It is not easy to create a successful TikTok ad campaign if you target the wrong audience and do not have enough followers on TikTok. So, we decided to make it easy for you to identify whether TikTok is suitable for your brand (TikTok has users in 179 countries) using sentiment analysis. How to know if TikTok is the right platform for your brand:
Identify where your brand's audience is located:
To target TikTok users, you have to determine the most relevant country for your business. If your customers are from a different country than those of 70% of TikTok's top brands', then TikTok probably is not the best platform for you just yet. If your customers are from the same country as TikTok's top 100 brands, you have a head start.
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Identify the best sentiment:
There is a natural gap between good content and viral content - it has to be both positive and about your brand to become viral. According to the Sentiment Analysis, 88% of total engagement on TikTok is coming from positive influencers. For your brand's videos to go viral, they have at least 80% positivity or higher. You can check how much positivity each influencer has by clicking their profile page and looking at the bar chart next to the "About Me" section: A higher percentage means more positivity (positive comments) and less negativity (negative critiques). You can also check the positivity of your fans by clicking your profile page and scrolling down to the "About My Fans" section:
Find influencers with many followers:
TikTok's size makes it a problematic app for brands and marketers to navigate around - you need to know who to target and how to reach them. Since there is no other platform as big as TikTok, you should aim at influencers with the biggest following on TikTok first. You can search for influencers using geographic location or language keywords like English, Spanish, etc. For example, typing "English" in the top right corner brings up 20 results (each account has followers from different countries). The results can be sorted by username (alphabetically), the number of followers (descending), or the number of hearts (ascending). Once you find influencers with a big following, it is time to dig into their content and see if they are suitable for your brand. You can use the same search bar to check how much positivity does each influencer have: A higher percentage means more positivity.
Look at the pictures, too:
It would also be wise to browse through photos uploaded by each influencer - do not forget to look under the "Photos" section in their settings menu. If you upload a video, only ~10% of people will watch it, but everyone will see your picture. You can use hashtags, geotag location or mention your brand's name to make the picture discoverable - it should bring up thousands of results showing which influencers are using photos with your hashtag/tag/mention.
Track results & repeat:
Running a successful TikTok ad campaign is an ongoing process - if your ad strategy is not working, create better ads! Keep tweaking your strategy until you are getting the most out of the platform. Suppose the number of people following you suddenly drops. In that case, it might mean that TikTok's algorithm thinks that this particular influencer does not suit your brand, but do not worry - you can always change to another influencer with a big following. Meanwhile, keep tracking how many people are watching and engaging with each video/picture so that you know which influencers are bringing in more views/engagements to your brand. Once you have found the best country, sentiment, and influencers for your brand - repeat this action whenever launching a new campaign on TikTok.
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Measure and show return on investment:
TikTok offers built-in analytics to see how many fans are coming from each influencer. Since influencers with the biggest following also have more positivity, you can measure your ROI by looking at five metrics together: engagement rate, video views, reach, brand mentions, and sentiment. For example, if a post has an engagement rate of 10%, it means that ten people out of one hundred who saw this post engaged with it (e.g., commented or liked). If a campaign brought in 100 new followers in a week, but the average sentiment is only 50%, most likely half of these followers were not interested in seeing posts. These kinds of fans are best to be filtered out of your audience.
Target new influencers:
Once you have found the best country/sentiment/influencer for your brand, it is time to broaden your horizon and look for new ones. A good rule of thumb is not to look at influencers with less than 100k followers - most likely, they will not bring in enough ROI (return on investment). However, if you want to go even bigger - try using TikTok's sub-community’s feature! There are different communities for almost any interest, e.g., fitness, beauty, or pets. You can find these sub-communities by clicking on hashtags that start with. For example, " fitness " results in: This way, you can find influencers that are not as popular as those you've identified before but will still bring in enough ROI. What is interesting about TikTok is not how they advertise but their business strategy and possibilities to brands, e.g., influencer marketing on a social network with a large audience and deep integration of shop and product pages into the app's interface.
Be creative, but keep it safe:
TikTok is a social network for many young users - do not let influencers sell products too aggressively or post anything that is not suitable for minors. Our biggest customers are in the UK and US - about 20% of our revenue comes from the UK, and about 15% comes from the US. We all know TikTok does not have very strict content moderation policies when it comes to its influencers (as they should be) - this means that if you want your brand to stay "safe," - always check what's posted by their influencers before escalating them!
Cautionary note:
TikTok is a global social platform - even though most of its influencers come from China, India, or the US - if your brand is not oriented towards these audiences, make sure to target the right ones! For example, if you want to advertise a kid’s toy. TikTok's biggest audience is in China, so it would be wise to have an influencer campaign geared towards Asian markets. In this case, TikTok might be the right choice for you as long as it knows how to keep itself "safe."
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Explore other platforms, too:
To find out whether TikTok is the best social media channel for your brand or not, try exploring similar platforms first. This will help you find out what works for your brand and what doesn't.
Action plan:
Try asking your influencers to post about your products on TikTok. Measure how many followers they bring in, their sentiment towards your brand, and their engagement rate with the posts - paying attention to numbers and the number of comments since these are significant! After that, see which groups are more inclined to interact or comment on this kind of post - this will tell you where is the best place for an ad campaign especially tailored towards your target audience! TikTok might not be the right platform for every brand, but due to its features and benefits, it is worth checking out. You do not need to create big budgets or create expensive influencer marketing campaigns to maximize your ROI on TikTok. Look for new influencers by using hashtags that interest you.
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