If you haven’t heard of TikTok yet, here are some statistics that are sure to grab your attention.
1 billion global users. 560 million active monthly global users. 12 billion average monthly video views. 62 minutes spent on the app per user per day. 14 opens a day.
Formerly Musical.ly, TikTok is owned by Chinese company ByteDance which also operates the Chinese app Dǒuyīn of the same nature.
Unlike other social platforms, TikTok is entirely video-based and users scroll through short videos on the ‘For You’ page. This page serves as the main feed with users able to navigate to the ‘Following’ tab to scroll through the videos from their favourite creators.
Relatively new to the Australian market, TikTok is still in in its infancy here, meaning the opportunities are wide open for fashion brands.
One of the first fashion businesses to embrace TikTok in Australia was Superdry.
In one of its early campaigns on the platform, Superdry used TikTok creators Caleb Finn (3 million followers), Rory Eliza (1 million) and Ricky Chainz (3.3 million) to help open a new store.
The activation invited consumers to create content with the TikTokers to receive a discount in store.
Superdry head of marketing and PR Matthew Iozzi says that this campaign proved the power of the platform.
“The store was tripling its budgets for the first week because of the activation. That was the first time a TikTok activation had taken place in Australia realistically. We were a bit blown away,” he says.
Building on the success of this activation, Superdry featured Australian TikTok creator Sarah Magusara as the face of its AW20 campaign.
“We worked with Sarah Magusara – who has 11 million followers on TikTok and 1 million followers on Instagram – to launch the AW20 campaign and the promotional activity that rolls out with that,” Iozzi says.
“To sum it up in one key statement it’s that as far as the platform goes, Superdry identifies more with the users on TikTok than it does on any other platform. That purely comes down to authenticity and the level of authenticity of its users,” he adds.
The authenticity of the platform is something that Australian online retailer Fortunate One noticed immediately when beginning to engage with TikTok for the first time.
Unlike the polished images of Instagram and Facebook, TikTok showcases raw and real talent, Fortunate One operations manager Anya Stoliar says.
“For us it’s really important to be an early adopter on this platform. As we’ve seen with a lot of the other social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook for example, the brands that have been doing the best have been the ones that have really got into making content and using the platform as early on as possible.
“I think for us we have noticed that more and more brands are using it but a lot of our competitors aren’t. A lot of fashion brands have built their influencer and content network around really polished content on Instagram and the fact that TikTok is really real and raw and can put a lot of people off.
“When you open TikTok for the first time, it’s really overwhelming with a lot of teens and tweens and they’re doing silly challenges and things. I think that’s something that puts off a lot of brands that don’t see that polished appeal in it.
“But what you really have to do and what we’ve done is stick it out and interact with the app a lot,” she says.
Fortunate One’s strategy for the platform also involves the use of TikTok creators, but also showcases the behind the scenes of the business itself Stoliar says.
“The content that performs the best for us – we’ve tested a couple of different things – is content that really showcases our brand and our business. Something that we’ve found really successful is showing off the people that work for the company. It’s something a little bit silly, it’s a little bit less polished but we’ve definitely injected our brand aesthetic in there.
“We keep the content quite short as well – we’ve definitely found that 15 seconds works best for us.”
Stoliar adds that the community aspect of TikTok is key when building a brand on the platform.
“What is really unique to TikTok is the challenges and duets,” she says.
“You don’t really see a lot of that on Instagram or Facebook and participating in challenges and duets links you to other content creators and also showcases that you really understand what the brand is about as well.
“We also make sure that we research our hashtags. So with TikTok a lot of hashtags have really sprung up that are unique to the platform but are making their way across to Instagram as well. For us and our social media team it’s really about researching about specific hashtags that work the best for TikTok,” she says.
But while the users of TikTok are mainly young people, long-established brand Camilla is not afraid to jump onto the platform, brand and marketing director Pamela Routley says.
“The rise of TikTok has been hard to miss. It’s a platform born out of pure creativity, just like our brand and it’s an exciting place to be.
“While Camilla transcends generations, it’s important we’re present in environments that resonate with specific demographics and TikTok is the place where our young audience plays.
“This consumer loves our entry level product offering: gifting, accessories, swim, men’s, as well as buying into occasion wear for special events like formals and weddings,” she says.
Taking a proactive step to learn more about the platform and its content creators, Camilla hosted 20 Australian TikTok creators at its head office. From this one event, Camilla received over 10 million branded views in 24 hours, an astounding result Routley says.
“We are excited by the calibre of talent we met and the possibilities for partnering with them. Something we really saw was that each TikToker has their own personal brand and content style, and the best branded content will come from respecting that individuality.
“This was a time to get to know each other, and to allow that mutual understanding to inform future opportunities.
“It is still very early days as we discover the impact this channel has for us and what its role within our marketing ecosystem will be, but we do know that we’ll definitely be incorporating TikTok into our FY21 plans,” she says.
Helping Australian fashion brands to collaborate and meet TikTok creators is talent and communications agency Born Bred Talent. Recognising TikTok as the ‘next big thing’ in social media, founder Clare Winterbourn says that it’s important for fashion brands to take time to learn about TikTok and create content specifically for it.
“I think the biggest thing for fashion brands at the moment is to really think about what they want to achieve on the platform. I’m seeing so many brands that just approach it with that fear of missing out and splattering content onto the platform without that real thought process and strategy.”
Stoliar agrees and says that TikTok users are hyper-aware of recycled content.
“I think something you shouldn’t be doing is comparing it to another platform.
“If you have a particular type of content that works for you on Facebook or Instagram I wouldn’t necessarily copy that content just to have visibility on TikTok.
“That’s not how the platform works and people will figure that out quite quickly and I don’t think that they’ll interact – just from some of the previous research that we’ve done and the content that we’ve posted,” she says.
However, the diversity of the platform means that the opportunities for content creation are vast Winterbourn continues.
“The beauty of the content is that there seems to be something for everyone.
“We’ve seen the sporting codes of Australia take huge leaps and bounds in this space. I’m getting reports that TikTok has become the most popular social media app for sports in the country so I guess it’s a way that individuals are really showcasing their skill set, their interests and expressing themselves.
“We’re going out to various fashion labels that we think could create really unique campaigns on the platform and working with them so they can really showcase their voice and their message in a completely different way that they ever have before,” she says.
One example of this is Piping Hot who wanted to highlight a different side to their brand Winterbourn explains.
“Piping Hot was a good example. They wanted to really showcase the sustainability of their brand the ethos around everything to do with that.
“So that was about designing a campaign that showcased fashion but was really informative as well and spoke to the audience that it wanted to.
“I think it’s really interesting seeing that the Piping Hots of the world – obviously that’s a youth driven brand so you could almost expect that – but now we’re seeing the likes of Camilla coming on in force,” she says.
As the scope of brands on the platform is widening, so too are the advertising opportunities available to brands. Red Havas executive director of social Amaury Treguer says that there are a range of ways for brands to advertise on the platform.
“Everything that users do on the platform is about having fun, being authentic and the idea that if you go on this platform it’s not to just replicate content that you’ve been posting any other social channels.
“It’s very much how can you embrace all those different challenges that they are obviously very famous for,” he says.
Treguer cites a Guess campaign, #InMyDemin, as an example of an effective TikTok strategy which capitalises on the challenge aspect of the platform. The campaign invited users to use a Guess sponsored soundtrack and transform their outfit from a ‘mess’ to ‘best dressed’ with the final result featuring denim garments.
“You start the challenge with a few influencers and then everyone will start taking part in it.
“By utilising the branded challenge you basically have access to your own page and you can create user generated content (UGC). On that page you basically do all the moderation behind it and the soundtrack that comes with your challenge can also be branded.
“So if it’s a branded challenge and you pay for it you can have the logo rotating,” he says.
The reach of a branded challenge on TikTok isn’t something marketers should ignore, with Guess’ #InMyDenim hashtag garnering 41.3 million views.
It was also effective in driving traffic to the business’ website Treguer adds.
“Driving traffic to your website and to the relevant page of your website is what you want to do within a challenge. That’s what Guess did and it was very much driving traffic to their website and looking at the collection. They received 14.3% total engagement rate and the click through rate was 16.5% so it was clearly very effective in driving traffic to the website,” he says.
However, despite the cut-through and effectiveness of advertising campaigns on TikTok now, Treguer says that it wouldn’t be surprising to see the platform follow in the footsteps of other socials and feature more ads.
“I think looking back at Instagram when it first started it was obviously all about instant photos usually taken with phones and it was instant and fun it was very much behind-the-scenes posting on social.
“Then obviously Instagram became way more polished so people were able to post photos coming from DSLRs.
“TikTok is the exact same in promising that instant, fun, behind-the-scenes real footage.
“I think right now, yes it feels more authentic but the amount of time the content is taking to even do is pretty spectacular. I would say if you start early definitely go down that route because that’s what TikTok is at the moment and in a year’s time it will be great to see if it will follow the exact same trend,” he says.
In the meantime however, the number one piece of advice for brands is to get on the platform and have a go.
“The first thing is just to get on the platform and start becoming familiar with it,” Winterbourn says.
“I think that’s the most important, you have to have an intimate understanding of the platform to be successful on the platform and the only way you do that is get on the app and become familiar with it.
“Entertain first and sell second. It’s really important to actually get your audience and make sure it’s the right audience and really get that strong sense of followers and that will happen obviously if you’re entertaining,” she says.
Iozzi agrees.
“Get on it – that’s the number one thing I can say. It’s unwise and almost naïve for marketers to think that the social media landscape is stagnant.
“There’s no harm in dipping your toe in – it’s fishing where the fish are.
“The second piece of advice is to engage with local content creators. If you are looking to expand your market on the platform, work with the people in the area. Work with the people that are associated with your target audience. Don’t go overseas looking for talent, there is plenty of home-grown talent in this country on TikTok.
“It is a fast-growing incredibly diverse platform that I think celebrates that more than all the other platforms do. You will find more body types, more personalities, more political opinions on TikTok and I think that that voice the platform gives is its greatest strength,” he says.
“Don’t be afraid to step outside of your comfort zone,” Stoliar continues.
“Really try and think about how you can reimagine a challenge. You can review what everyone else has done and you can think about something that’s really specific to your brand.
“It’s not about hiding behind a filter, it’s not about cleaning up every corner or photoshopping out elements, it’s really about the raw and real and how your company operates and really showcasing people, users of TikTok will really buy into that,” she says