An interest-based algorithm
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Deciding where to allocate their hard fought budgets is a constant challenge for marketers, who not only need to see results and ROI, but creative new ways to reach audiences, and real overall value.
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One of the things that makes TikTok unique - and highly valuable to brands - is that it runs on a content graph, rather than a social graph. This differentiates it from social media as the content users see is not limited to that created by the people they follow or their social spheres. Instead, the TikTok algorithm serves content based entirely on users’ interests, and the videos they watch and engage with. For brands, this means being able to reach a massive audience, without necessarily having a huge following.
Jennifer Lopez experienced the merits of the algorithm first hand, when she posted a dance with video with twist in March this year. The video received a staggering 161 million views on TikTok, despite J.Lo having just 10.2 million followers. Why? Because TikTok can serve content to hundreds of millions of feeds based on what users like, rather than who they like, so J.Lo’s follower numbers made no difference to the video’s reach.
For individuals and brands looking to build a presence on TikTok, this makes reaching a mass audience surprisingly simple. As an open platform where anyone can be discovered, the flow of content is not slowed or obstructed by invite-only groups or the need for followers.
The best way to get discovered is to create content aligned with your target audiences’ interests. Gaming, beauty, fashion, education, comedy, and sports are some of the app’s most popular categories. Brands who tap into these categories can instantly become much more visible, as content tailored to a target audience’s interests will scale naturally on TikTok.
Another way to amplify your brand’s visibility on TikTok is to pay close attention to trends. Selfridges and GymShark understand this: both brands create organic content that capitalises on the popularity of trending hashtags (such as #OutfitChallenges or #10TouchChallenge), which appear on the app’s discovery page, to put themselves in front of millions of eyeballs – a simple and effective way to create enormous reach.
Above all else, TikTok’s algorithm is built for discovery, delivering a perpetual stream of new entertainment direct to millions of individual feeds. With its focus on serving users content they enjoy, TikTok has built an active and loyal audience: the average engagement rate in the UK is 14.7%, meaning that users aren’t just watching short videos - they’re also creating and sharing them.
Whatever your brand or message, the key to engaging with audiences on TikTok is to keep in mind that they’re not here to just watch - they’re here to get involved - and the best marketing campaigns on the platform are acts of co-creation with the TikTok community. User-generated content inspired by a new product or service becomes a brand’s commercial on the platform, and ad campaigns that may have had just a few executions can now have millions. With users often participating long after a campaign’s launch, this brings enormous added value for brands.
e.l.f cosmetics’ #EyesLipsFace campaign is a brilliant example of co-creation and the potential of TikTok’s fully sound-on environment. With the brand keen to increase awareness around the fact that 'e.l.f' stands for 'eyes lips face', it launched a Hashtag Challenge, which invited users to show their moves to an original track – eyes.lips.face (feat Holla FyeSixWun) by iLL Wayno – for a chance to win cosmetics.
#EyesLipsFace quickly became the most viral brand campaign ever on TikTok. It is the fastest to reach 1 billion views and the first ever to hold the number one trend spot. DJs played the track in clubs, and when it was released on Spotify and iTunes, it racked up over 8 million streams and hit number four on Spotify’s Global Viral charts, appearing on 200,000 Spotify playlists.
The content created spread organically across Instagram, YouTube and Twitter. Celebrities including Ellen and Reese Witherspoon joined in, unprompted and unpaid, while the campaign also featured in Vogue, Rolling Stone, Bustle, BuzzFeed, Vox, Adweek and Forbes. #EyesLipsFace became a true pop culture moment - thanks to the limitless awareness and engagement TikTok can generate.
High engagement
A consistent by-product of the high engagement and visibility brands are enjoying on TikTok is brand lift. TikTok’s Brand Lift surveys continually show double-digit increases across the entire customers journey, and the platform is proving a powerful tool for brands looking to build awareness and affinity with new audiences.
Take Mercedez-Benz, for example. Looking to increase brand awareness and brand preference with Gen Z and millennials, the carmaker invited TikTok users to re-envision its famous ‘star’ logo and post the results using the #MBStarChallenge hashtag. By tapping the spirit of co-creation at the heart of the platform, the brand connected with this audience in a totally new and authentic way. A post-campaign brand lift study revealed that ad recall increased by 66.3%, while brand favourability increased by 18.2% and brand preference by 15.7%.
Converse also enjoyed similar success with its recent #ConverseAllStar campaign, which aimed to grow brand affinity among London youth, with a focus on the brand’s new Pro Leather shoe. The campaign called on users to customise their shoes and post a video against the hashtag. It generated over 24 million total video views and 29.7 million impressions, with an engagement rate of 9.22%. A brand lift study revealed a 75% uplift in brand recall, thanks, in no small part, to the campaign’s innovative use of a TikTok ad product alongside four well-known UK Creators, and a live event that brought the campaign offline and into the real world.
Industry-leading brand lift
A large number of unduplicated users is another quality that sets TikTok apart.
A growing number of people around the world are choosing to consume video exclusively on TikTok, presenting a huge opportunity for brands to connect with brand new audiences.
For advertise, this means the platform is perfectly positioned to generate vital extra reach in large multi-channel campaigns and carry a brand’s message further thanks to its growing numbers of unique users
Vodafone recently chose TikTok to help it connect with a large youth audience and promote the launch of its student learning and experiential platform, Vodafone X. The mobile network used TikTok’s premium ad format, TopView – an immersive, full-screen, 100% sound-on video served to all users on opening the app – to deliver its message to a tightly targeted demographic.
In just one day, the Vodafone X TopView ad generated more than 1.7 million impressions and drove hundreds of thousands of young people to the ‘Level Up' landing page. With more than 350,000 clicks recorded during the one-day awareness campaign, it easily surpassed all TikTok and industry benchmarks for engagement.
The campaign demonstrates TikTok’s ability to deliver immersive campaigns to a unique and specific audience, while again ensuring excellent engagement.
Unique audiences
With TikTok now a hit with everyone from teens to celebrities, athletes, musicians and grandparents, it’s little wonder that we’ve seen brands turning their focus to the short-form video app. The fashion world has been quick to embrace TikTok - tapping into global trends and hashtag challenges, and even recruiting TikTok stars to front their campaigns (18-year-old Noen Eubanks became the face of Celine in 2019, after racking up over 7 million followers on the platform) - but in the past few months, we’ve also seen everyone from phone networks to luxury car makers creating bespoke content and campaigns for the platform.
With its large user base and a focus on entertaining and positive content, TikTok has proved a compelling proposition for brands looking for new ways to engage with consumers. It's also relatively uncluttered with advertising, and as its ad formats are entirely video-based, it allows companies to serve up campaigns alongside native content, without disrupting the user experience. Alongside this, its high engagement rates have proved a massive draw for advertisers - inspiring companies from Selfridges to Vodafone to invest in bespoke content and campaigns for the app. Here, we explore why brands are turning their focus to TikTok, and how they've achieved some impressive results…
The platform is a never-ending stream of variety and fun that keeps people watching and engaging. New trends emerge constantly, and spiral as more people join in, perpetuating these phenomenal engagement rates.
Kris Boger
Europe Lead, Product Marketing, TikTok
TikTok's view
Got any questions for TikTok? Email us and we'll get the best questions answered in an upcoming article
Our content may be goofy, but our algorithm is serious. TikTok is not about your friend base – it’s about the constant discovery of interest-related content.
Kris Boger
Europe Lead, Product Marketing, TikTok
TikTok's view
Got any questions for TikTok? Email us and we'll get the best questions answered in an upcoming article
It’s really important to understand TikTok is a platform for a variety of marketing verticals and objectives. Having such a broad audience, coupled with marketing solutions across the funnel, means we can support marketers with a whole range of their activities.
Kris Boger
Europe Lead, Product Marketing, TikTok
TikTok's view
Got any questions for TikTok? Email us and we'll get the best questions answered in an upcoming article
If you have a specific group in mind, then you can target your campaigns to them. However, if you want to reach a much broader audience quickly, then with TopView you can reach millions across various demographics in one single day. We see marketers having real success with this for new product launches and to announce new campaigns.
Kris Boger
Europe Lead, Product Marketing, TikTok
TikTok's view
Got any questions for TikTok? Email us and we'll get the best questions answered in an upcoming article
As Mercedes-Benz, Converse and Vodafone can all attest, brands are having big successes on TikTok, extending their reach into new territory and connecting with new audiences. As brands look to take advantage of what the platform has to offer, TikTok is becoming a vital feature in more and more marketing strategies. And with such strong results it’s not hard to see why.
Why brands are turning to TikTok
In the third instalment of our partner content series, we find out why brands from e.l.f. cosmetics to Vodafone and Gymshark are investing in TikTok - and what others can learn from their approach
Step 1: Get to know your TikTok community and their codes
Our content may be goofy, but our algorithm is serious. TikTok is not about your friend base – it’s about the constant discovery of interest-related content.
TikTok's view
Kris Boger
Europe Lead, Product Marketing, TikTok
Got any questions for TikTok? Email us and we'll get the best questions answered in an upcoming article
The platform is a never-ending stream of variety and fun that keeps people watching and engaging. New trends emerge constantly, and spiral as more people join in, perpetuating these phenomenal engagement rates.
TikTok's view
Kris Boger
Europe Lead, Product Marketing, TikTok
Got any questions for TikTok? Email us and we'll get the best questions answered in an upcoming article
It’s really important to understand TikTok is a platform for a variety of marketing verticals and objectives. Having such a broad audience, coupled with marketing solutions across the funnel, means we can support marketers with a whole range of their activities.
TikTok's view
Kris Boger
Europe Lead, Product Marketing, TikTok
Got any questions for TikTok? Email us and we'll get the best questions answered in an upcoming article
If you have a specific group in mind, then you can target your campaigns to them. However, if you want to reach a much broader audience quickly, then with TopView you can reach millions across various demographics in one single day. We see marketers having real success with this for new product launches and to announce new campaigns.
TikTok's view
Kris Boger
Europe Lead, Product Marketing, TikTok
Got any questions for TikTok? Email us and we'll get the best questions answered in an upcoming article