and marketing as a result of it units the bar excessive for short-form content material. It places followers on the middle and is all about engagement. I can dissect a five-second TikTok for a half hour in a workshop as a result of it’s wealthy in storytelling. There’s no room for fluff. It’s a lovely distillation of what all of us want to realize in all our content material, even when we’ve been allowed to waffle on with lengthy codecs. It’s a pleasure peddler, and all of us want extra of that in our content material advertising and marketing groups. – Jon Burkhart, founder, TBC International Restricted

Spin a sticky internet

TikTok is quickly rising and perhaps sticker than Spiderman for multigenerational audiences. Customers spend over 50 minutes on the app every day watching and creating new tendencies, which is taking time and eyeballs away from different channels.

TikTok has overthrown Fb and Twitter on my telephone and even has me making an attempt the silliest tendencies to see what it’s like. In my opinion, it’s probably the greatest user-generated platforms out there proper now and exhibits no indicators of slowing down. Competitors is excessive, and content material entrepreneurs must be extra artistic to recapture a few of their viewers’s time if their model just isn’t Tik Tok appropriate. – Karen McFarlane, chief advertising and marketing officer, LetterShop

@tiktok_us could also be stickier than Spiderman for multigenerational audiences, says @KarenMcFarlane by way of @AnnGynn @CMIContent. #ContentMarketing #CMWorld Click on To Tweet

Get artistic

TikTok is forcing everybody to be some sort of artistic. This can be as a speaking head or an editor. You’re pressured to study and adapt in some sort of capability. This additionally blurs the road of edutainment. – Michelle Ngome, founder and government director, African American Advertising and marketing Affiliation

Velocity it up

Have a dialog with somebody below 25, and also you’ll understand how a lot TikTok impacts content material advertising and marketing. “I noticed it on TikTok” is a typical phrase. Hearken to the TikTok channel on SiriusXM and see what number of songs are sped-up variations – two to a few instances the conventional velocity of the track. Even Saturday Night time Dwell has skits about TikTok.

The TikTok technology desires quick, simply consumable content material that helps them do one thing. As TikTok customers more and more grow to be that worker researching a B2B buy, take into consideration how they need to eat info. It’s not a 20-page e-book viewers. Quick, helpful info is the brand new model for early-stage product analysis. – Penny Gralewski, senior director, product and portfolio advertising and marketing, DataRobot

Develop relationships

TikTok has mastered the artwork of speedy influencer creation. So, if there’s an untapped alternative, it may be understanding the right way to construct deeper, longer-term relationships with the influencers and micro-influencers you uncover on TikTok. – Andrew Davis, creator and keynote speaker, Monumental Shift

Be there

It’s essential have a plan for TikTok. It’s now not a platform that may be ignored. – Meg Coffey, managing director, Coffey & Tea

Respect the potential

TikTok has confirmed how highly effective video content material might be and bolstered many finest practices when creating video content material. Not each model must be on TikTok – and most manufacturers shouldn’t be on TikTok except they’re in a consumer-facing area with a Gen Z viewers.

Nevertheless, content material entrepreneurs throughout industries ought to spend a while on TikTok to see the right way to craft participating short-form movies, examples of the right way to overlay textual content and captions, and inspiration to create enjoyable video content material. – Erika Heald, founder, lead marketing consultant, Erika Heald Advertising and marketing Consulting

Content material entrepreneurs ought to spend time on @tiktok_us to see the right way to craft participating short-form #movies, says @SFerika by way of @AnnGynn @CMIContent. #CMWorld Click on To Tweet

Go there for giant promotion, however don’t anticipate belief

It’s a spot to make very short-form movies seen to large, numerous teams of individuals. If brief movies can convey one thing significant on your model, and if you wish to attain massive, numerous teams of individuals, it might be a promotion channel.

If you want to construct belief, you want longer type content material. If you wish to be environment friendly, you want smaller, extra focused audiences. You want account-based advertising and marketing (ABM). TikTok is the polar reverse of ABM. – Andy Crestodina, co-founder and chief advertising and marketing officer, Orbit Media Studios

If you wish to be environment friendly, you want smaller, focused audiences. @tiktok_us is the alternative of ABM, says @crestodina by way of @CMIContent. #CMWorld Click on To Tweet

Know your content material opponents

Something that alters our expectations for on-line content material impacts content material advertising and marketing. On the subject of the eye of our viewers, we’re not competing solely with our enterprise opponents. We’re competing with every little thing they learn or have a look at, or take heed to on-line, together with TikTok. Folks anticipate manufacturers to respect their time and earn their consideration by educating and even entertaining them with our content material—even content material that has a enterprise goal. – Monica Norton, head of content material advertising and marketing, Yelp

Have a plan

TikTok generally is a distribution channel for content material if the model’s viewers is there and if there’s a devoted technique. No model ought to launch a distribution channel with out devoted administration of that channel, although, together with a technique and KPIs to measure its effectiveness over time. – Tracey Wallace, director of content material technique, Klaviyo

Assume and suppose once more

Everybody acknowledges the ability and effectiveness of the TikTok algorithm. Any content material marketer that isn’t a minimum of exploring methods to leverage that channel is leaving income on the desk. I’m not saying that each model ought to have a channel on TikTok, however each model ought to a minimum of be fascinated with how they will leverage TikTok. – Brian Piper, director of content material technique and evaluation, College of Rochester

See short-form potential

Indubitably, TikTok has highlighted the significance of short-form video throughout the content material advertising and marketing board. Nevertheless it doesn’t imply content material entrepreneurs ought to go all-in on creating simply this sort of content material for one platform solely.

As a substitute, TikTok is inspiring extra artistic thought of how short-form video can grow to be a part of your total content material technique and how one can streamline its creation. Maybe you need to lead with creating short-form movies for a number of channels (e.g., TikTok, Instagram Reels, YouTube shorts), or perhaps you need to create longer-form movies and repurpose them into short-form movies. Video is essentially the most versatile content material format, so create with repurposing in thoughts, and your funding will go far. – Amy Woods, founder and CEO, Content material 10x

Is the time proper on your model?

None of those specialists can inform you whether or not your model must be on TikTok. However their enter ought to higher put together you to reply the query.

And even when the reply is not any, don’t disregard the favored platform. As a substitute, proceed to observe its impression on content material creation total. Genuine, short-form content material might be a powerful participant for years to return.

Cowl picture by Joseph Kalinowski/Content material Advertising and marketing Institute