TikTok in the World of Instagram

Written by: Donna Jean Roberts

Today, social media pervades every moment of people’s lives. People check their Instagram or Snapchat when waiting in line for a coffee and watch their favorite influencer on YouTube while eating dinner. This is especially true for teenagers who are almost never seen without a smartphone in their hands. They check their Instagram and Facebook to see what their friends and family are up to and watch videos on YouTube and TikTok for quick entertainment.

TikTok is the new up and coming social media app becoming more and more popular among Generation Z with more than half of its users being under the age of 34 (Qudsi, 2020). On TikTok, users create short videos with the music that appear in a scroll-able feed. Viral TikTok videos range from dancing to a popular song like “Renegade” to a comedy skit using a sound file from a famous TV show like Keeping up with the Kardashians. Similarly, to YouTube, there are popular influencers on TikTok with millions of followers, who are famous for making short videos. TikTok has grown a lot in 2019 and is projected to have more than 50 million users by 2021 (“eMarketer TikTok Users”, 2020).

With the growth of TikTok as a form of social media, brands are starting to try to connect to their younger audiences through the platform. The advertising and marketing abilities of TikTok are in their beginning stages without a lot of control on targeting or analytics to track the progress of the campaigns. The best way to track the success of a campaign on TikTok is to check the amount of views, likes, and comments on the videos as well as the amount of people that follow the companies account (Qudsi, 2020). Some types of creative advertisements that brands can run on the TikTok platform are:

• in-feed native video ads

• brand takeovers

• hashtag challenges

• branded filters

• topview ads

• influencer brand partnership (Peterson, 2020)

The most commonly used type of advertisement on TikTok is the hashtag challenges, which have been used by brands like Walmart, Chipotle, and e.l.f. cosmetics (eMarketer, 2019). The brands created sponsored hashtags that were associated with a challenge to try and get their customers to make a tiktok video using the hashtag spreading the awareness of their brand and products. In e.l.f. cosmetics’ hashtag challenge “#eyeslipsface”, the company created their own song that went along with the challenge of people recording themselves putting on makeup (eMarketer, 2019). They also paid for a 24-hour ad takeover that popped up when users opened the app encouraging them to participate in the challenge (eMarketer, 2019). 

On TikTok, brands have to blend in and be quirky and entertaining not informational or persuasive. TikTok created a whole new environment that only certain brands can and should take advantage of. It is best used in brand marketing to generate interest, spread awareness, and create recall. TikTok can get a brand’s target audience interacting in a campaign better than other platforms through the hashtag challenges. The hashtag challenges give users a new idea to create a video and allow them to be a part of a viral challenge that some of their favorite influencers and celebrities are in. It isn’t about the quality of the videos with the simple editing tools or about originality with everyone creating the same videos with the same sounds.

Taylor Peterson wrote it best by saying, “TikTok has managed to create a distinctive social experience that values spontaneity, humor, and relatability above all else. It’s turned social media into pure social entertainment” (2020).

TikTok has separated itself from the other social media platforms that care about connecting with family and friends. TikTok doesn’t provide information on a product or company like Instagram with its professional pictures and detailed captions. Instagram has been used by brands as part of their advertising campaigns and marketing strategies a lot longer than TikTok. Unlike TikTok, companies on Instagram can pay for advertisements that appear on customer’s feeds using Facebook’s ad platform that can directly target specific markets and provide analytics on posts (Collins, n.d.). Instagram ads also include a call to action that can either direct customers to their Instagram page or to their website to read an article or shop online.

Instagram is more professional than TikTok with the quality of pictures and overall look of the page playing an important role in the brands popularity. Successful brand pages on Instagram have an overall color theme with high quality pictures and engaging captions that relate to the brand’s image. On Instagram, brands need to post often to stay engaged and create a relationship with their customers. Some types of content brands can post on Instagram are:

• Behind-the-scenes posts

• Reposts from Employees

• Educational posts

• Influencer posts

• Motivational posts

• User-generated content (Collins, n.d.)

The goal when using Instagram as part of a company’s brand strategy is to give the customer more insight into what makes up the brand as well as to allow the customers to talk directly to their favorite brands. Some popular brands on Instagram are Nike, Victoria Secret, and American Eagle. They all provide a variety of content in different forms like a collage of pictures, videos, and Instagram stories that tell their customers about their company, products, and the people who wear their clothing.

As companies TikTok and Instagram are competitors fighting for the attention of the same target market. However, for brands using social media to connect with their customers TikTok and Instagram can be used together to create a strong social media campaign. TikTok would be used to draw attention to the advertising campaign through interacting with the customers in a hashtag challenge that highlights a new product or service. Then on Instagram the company with post pictures of the product explaining its benefits and show other famous people using or wearing the product. Together with a strong brand identity and a creative campaign a company can utilize both TikTok and Instagram to interact with their customers

So, if your brand is targeting consumers below the ages of 30 and has a fun and creative marketing idea a branding strategy using TikTok and Instagram might be the next step in generating more brand awareness.  

References:

Collins, A. (n.d.). Instagram Marketing. Hubspot. https://www.hubspot.com/instagram-marketing.

eMarketer TikTok Users in the US February 2020. (2020, March 13). eMarketer. https://www.emarketer.com/content/tiktok-to-surpass-50-million-users-in-us-by-2021.

eMarketer. (2019, November 6). What Marketers Should Know About TikTok Ad Formats and a Roundup on Partnership News. Business Insider. https://www.businessinsider.com/emarketer-marketing-on-tiktok-report-2019-11.

Peterson, T. (2020, April 13). TikTok 101: A primer for brands. Search Engine Land.  https://searchengineland.com/tiktok-101-a-primer-for-brands-332710

Qudsi, I. (2020, April 03). Council Post: What To Know About Influencer Marketing On TikTok. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesagencycouncil/2020/04/03/what-to-know-about-influencer-marketing-on-tiktok/