What is TikTok?
Some people may say that TikTok is just a reskinned Vine… and they wouldn’t be totally wrong as they both have similar goals, provide snackable, bite-sized content. The big difference is that TikTok has been able to not only grow far beyond Vine but it’s managed to become part of daily life for users young and old. As the platform is very new compared to other social platforms, brands are still trying to figure out how to activate on it in general, let alone gaming. But that doesn’t mean gamers aren’t already there:
#Gaming has over 103.6 billion views on TikTok
#PlayStation, #Xbox, #Nintendo, and #PCGaming have over 37.5 billion views
Now with the platform being so new, the question remains, how do you reach gamers on the platform? Even though the platform is new, there are still some tried and true methods that can be lifted and shifted from other social platforms.
Opportunities on TikTok
As TikTok continues to grow and develop, so do the possibilities on the platform. Like Twitter, the platform is time-sensitive, where something can trend one day and then disappear the next. Here are a few examples of how brands can activate on TikTok
Paid ads
TikTok’s advertising suite is still fresh, but it offers opportunities to get your brand message in front of users, be it when they are scrolling through the feed or open the app. TikTok’s targeting capabilities still have to catch up with other platforms but are great for mass awareness.
Partnerships with creators
Brands can work with TikTok creators in the gaming space to help connect their brand to the community. Be it a skit featuring their sponsored product, gameplay clips from a stream, or testing a product. Brands need to work with the content creator to ensure the content fits their personal brand.
Gaming related TikToks
Gaming-related TikToks are huge, with #Gaming having over 102.9 billion views. Creating entertaining content in the gaming space, be it an original idea or a growing trend, can help build the connection gamers have with your brand.
Measuring Success
While TikTok may be one of the newest social media networks, it offers some interesting metrics to track content. While it does remain a very impression-focused platform, here are a few other metrics to consider when measuring success:
Average watch time
While TikTok content is much shorter than the content you’d find on most other platforms, knowing how long your posts are keeping user’s attention can help gauge what content works and what doesn’t.
Profile Views
Knowing what content is causing users to explore your profile can help inform what you should consider doing more of.
Videos your followers watched
This metric will show your follower’s most-watched videos. This can help brands find new content ideas or even new potential partners.
Potential Risks
With TikTok being such a new platform, there’s a lot of chatter around brand safety within the app. The one thing brands need to consider is how the app functions. Unlike other platforms, there are currently only three ways your brand can appear on the app, ads, sponsored content, and organic content, so there is less worry of appearing before insensitive content. Two things you should keep in mind tho are:
Influencer Partnerships
As TikTok is very trend-based, there may be times influencers hop on a trend a brand may not be comfortable with. As long as the brand does research on the influencer and is open with them, this shouldn’t worry. If a brand is surprised by an influencer, it means they didn’t do their research properly.
Negative response to ads
This is something you face on all platforms is a negative response from users to paid advertisements. One thing to keep in mind with TikTok is the quality of ads, as you want it to add to the user experience. Additionally, as TikTok allows for an ad on app-launch, this placement could cause users to have negative sentiment toward the brand as it’s the first thing they see.