Whether you have children of your own or you work in a business with teens as your audience you must be wondering how they can sit on their phones for hours at a time. What is it that is taking up all of their time lately?
The answer to that would be a new social media platform that plays 60-second videos on repeat called TikTok. What’s so interesting about that you say? We really have no clue because all the kids say “it’s a teen thing.”
After research on this app and talking with our younger employees we’ve discovered that it truly is just a continuous play of videos made from either big creators or some that are about to have a viral video. These videos use audio made by other creators to make funny videos or really any type of video.
But how can businesses like us use TikTok to our advantage, too? We want in on all of the fun and i’m sure you do to so, here’s a couple companies that have used TikTok and out doing all of us.
1. ChipotleEveryone’s favorite mexican food place is ahead of the game with over 300,000 followers on TikTok. ‘Taco-bout’ brand awareness and engaging younger audiences, am I right! Chipotle targets their customers by creating videos from how their food is made, funny skits using other creators and the famous trend on TikTok with a viral hashtag, #ChipotleLidFlip. By creating these videos Chipotle manages to make others hungry by advertising their food, intriguing the viewers by using famous TikTok stars and engaging others to partake in the flip lid challenge which consists of flipping the lid of a burrito bowl. If Chipotle can use TikTok to their marketing advantage so can you.
2. NBAYou’d be surprised with how active the NBA could be with TikTok but considering they have over NINE MILLION followers, they are doing something right. The NBA has such good tactics when figuring out what to post and how to please all viewers. Their TikTok account consists of videos of popular game snippets, advertising mascots (A LOT), behind the scenes clips of players and TikTok videos with famous creators on the app. The thing that brings all the views to their videos is starring famous TikTokers like Charlie Damelio and Addison Rae in their videos. There’s more than one video with these famous creators that include TikTok’s with them doing dances with mascot Benny The Bull, dancing during the game, and even doing dances with professional basketball players. The NBA manages to engage viewers by making popular mascots well known, showing off popular trick shots from the players and giving that wow-factor from including TikTok stars in their videos even with players doing trends with them. All of this shows the fun and cool side of the NBA that isn’t always focusing mainly on basketball but can also have a good time.
3. The Washington PostThe Washington Post has a mastermind behind their videos that has adapted to the means of TikTok named Dave Jorgenson. He has done a great job attracting viewers to The Washingtons Post TikTok account with almost 400,000 followers. He’s succeeding by making videos incorporating their newspaper, making the main photo of their newspaper turn into a live video, interviews, behind the scenes in their office and they even took place in a famous trend with the hashtag #ButHaveYouSeen where creators drop something on the camera and say something along the lines of “you’ve seen glitter but have you seen ______.” The Washington Post used newspapers-iconic. TikTok has brought a new perspective to the table of how The Washington Post is behind the scenes and how much fun they have together but also advertising their newspaper with funny videos. I also think it’s awesome that they make videos on how they are adults trying to use TikTok.
4. San Diego ZooWhat more can a zoo post about that animals? You’re not wrong but with over 81,000 I think posting about mainly animals is what their viewers look forward to seeing. But they do know how to spice it up with music, funny videos of their animals, introduction videos of meeting their new animals, and they even used a famous trend being the ‘Baby Yoda’ song with a cute animal in their zoo that resembles baby yoda. Making cute little videos of introducing their new animals to the public is a good technique for engaging the audience with making them feel as if they are close with the animals and zoo as well. For example, they used a trending audio “bestfriends check” followed with adorable clips of two animals that met when they were babies and have bonded ever since. The San Diego Zoo really knows how to touch the communities heart-with animals.
