Time To Get Serious About Its Content Marketing Promise?

TikTok is a participant.

With over 1 billion active users 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 the platform within the fourth quarter of 2021 alone. And even a Google govt 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 to your model.

But 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 Marketing World 2022. They shared their ideas on TikTok’s direct and oblique affect – they usually didn’t dance across the query.

Are @tiktok_us’s short-form #videos reshaping #content expectations and preferences? #CMWorld speakers share their thoughts with @AnnGynn via @CMIContent. Click To Tweet

Take it as a reminder to get actual

At its core, TikTok is emblematic of an overarching development 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. Users 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 turn into some of the profitable manufacturers on the platform. – Michael Bordieri, senior content material options advisor, LinkedIn

Pick a lane

Use it (in case your clients are there) or lose it (if they’re primarily elsewhere). Myth: You must be in all places. Reality: You solely must be in the appropriate locations – and be good when you find yourself in these locations. – Kate Bradley Chernis, co-founder and CEO, Lately

Adopt a search and repurpose mentality

TikTok – and all social media – can have an excellent affect in your content material advertising and marketing. More and extra searches for data occur on social platforms, and your content material ought to be optimized to reply these queries. Digital natives (influencers, model followers, and clients) – in the event that they’re loving your services or products (or hating it) – will submit about it on social. User-generated content material is very large.

TikTok itself is a good platform for repurposing a few of your greatest content material in inventive methods, however please, please, make sure that somebody who is aware of TikTok and genuine engagement creates the content material. – Jenn VandeZande, editor-in-chief, SAP Customer Experience

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 extra conventional channels. Content entrepreneurs ought to embrace TikTok if their viewers spends time there.

But, 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 means you might want to let go of some management. But in case you do it proper, everybody wins. – Inbar Yagur, director of content material and product advertising and marketing, Lusha

Don’t just make your own @tiktok_us #content. Harness the authenticity and power of TikTok creators for your brand, says @Content_Fairy via @AnnGynn @CMIContent. #CMWorld Click To Tweet

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

The hashtag #TikTokTaughtMe has greater than 6 billion views on TikTok. While 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 is not only for teenagers and younger adults. It’s changing into a go-to place for individuals to search out data that’s academic, too.

But manufacturers should be cautious how they implement the traits on TikTok. Videos should be pure and never compelled. Many manufacturers have even assigned or employed particular people to be their face on the platform. – Andi Robinson, world digital content material advertising and marketing, Corteva Agriscience 

Experience the perfect or the worst

It relies on how a lot of your viewers is on TikTok and if it’s an applicable channel to 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. But the attention and engagement that may derive from good TikTok content material might also pour gasoline in your content material advertising and marketing fireplace. Depending on the enterprise and the savvy of your content material crew, TikTok could possibly be the perfect factor affecting your effort. It is also the worst. – Jason Falls, senior affect strategist, Cornett

Consider the return (or lack thereof)

What’s TikTok? Show me the ROI from any program in TikTok (or Snapchat, for that matter.) – Michael Brenner, CEO, 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 heart 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 phenomenal 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 Global Limited

Spin a sticky internet

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

TikTok has overthrown Facebook and Twitter on my telephone and even has me making an attempt the silliest traits to see what it’s like. In my view, it’s among the finest user-generated platforms available in the market proper now and reveals no indicators of slowing down. Competition is excessive, and content material entrepreneurs should be extra inventive to recapture a few of their viewers’s time if their model will not be Tik Tok appropriate. – Karen McFarlane, chief advertising and marketing officer, LetterShop

@tiktok_us may be stickier than Spiderman for multigenerational audiences, says @KarenMcFarlane via @AnnGynn @CMIContent. #ContentMarketing #CMWorld Click To Tweet

Get inventive

TikTok is forcing everybody to be some type of inventive. This could also be as a speaking head or an editor. You are compelled to be taught and adapt in some sort of capability. This additionally blurs the road of edutainment. – Michelle Ngome, founder and govt director, African American Marketing Association

Speed it up

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

The TikTok era desires quick, simply consumable content material that helps them do one thing. As TikTok customers more and more turn into that worker researching a B2B buy, take into consideration how they wish to devour data. It’s not a 20-page e-book viewers. Short, helpful data is the brand new type 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 is perhaps understanding how you can 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

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

Appreciate the potential

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

However, content material entrepreneurs throughout industries ought to spend a while on TikTok to see how you can craft engaging short-form videos, examples of how you can overlay textual content and captions, and inspiration to create enjoyable video content material. – Erika Heald, founder, lead advisor, Erika Heald Marketing Consulting

Content marketers should spend time on @tiktok_us to see how to craft engaging short-form #videos, says @SFerika via @AnnGynn @CMIContent. #CMWorld Click To Tweet

Go there for large 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 to your model, and if you wish to attain massive, numerous teams of individuals, it could possibly be a promotion channel.

If you might want to construct belief, you want longer kind 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 want to be efficient, you need smaller, targeted audiences. @tiktok_us is the opposite of ABM, says @crestodina via @CMIContent. #CMWorld Click To Tweet

Know your content material opponents

Anything that alters our expectations for on-line content material impacts content material advertising and marketing. When it involves the eye of our viewers, we’re not competing solely with our enterprise opponents. We’re competing with the whole lot they learn or take a look at, or take heed to on-line, together with TikTok. People 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 function. – Monica Norton, head of content material advertising and marketing, Yelp

Have a plan

TikTok is usually 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

Think and suppose once more

Everyone acknowledges the facility and effectiveness of the TikTok algorithm. Any content material marketer that isn’t not less than 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 not less than be fascinated with how they’ll leverage TikTok. – Brian Piper, director of content material technique and evaluation, University of Rochester

See short-form potential

Without a doubt, TikTok has highlighted the significance of short-form video throughout the content material advertising and marketing board. But it doesn’t imply content material entrepreneurs ought to go all-in on creating simply one of these content material for one platform solely.

Instead, TikTok is inspiring extra inventive thought of how short-form video can turn into a part of your total content material technique and how one can streamline its creation. Perhaps you wish to lead with creating short-form movies for a number of channels (e.g., TikTok, Instagram Reels, YouTube shorts), or possibly you wish to create longer-form movies and repurpose them into short-form movies. Video is probably the most versatile content material format, so create with repurposing in mind, and your funding will go far. – Amy Woods, founder and CEO, Content 10x

Is the time proper to your model?

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

And even when the reply isn’t any, don’t disregard the favored platform. Instead, proceed to watch its affect on content material creation total. Authentic, short-form content material shall be a robust participant for years to come back.

Cover picture by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute