If you work in marketing, you know that TikTok is the talk of the office these days. There’s a good reason for this since TikTok amasses over 1 Billion video views per day.
Can you imagine the impact this could have on your brand or the brand of your clients? According to eMarketer, the app surpasses Instagram’s popularity for Gen Z users in the United States.
TikTok has been growing in popularity over the last few years and continues to climb the usage ladder quickly.
● TikTok is Transforming The Creator Economy & Video Marketing
● The Monthly Active Users Should Entice You
● Know The Gender Distribution
● Important Takeaways for Marketers
Time Spent on The App
Chances are, you or someone close to you spends a lot of time on TikTok each day. Android users spend 19.6 hours per month on TikTok, compared to 13.3 hours in 2020.
That’s a 47% increase and only accounts for Android users. Globally, in April 2021, 6% of TikTok users spent more than 10 hours weekly on the platform.
The time spent on the app also indicates that users are likely to make some purchasing decisions while on the app due to the potential time that brands have to take potential buyers on a journey.
If you think that your younger audience doesn’t have influence over purchases, 9 out of 10 parents say that their children influence their purchases.
Brands shouldn’t underestimate the power of TikTok just because some of their viewers may be of a younger demographic.
We must also remember that while working with an agency, you can leverage paid ads and target various age groups.
Sources: Hootsuite Digital Report, Statista, NRF 2019 report.
The Importance of Social Commerce
According to a recent survey conducted by our agency, The Influencer Marketing Factory, 82% of responders confirmed that they discovered a product on social media and purchased it directly from their phone.
Another 57% reported having made a purchase while watching a live stream on platforms such as TikTok, Instagram Live or Amazon Live. 72% rated their livestream shopping experience 9 or 10 out of 10. 24% of responders also reported shopping on social media more than once per week.
This speaks volume on the importance of applying social commerce strategies for your brand.
Social commerce is not eCommerce, and it isn’t social selling, it’s the process of making a purchase directly in-app without leaving the app to make your purchase.
BNPL (Buy now, pay later) is set to continue contributing in shifting social commerce as it makes shopping accessible to more users.
In our survey we found out that 58% have used a Buy Now Pay Later service compared to our survey run in early 2021 where 36% of users had tried BNPL. That’s a 61% increase year-over-year.
Social commerce plays a big role in user experience by removing any potential objections that a buyer may have. Brands who do this really well tend to be good at making their potential buyers’ problem-aware by offering a strong solution to their needs or wants in an engaging way.
They address any potential objections on the platform, giving their audience the answers that they require without having to search for them outside the app. By doing this, they create a positive user experience, they build trust and provide an all-around great shopping experience.
Source: The Influencer Marketing Factory 2022 Social Commerce Report
The Monthly Active Users Should Entice You
Monthly active users (MAU) is the number of unique logged-in users who have used a service in the past month. It’s a widely used metric for understanding how successful and widespread a social media platform is.
The growth of monthly active users on TikTok isn’t slowing down anytime soon, as it continues to add new users every day.
These high numbers mean vast opportunities for your brand to reach an audience via TikTok ads, get involved with influencers, or create a strong organic content strategy.
When looking at these figures, you have to take into account how long the other platforms have been around compared to TikTok.
This gives us a good indication that TikTok will continue to climb the ladder rapidly and will likely surpass even more platforms.
Being strategic on the platform is key. This is where you should consider working with a reputable agency that can guide you in the right direction.
TikTok is Transforming The Creator Economy & Video Marketing
What is the creator economy? The creator economy plays a vital role for brands worldwide, as it includes over 50 million content creators worldwide who help brands reach bigger audiences daily.
Someone who works in the creator economy could be a TikTok personality, a blogger, a YouTube personality, anyone who performs the action of creating or curating content in partnership with bands.
TikTok videos, brand sponsorships, live-streaming, and the creator fund on TikTok are all things that make it an ideal platform for creators.
The typical short-form videos tend to generate more engagement than other content types since they are quick to absorb yet enough to build an engaged audience.
Source: The Influencer Marketing Factory 2022 Creator Economy Report
Know The Gender Distribution
You need to know the gender distribution of your audience for many reasons. The first, and most important, is to understand who exactly makes up your audience. To do that you need to map out all the different demographics of your audience and gender distribution is one of those metrics.
Once you have a good grasp on who makes up your audience, you can start using gender distribution data in more meaningful ways and create your content accordingly. In the US, TikTok has a large number of both female and male users, with 61% female followed by 39% male.
Source: Statista
Important Takeaways for Marketers on TikTok
● You’ll want to make sure that you know your audience to deliver the best possible results for your brand.
● The time users spend on TikTok is a significant opportunity for brands to get discovered.
● Ensure that you optimize the social commerce experience for your users, as in-app purchases will continue to increase.
● We need to pay attention to the creator economy on TikTok, as this platform doesn’t beat around the clock when it comes to releasing new features and finding new ways to reward creators.
The figures discussed in this post should be enough to fuel the conversation for various marketing teams and brands.
With TikTok’s rapid growth year-over-year and the shift of various demographics, it’s time to deploy an effective social commerce and Influencer Marketing strategy.
Gennaro is the creator of FourWeekMBA, which reached about four million business people, comprising C-level executives, investors, analysts, product managers, and aspiring digital entrepreneurs in 2022 alone | He is also Director of Sales for a high-tech scaleup in the AI Industry | In 2012, Gennaro earned an International MBA with emphasis on Corporate Finance and Business Strategy.
