“Follow Me to London” – a special event organised by TikTok on 29 Oct 2022 was the chance for this year’s hottest social network to present to businesses and agencies how the app has grown recently, and its plans for the coming year. Here are the main takeaways from the day…
It is clear that TikTok has captured the attention of the UK public. On average, users spend an hour and a half on TikTok every day. It is fast becoming a central part of any advertising campaign, across many industries.
On the awareness front, TikTok now offers “TopView”, which takes over the full screen for 3 seconds, when users open the app. This ad placement is great for brand-awareness, akin to YouTube’s masthead ads – though it has been known to perform much better than masthead ads ever did!
Focus on performance
TikTok is pivoting away from being seen as an awareness-only platform, with several new performance marketing features designed to attract ecommerce clients. At the forefront is “TikTok Shop”, which allows users to discover and make purchases with TikTok. The company is also beta testing live-shopping features.
Lower production values
Advertising on TikTok differs from other platforms, as users want more authenticity from brands. This translates into less-polished production, rather than a corporate look and feel.
There is also a general shift towards community-led content, where content is created for a specific community, often by members of that same community.
New tools for marketers
In a bid to continue wooing advertisers, new tools are regularly made available on TikTok, especially to assist with content creation:
- TikTok Video Templates – use existing creative and run different variations against them.
- SmartVideo – mix together static images / videos with royalty-free music to make creative variations.
- VideoEditor – make quick minor changes to existing advertiser videos.
- TikTok Creative Center – get guidance on creative direction, such as popular hashtags, creators, sounds, which provides a quick way to identify trends.
- TikTok Creator Marketplace – directly partner with creators, and develop strong on-going relationships with popular TikTokers who have a large audience.
Read our TikTok marketing case study
