by Game Marketing Genie, on 22-Sep-2020 16:22:47
Developments in technology have revolutionized the way brands market their products and services. This has led to the rise of social media platforms and the success of influencers across the world.
According to Big Commerce, as many as 89% of marketers claim that the ROI from influencer marketing is better when compared to other marketing channels they’ve adopted. Why? Because influencer marketing is the future and there are many platforms you can choose to work with. But in this article, we’ll only be looking at one.
Let’s understand how you as a business can take advantage of the combined power of influencer marketing and TikTok to optimize your marketing strategy and take your business to the next level.
What is TikTok?
Launched in 2016 by ByteDance Ltd., TikTok is one of the fastest growing video sharing apps in the world. Unlike YouTube, which is more of a place for long videos, TikTok reserved its space in the short form video segment with videos lasting anywhere between 15 seconds to 60 seconds. Its striking features allow users to create and edit content with ease unlike its other video creation counterparts which tend to require time, effort, and skill. With impressive audio-visual effects, captivating filters, and content available in a variety of languages, TikTok empowers its user base to create entertainment in moments. The most popular forms of content here include pranks, lip-syncing, and dancing.
As of 2020, this app has been downloaded more than 2 billion times and has around 800 million active users - surpassing many other platforms. For an app which started less than 4 years ago, these results are remarkable. Another astounding statistic shows that more than 41% of TikTok’s users fall in the age bracket of 16 years to 24 years. The acquisition of Musical.ly, a North American app that was purchased by ByteDance Ltd. in 2016, was an incredible strategic move that ushered TikTok’s entry in the US market as well as accelerating its market share and adding to its popularity.
With this magnitude of downloads, massive user base, and enormous user engagement, it is an ideal space for influencer marketing. And large businesses are already taking advantage.
Marketing on TikTok presents opportunities to incentivize brand awareness, and also fosters conversions with its localization feature. Additionally, there is less competition on this platform for businesses as it is still in the early phases of paid media. All this being said, you should seriously start considering your entry into this market.
What is influencer marketing?
A one of a kind marketing channel, influencer marketing has transformed the way businesses promote their offerings. Whether you’re a small to medium business or a large enterprise, this marketing method fosters giant strides in sales and revenue.
But the influencer marketing approach works quite differently compared to the other marketing methods. Rather than just advertising products on social media, you can work with influencers to market your products through product recommendations, product mentions, and brand endorsements. Brands generally work with influencers who are inline with their industry as they will share the same target audience.
Based on their follower size, influencers are segregated into nano, micro, macro, mega, and celebrity categories. These categories mean their followers range from 1000 followers to more than a million, and anywhere in between.
Research reveals that audiences across all age groups, and millennials in particular, tend to continue with product purchases when recommended by an influencer. This percentage accounts for over 70% of teenagers as stated by Digital Marketing Institute, which if relevant for your industry can be a major benefit.
Furthermore, studies also show that businesses earn $6.50 for every dollar spent on influencer marketing, which is quite a significant ROI for brands. These numbers clearly show that you should be exploring this marketing channel. Teaming up with influencer marketing experts can help you see your brand’s growth through their lens and help you promote your game.
Let’s look at what you’ll need to do if you want to work with influencers on TikTok.
Working with TikTok-exclusive influencers
With a plethora of gaming influencers spread across different social media platforms, you need to concentrate on those who are present exclusively on TikTok. Don’t use an influencer who mostly uses YouTube and put them on TikTok. You need someone that knows the platform in and out, as well as has a strong following.
Work with one who is genuine, inclined to your game’s value and message, and who has a follower base that matches your target players. If they don’t meet your brand’s standards or aren’t familiar with TikTok, then it won’t work. The crux of a successful influencer marketing strategy is finding the right people who will impact your brand positively and thereby, help you increase conversions.
Know your players
A marketing campaign is incomplete without identifying and knowing your target players. Before starting off with any of your marketing campaigns on TikTok, researching your potential players will help you make the right choices.
Creating buyer personas will help you identify and understand your fans better. Buyer personas are fictional characters that help you segment your playerbase, and find common traits and behavioral patterns within it. To work with influencers on this platform specifically, you need to concentrate and work your plan around your potential players strictly. After all, if your players aren't present on TikTok, then what’s the point? Doing this will help you reach out to the right people, garner attention, and bolster quality leads.
Give them freedom
If you’ve reached an agreement with an influencer for your marketing campaign, you need to know how to work with them. Anybody who is on TikTok knows that the platform is mostly made up of entertainment content that generally inclines towards comedy or lightheartedness. As such, you need to understand that you can’t give your influencers hard and fast rules on the type of content you want them to make as this will look fake. Give them the freedom to develop content that will draw your players' attention to your game organically.
In fact, we see that the younger generation isn’t drawn to conventional marketing practices. Influencers understand their audiences better, which is why they have an increased following of loyal fans who care for their content. Allowing influencers to be creative will give a breath of fresh air to your conventional marketing practices. After all, you’re collaborating with them to reach your players in a way that appeals to them - and creating a video game that's meant to be fun!
Know your content
Captivating content is crucial to any successful marketing strategy. Having said that, you need to study and understand what kind of content resonates with your players. Before you collaborate with anybody on this platform, you need to keep in mind that TikTok facilitates users to generate engaging yet entertaining video content. You need to communicate and create a massive impact in those 15 - 60 seconds. If you fail to do so in that time, the essence of your campaign will be lost.
As content is restricted by time frame, communicating your entire message would be challenging. It’s hit and miss, so you have to post constantly. Content that features influencers tends to receive more attention as it resonates with their wants and needs. Doing this will not only encourage your brand awareness, increase your brand recall, amplify your visibility, but also boosts your conversions as well. We’re not saying that you should force your influencer to create particular content, but instead encourage you to choose the right influencer to work with to ensure that your content connects.
Analyze their performance
Analyzing your campaign’s performance revolves around your campaign goals. What is it that you want to achieve through your campaign? These are the metrics you need to watch. Is it brand awareness that you’re looking at, or sales and conversions? Whatever it is, defining your campaign goals are crucial to your strategy's success.
As a brand, if you’re concentrating on conversions through your marketing campaign you need to monitor the count of downloads, sign-ups, and purchases. If you’re looking at establishing your brand awareness, you need to keep an eye on user generated content and brand mentions. If you’re focusing on driving your engagement rate, you need to track the likes, comments, and reposts or shares - across TikTok and other platforms. Hence, different campaign goals have different metrics.
Have fun
As a gaming brand, you want to promote your products or services in a way that resonates with your players. After all, you've made (or are making) a game that is supposed to be entertaining! A digital space made for sharing entertaining content, TiKTok can help you reach out to your target players if you allow the creative juices to flow. One good thing about collaborating with influencers here on TikTok is you don’t necessarily need to stick to those in your niche. For instance, a restaurant could work with a TikTok dancer for instance.
Ralph Lauren, one of biggest global fashion brands, partnered with 11 TikTok influencers to promote the US Open using the hashtag “#WinningRL”. The results were an overwhelming reach to 11 million people.
The key factor of this marketing campaigns was that they used fun to their advantage. If you’re on TikTok, fun is what will bring you the likes, shares and purchases.
Making it count with influencer marketing
If your marketing strategy doesn’t include influencer marketing, then you’re losing opportunities to convert. But if you don’t have the expertise, then you won’t be able to make your influencer strategy succeed. Get everything you need to know about video game influencer marketing in our ultimate guide here: The Definitive Guide to Influencer Marketing!
Now that you’re aware of how to take on influencer marketing on TikTok, you can start working on your very own marketing strategy.
Though it may sound easy, defining your target players, vetting and selecting the right influencers, drafting an agreement, designing an attractive content strategy, dealing with post-campaign details and achieving your goals is quite challenging.
Unless you've got a powerful influencer marketing platform on your side. Our platform, Atisfyreach, uses an AI-driven algorithm to find the best fit influencers and create excellent campaigns for your marketing needs. Remove your hesitation about your TikTok influencer marketing campaign by signing up today!
