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TikTok Influencer Marketing: How to Develop Your Strategy?

by Michiel MuldersOctober 4th, 2020

Too Long; Didn't Read

A short-form social video platform that has emerged as the fastest growing social media platform in recent times. The secret of successful influencer marketing campaigns lies in selecting the right influencers who are relevant to a niche. TikTok has mastered the art of creating viral trends which increases the ROI of brands to a new level. We are listing the five hacks that you can use to find the best influencer according to your goals and your niche. Use a TikTok influencer platform because each influencer and their audience are vetted on these platforms.

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featured image - TikTok Influencer Marketing: How to Develop Your Strategy?

Wondering what all this buzz around TikTok is about?

Wondering why big business influencers like Gary Vee and others are endorsing the platform?

For all those who have no idea about TikTok, it is a short-form social video platform that has emerged as the fastest growing social media platform in recent times.

Many compare the platform to what Facebook was around 2012 and other prominent social media platforms in their respective beginning days.

TikTok has attracted all the attention owing to an exponential growth in engagement all over the world and specifically for the birth of thousands of influencers who are changing the marketing game for brands!

With more than 800 million active users worldwide, it checks all boxes to qualify as one of the top social media platforms.

Another exciting thing about the platform is the user base, most of which is youngsters. Around 41 percent of the TikTok users are aged between 16 and 24.

So, let’s dive into influencer marketing using TikTok!

How is TikTok influencer marketing different from other platforms?

The first thing that will come to your mind is how is TikTok different from Facebook or Instagram?

There are numerous social media platforms, and they offer the same type of advertising models and have significant engagement. Facebook and Instagram also enjoyed a lot of engagement when it went viral, and the same is the case with TikTok.

If you think this way, you are mistaken, especially in the case of the influencer marketing part of TikTok. Most of the social media platforms offer something new and create a new trend, but what TikTok has done, has never been seen before.

The model of influencer marketing in TikTok aims at engaging and convincing the audience to participate in the same challenge rather than just consuming the content.

The best way to understand this is by comparing the models with Instagram or Facebook in which influencer marketing is all about showcasing the product pictures or talking about the product with a particular offer attached.

TikTok, on the other hand, takes the engagement and participation to a whole new level with the model pursuing the fellow creators and followers to joining a viral campaign in the form of a dance challenge, cooking challenge, or funny faces challenge.

This is enjoyed by the young audience and increases the chances of the content getting shared.

TikTok has mastered the art of creating viral trends which increases the ROI of brands to a new level which cannot be compared to any other social media platform.

A fantastic example of this approach is Levis company, which ran an influencer marketing campaign which turned into a viral trend for youngsters and increased the traffic to their website by more than 100%.

(Source: @gabbymorr on TikTok)

How to Find Great and Relevant TikTok Influencers?

The first thing that comes to mind after you as a brand decides to try influencer marketing is how to find relevant TikTok influencers.

The secret of successful influencer marketing campaigns lies in selecting the right influencers who are relevant to a niche. The audience of these influencers must match the target audience of the brand to get the best results.

We are listing the five hacks that you can use to find the best influencer according to your goals and your niche.

1. TikTok's discovery page

TikTok offers many options within the platform to read insights and find the right influencers. One of these options is the discovery page in which you can search for relevant keywords of your Industry and search from hundreds of influencers. They are other filters like top, users, hashtags which you can use to filter the data further.

2. Use a TikTok influencer platform

Another efficient and fantastic way is to use a TikTok influencer platform. These platforms are one of the best ways because each influencer and their audience are vetted on these platforms.

They analyze all the stats for brands and make sure the brands are spending the money at the best possible source which will guarantee a high return on investment rather than a hit and trial method.

(Source: Screenshot from TikTok influencer platform Influence Grid showing @charlidamelio)

3. Do a Google search

A lot of websites have popped up recently which talk about these influencers along with many news websites. You can search your target keywords along with the words TikTok influencer, and I am sure that you will find many options.

(Source: Google search for climbing TikTok challenges)

4. Cross-check the engagement on other platforms

Another fantastic way to check the following is to check all other social media channels of the influencer to get an idea. A good influencer would have divided a similar kind of following in all the social media platforms because of the quality of their content.

Check out this fantastic recent report on the trends in influencer marketing which talks about the growth in interest for TikTok influencer marketing! Furthermore, this Forbes article gives you an overview of the 7 highest-earning stars on TikTok.

5. Content resonating your target audience

One of the crucial things is to make sure that the influencer makes content relevant to your niche. Promoting the products with the influencer with the most followers is a common mistake. You will get the highest ROI from the medium-sized influencers who make content in your micro-niche.

You will get the highest ROI from the medium-sized influencers who make content in your micro-niche.

How to Start Your Ideal TikTok Influencer Campaign?

(Source: @serjosoza via Unsplash)

There are many things to consider before starting a TikTok influencer marketing campaign for your brand. We are listing all the essential things so that you do not miss out on anything critical and achieve more from your campaigns than you aim for.

1. Creating hashtags that go beyond the campaign

The hashtags you create will go a long way in making your content viral. More than the reach, these will make sure your message is conveyed, and more and more people use the hashtags because of the trend which will have a snowballing effect.

2. Give creative freedom to influencers

You might feel the urge or the need to instruct them about the type of creatives you want and the campaign. This is common but also the wrong strategy, make sure to give them creative freedom as they have more experience with engaging content. What they create naturally will work better than planned things.

3. Cross-checking the engagement rate

Just like Instagram, the engagement rate plays a significant role as there are many fake influencers with a meager engagement rate.

Here’s a list of the standard engagement rate of influencers on TikTok -

0–10K: 9.38%
10K–100K: 8.43%
100K–500K: 7.23%
500K–1M: 4.88%
1M–5M: 4.99%
5M–10M: 3.35%
10M+: 3.07%

4. Relevant content

Last but not least, make sure the content is relevant to your niche and resonates with your target audience.

TikTok Analytics: 5 Important Metrics

Analytics form one of the essential parts of any influencer marketing campaign, and TikTok is no less. TikTok takes care of all your needs and simply switching to a TikTok pro account will give you access to all the metrics that you need to track your success.

(Source: TikTok newsroom announcing pro account with analytics)

Here are the top 5 metrics that you should be tracking to keep a check on the success and growth of your content.

Profile views - This metric is significant for brands to get to know how curious people are for your brand. Simply divide the number in TikTok by 7 to get the average daily profile views of the last seven days.
Likes, comments, and shares - These are the most cliche metrics that you also track across all other social platforms. These hold the same relevance and importance on TikTok and also contribute to the algorithm similarly. A higher number of likes, comments, and shares will result in your content ranking higher in the TikTok algorithm.
Gender - This is important for brands in specific niches like women's fashion and others. For other niches, this metric will give you an idea of the type of content you should make.
Followers - This metric is a clear indication of the success of your content and campaigns. If your followers' count is decreasing, you should change the content style immediately, and if it is increasing, you need to leverage the same approach.
Songs - This might sound odd, however, songs are baked into the DNA of TikTok. Using the pro account, you can find statistics about which songs your followers listened to. This is important for choosing the right style of music for your videos.

Conclusion

You reading this article is an indication of your interest in knowing more about and planning influencer campaigns on TikTok. I would like to validate your thinking by saying that you are about to choose one of the most effective marketing campaigns of 2020-2021.

Organic reach on social media platforms is high during the time they get viral and declines after they have made a solid user base like in the case of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and others. It is easier and more cost-effective to run campaigns in the initial stages, but things change with time.

This is one of the best times to devote your money and efforts to TikTok influencer marketing campaigns for your business.

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