What Makes TikTok so Special?

TikTok is the platform to go to, but that doesn’t come out of thin air. There are reasons why this platform has such stellar performance. Those reasons are the benefits it provides to its users. So let’s check the most prominent ones.

• TikTok offers a unique way to reach and engage with potential customers. The platform’s short-form, the native video format, is perfect for businesses to showcase their products and services in a creative and attention-grabbing way.

• What’s more, TikTok’s algorithm is incredibly effective at pushing content to users who are likely to be interested in it. Businesses can reach a very targeted audience with their marketing messages.

• Finally, TikTok is a great way to build brand awareness and create a connection with potential customers. The platform’s light-hearted and fun tone is perfect for businesses to show off their personality and connect with users on a more personal level.

Before we dig any deeper, let’s first see the most common ways of using TikTok as a business.

What are the Most Common Ways of Using TikTok?

One of the best ways to use TikTok for business is to run ads. There are various ad formats:

• in-feed ads, 
• brand takeovers, and 
• hashtag challenges.

In-feed ads are the most common type of ads on TikTok. They appear in between users' videos and you can usually skip them after 5 seconds. Brands can use in-feed ads to raise awareness, drive traffic to their website, or promote a specific product or offer.

Brand takeovers are another popular ad format on TikTok. They appear as a user opens the app and can include a video, image, or GIF. Brand takeovers are a great way to grab users' attention and make a significant impact.

Another super popular way to make your business visible is hashtag challenges. Brands create a challenge around a specific hashtag and then encourage users to participate by creating their own videos using the hashtag. Challenges can be as simple as using a particular filter or as complex as involving multiple steps. The key is to make sure the challenge is something that can be easily completed and that will be fun for users.

So, without further ado, let’s get more practical and see how some big names benefited from using TikTok as their marketing tool.

1. HP

Recently, HP has been all about sustainability. One of its goals is to reduce plastics, and what better way to attract attention than by creating a #HPRadicalResuse hashtag challenge? It encouraged HP’s audience and partners to show ways we can all reduce the amount of plastics by reusing the items we’ve already got.

Furthermore, HP also used in-feed ads to boost its reach. The end result? 38 million impressions and over 36 million video views. And even more amazingly, in just one day. 

How to Implement This Strategy in Your Business?

Social and environmental issues are very trendy at the moment. Customers generally love to support brands that pay attention to these vital topics. Thus, if these topics can be linked to your line of work, you should definitely consider using them. Moreover, if your brand values align with your customers’ values, you’re on a good track.

2. Goodfair

Goodfair is an online thrift shop. Although the shop has many followers, it wanted to drive more traffic to its website. 

‍Goodfair used user-generated content in combination with in-feed ads. Its goal was to provide educational content about the fashion industry and how many clothes end up in the landfill. As a result, the click-through rate increased by more than 87%, whereas the cost-per-click dropped by over 15%.

How to Implement This Strategy in Your Business?

Make yourself credible in your industry. Educate your followers on your industry topics and show you are an expert. By doing so, you not only position yourself as an expert but also generate trust from your audience. 

3. Chipotle

Some of the most successful TikTok challenges have actually come from Chipotle. Chipotle’s #guacdance challenge got users to show off their best dance moves with a burrito in hand.  This challenge was successful because it was fun and easy to do, and it got users positively interacting with the brand.

What’s more, Chipotle isn’t interested in fancy. Their content is quite casual and heavily based on fun and comedy. Fans often post their favorite Chipotle recipes, dance challenges, etc. And here lies one of the keys to Chipotle’s success. They really pay attention to their clients’ base needs and wishes. They listen to them. 

What also makes Chipotle quite authentic is that you can often see some behind-the-scenes footage, which gives an extra feeling of being genuine and real.

Since 2018 Chipotle has gained more than 1.3 million followers.

How to Implement This Strategy in Your Business?

Show your brand’s true colors and what it is all about. Connect with your audience by listening to their needs. The size of your brand doesn’t matter. It matters that you pay attention to the feedback your brand is getting. At the end of the day, it is fans who are using your product, so make sure that their voice matters. 

4. Fendi

One of the reasons that the fashion brand Fendi joined TikTok was to build their Gen Z base. So what did Fendi do? Something simple yet effective. It ran five in-feed ads, with each ad representing Fendi’s core values. These 5 ads drove 15,000 new followers.

How to Implement This Strategy in Your Business?

You don’t need to go big and make things complicated. You know what your company values are. Make sure you highlight those, so it is easier for your customers to identify with your brand and know what to expect.

5. Walmart

Yes, you heard it right. It might come as a surprise that a store like Walmart will be on TikTok, but it’s true. 

Walmart realized the importance of influencer marketing. Like many other companies on TikTok, Walmart created a dance challenge, #DealDropDance. It was related to Black Friday, and the audience should have made videos of themselves dancing and showing how they felt due to Black Friday savings at Walmart.

Where do the influencers fit in a picture? They were the ones encouraging their followers to record a dance. And if you think Walmart needed to “use” many influencers, think again. It took only six influencers and their posts to reach over 17 million people. 

And, of course, there were prizes and gift coupons for the participants. 

How to Implement This Strategy in Your Business?

Influencers are a great asset to your TikTok strategy. If you are a small business, the chance you’ll land a big influencer is slight, but don’t underestimate the power of micro-influencers. No matter how small their community might be, multiply it by a few times, and you’ll end up with quite some audience.

6. Gymshark 

Gymshark managed to hit 2 million followers in six months. Being a fitness brand, they completely played on a create-a-challenge card. They post workout challenges, health journeys, and even some funny videos to show that exercising doesn’t have to feel like a punishment.

For example, Gymshark had a very successful TikTok campaign called 66 Days: Change Your Life. The campaign's main aim was to show that it doesn’t take much to incorporate exercise into your daily routine. So the TikTokers were posting their own health journeys. The ultimate prize? A Gymshark membership. How successful was the campaign? It was 193 million views successful.

How to Implement This Strategy in Your Business?

Gymshark definitely benefited from the popularity of challenges on TikTok. Challenges are indeed one of the fastest ways to grow your audience and engage with them. 

Depending on your industry, creating a challenge might be more difficult. So, think about creating your own challenge, the one that is meaningful to your type of target audience. If you find it too difficult, you can always add your own spin to a challenge already out there.

7. Goldfish

Although one of the main benefits of using TikTok is driving and converting new audiences, your existing audience is incredibly important. You need to nurture them and show them you care. 

Goldfish did a campaign that had re-engaging the core audience in mind. It created the #GoForTheHandful hashtag challenge. Knowing what TikTokers love most, it is no surprise that it included a challenge. The Goldfish’s challenge was also fun and competitive, where the audience should’ve tested how many Goldfish crackers they could hold in their hand in one go. The prize was a year’s worth of Goldfish.

In order to boost their campaigns, Goldfish invited influencers as well as a basketball player with the largest hands in the history of the NBA. There were naturally many hashtags used. It was all done to create hype and spread the word.

Still, there was another vital factor that Goldfish used. It created a separate challenge page containing all the relevant information about the contest. In addition, it was accompanied by TV ads and posts on other relevant platforms, too.

How to Implement This Strategy in Your Business?

Even though TikTok is currently the trendiest platform, don’t put all your eggs into one basket. Promote your campaigns on other relevant platforms and channels. Of course that a lot will depend on your budget, but you don’t need a huge budget to think of creative ways to cross-promote your campaign.

The Main Takeaways

Before we wrap things up, let’s revise the main takeaways. How can you implement these Tiktok case studies?

1. The first step is to come up with a catchy hashtag that is easy to remember and relevant to your brand. Once you have your hashtag, start promoting it across all of your social media channels and in any offline marketing materials. Make sure also to encourage users to create content using your hashtag and tag your brand in their posts.

2. Once your hashtag starts to gain traction, you can measure its success by looking at the number of views, likes, and comments your videos receive. You can also track how many users use your hashtag and how often they use it.

3. If you find that your hashtag is being used frequently and is generating a lot of engagement, you can consider running a contest or promotion using your hashtag. This will help to further increase awareness and engagement with your brand.

4. Furthermore, if you want your brand to be successful on TikTok, consider running a hashtag challenge. This is when you come up with a clever or funny hashtag and encourage your followers to use it in their own videos. If you can get your hashtag to catch on, it could end up being used by thousands or even millions of people.

5. Another way to get your brand noticed on TikTok is to partner with popular creators. This could involve paying them to promote your products or simply collaborating with them on creative videos. Either way, teaming up with popular TikTok users is a great way to get your brand in front of a large audience.

6. Of course, you don't necessarily need to partner with anyone to be successful on TikTok. Plenty of brands have found success by creating their own original content. If you can create creative and engaging videos, you could quickly build a large following on the platform.

Final Thoughts

TikTok’s great popularity may lay in its versatility. From funny videos to creative content, there is something for everyone on TikTok. This broad diversity, both in interests and age, represents an excellent audience pool for your business. 

No matter what approach you take, it's important to put some thought into your TikTok marketing strategy. TikTok is a robust platform that can help you reach a massive audience if you properly do your homework.

How can Glorify help you? We are a step away from launching a 3.0 version with video editing tools. Like everything on our platform, these video tools will suit non-designers, too. Thus you’ll be able to create TikTok videos in an instant.

Until the launch, check our platform, start your free trial and start creating compelling visuals that will make you stand out across all the social media platforms.