Let me not be rude by talking about the most popular social media platform that all kids love.
TikTok is a popular social media platform.
There are more than one million users of the app, so there’s a good chance that you’re a member.
This is an amazing growth considering that TikTok only had 55 million users in January 2018.
ByteDance is its parent company and has experienced tremendous growth. It now stands at $140 billion in value as of April 2021.
This is a huge deal.
Many Brands have yet to fully grasp the potential of TikTok advertising, but they are starting to.
Do you think TikTok is all about crazy dance moves and teenagers waxing poetically about classic rock bands like Oasis or My Chemical Romance,
There’s more to it than that.
Let me show you seven great TikTok marketing examples.
TikTok Marketing: 7 Best Examples
1. Duolingo
2. Gymshark
3. Chipotle
4. The NBA
5. Fenty Beauty
6. Uffizi Gallery
7. Converse
1. Duolingo
What do you do if your corporate mac at gets vilified?
It was ignored by most brands.
Duo, a persistent avian mascot, became a meme.
@duolingo We have always stated that we are free, fun, and effective in teaching languages. #Duolingo #squidgame#redlightgreenlight #run
While this might not sound like a recipe for market success, Duolingo decided to embrace it and TikTok proved to be the perfect platform.
TikTok users love irreverent, funny content. You will love these videos of a giant green Owl dancing to Adele, chasing people with Google Translate, and calling Dua lipa “mommy”.
real ones let you do the bare minimum and give you full credit ##Duolingo ##ourgodisanawesomegod ##trend ##comedy ##god##imscared ##DuaLipa ##DuoLingo
In recent weeks, thousands of think pieces and explainers have been written about Duolingo’s TikTok marketing strategy. It would be mistaken to assume that this brand hasn’t done this for years.
The duo, the Owl first appeared in TikTok marketing campaigns a few months ago.
It used to have more educational content. It was more educational, and focused on interesting facts about different languages.
Zaria Pervez, Duolingo’s social media manager, explained why the brand’s strategic shift to NBC News.
We noticed that the mascot of our marketing team sat next to our mascot. And we thought, “Maybe there is something here.” We wondered how we could make it more relatable to ordinary people and still make it funny. “
This is a crucial point.
Duo’s TikTok persona, while he might chase you, isn’t a murderous killer intent on making you learn Spanish. Although he may chase after people, he never uses a knife on anyone.
He is just a good guy.
This new approach appears to be working. #duolingo has nearly 280,000,000 views on TikTok. Six million people have followed #duolingobird.
2. Gymshark
Marketing anything fitness-related is difficult.
We all know that exercise is important, but we don’t want to feel guilty about choosing to go to the gym over the couch.
Fitness brands want to encourage exercise, but they don’t want people to believe it. Don’t follow someone who makes your life miserable.
TikTok is known for its focus on humorous, irreverent, and feel-good content. Gymshark in the UK, an apparel and accessories company, has demonstrated this.
TikTok’s content strategy is based on humor. It doesn’t take it too seriously.
Did you think it was a world record? I’m sorry
Gymshark – Drilly T Who’s Going To Lift That Weight
While the brand’s humorous content has been a great tool to grow a TikTok group of 3.4 million, it is its regular challenges that have made it a viral phenomenon.
Gymshark66 provides a great example. The annual event encourages followers to develop positive, lasting habits. They set themselves a goal (e.g. They set a goal for themselves (e.g., running 5km every day or going to the gym every day) and they stick to it for 66 consecutive working days.
@sydneybrown_xo Ultimate Stairmaster with 3922 steps! @gymshark66 @hawaii Fitness
It works. It works. #gymshark66 had over 243,000,000 views as of the writing of this article.
3. Chipotle
TikTok has been a relatively recent strategy for many brands.
There has been Chipotle for many years.
This major restaurant chain adopted TikTok in 2019, making it positively geriatric according to TikTok marketing terms.
It is similar to Gymshark and has had great success with challenging content.
Its first viral success was the Lid Flip Challenge. It’s exactly what it sounds like.
@daviddobrik #ChipotleLidFlip @chipotle #ad Flip – Future
Ad Age reports that the Chipotle campaign received over 111,000 submissions in just six days. This campaign helped Chipotle achieve digital revenue records and app downloads among key Gen Z populations.
It’s more than just the challenges.
Chipotle’s TikTok presence is a reflection of the expectations of a platform where almost half of US users are between 10 & 29.
This is all very clever, referring to popular memes like the Home Depot 12-foot Skeleton…
@chipotle Final Results on Chipotle’s Insta #chipotle #12ftskeleton#fyp#bts Original Sound-Chipotle
…but Boomers aren’t able to pronounce “Chipotle”.
@chipotle Part 3 (@a.i.nsley #harley.420 #emmymagers #dcook.04 #nataliegrillo #ginajablonski #chipotle #boomers – Chipotle
Chipotle has been around since the beginning and is trusted by its customers.
The success is due to its decision to establish an internal team to “culture hunt” online conversations to assess new platforms and determine if they are a good fit for Chipotle.
Another example is the team’s input with Venmo. This app skews younger. Which Venmo created an emoji that appears automatically in conversations about Chipotle.
4. The NBA
Sports can sometimes be a bit… serious.
Everyone enjoys watching others kick or throw a ball around. It isn’t life or death.
It would still be a great thing if you spent time on Reddit and Twitter while playing major games.
Oh, the stats!
It was the NBA that realized sport could be fun.
This is an excellent example of how the bench reacted to Andrew Wiggins (Golden State Warriors star).
@nba Wiggins uses the STRONG baseline sound — NBA
The basketball league has over 13.8 million followers and 330 million TikTok fans.
The NBA, like Chipotle and other brands, bet big on TikTok well before its recent popularity surge. It started using Musical.ly back in 2016, just before it became the dominant platform.
There is no clear plan.
The NBA obsessively analyzes data to determine the most popular posts with its audience.
Any content that featured music or dancing was used for at least two decades. Our data strategy team obsesses over every post across every platform.
5. Fenty Beauty
As I said, challenges are a long-standing trend in TikTok. These types of content have huge viral potential.
Another format that produces consistent results is the video tutorial. This video tutorial features brands and other influencers who show us how to do something.
This content type is naturally more efficient for certain industries and brands than others.
It is a very popular hashtag in the makeup industry. This is evident in the #makeuptips (2.6 Billion) and #beautyhacks (11.7 Billion respectively on TikTok span>
Fenty Beauty has made tutorial content the central focus of its TikTok strategy. This site offers step-by-step tutorials on topics like contouring a round face and how to fix winged lines.
@fentybeauty How To Contour a Round Facial–SAVE IT FOR LATE BOO! @rachelocoolmua shows you how to contour round faces using #MATCHSTIX.
The tutorial trend can also be applied to other industries. Hardware stores may show customers how to build or paint shelving units. Fashion brands can help you create an outfit that’s on-trend.
Kobe Digital may use TikTok to demonstrate that high-performing popups that are possible to build.
However, I don’t do any dancing.
6. Uffizi Gallery
The brands on this list are, in some way, those that would thrive on a platform aimed at younger audiences.
However, this is not true for Italy’s Uffizi Gallery.
It was described by Eike Schmid, museum director, as “pretty much in the stone age digitally”.
TikTok launched the gallery in April 2020. It had a Facebook page only a month before its launch, and launched its first website in 2015.
But it’s not cutting-edge digital.
TikTok’s success lies in the surreal. Many videos show paintings from the Renaissance “interacting” with the modern world.
@uffizigalleries Too many to handle #abba#mammamia#abbamashup#dancing ABBA Mashingup – Joebot
Ilde Forgione, who is a social manager, admitted that it may seem a bit silly. It doesn’t matter if you learn it in school. “
The Uffizi TikTok account has just over 90,000. This is quite a bit compared to other digitally-savvy brands like Chipotle and Duolingo.
Even though it was created almost four years ago, the gallery’s Twitter account is still impressive. It only has 57,000 followers.
7. Converse
You will notice that many of the top songs in pop music are collaborations between two or more artists.
In a study by Economist, collabs made up less than 10% of songs on the US Billboard Hot 100 between 1960-1990. By 2017, this figure had risen to about 35 percent.
Why do you want me to tell you this to you?
Marketing is also experiencing the same thing.
Brands love partnerships with influencers (and others) to expand their reach and increase awareness.
Converse is the result. TikTok is used almost exclusively to showcase influencer partnerships.
@converse #gentlesowle Original Sounds – Converse
This strategy is immediately apparent when you land on the brand’s TikTok page, with its bio reading “Here to collab.”
TikTok is a visual platform that allows you to collaborate with others. You want your followers to see your products used by influencers.
Conclusion
Marketing can be a fast-paced industry.
What works today might not work tomorrow.
Marketers can be reluctant to embrace new platforms, even though they are often a part of the larger marketing mix.
TikTok’s example is excellent. Many brands see it as an inaccessible area that makes it unsafe for them.
TikTok marketing doesn’t differ from any other marketing type.
It is simple to target the right audience and understand their needs.
TikTok does not allow you to recycle items that have already been posted on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter.
You will be able to create content that is specific to the platform.
