Are you sick of your dry post notifications? What about your bare comment section? Are you fed up with nearly nonexistent traffic on your website? I’m here to tell you that it doesn’t have to be this way – all that work you put into building your brand doesn’t have to go to waste.
What if I told you that by reading this blog you could put an end to all of the radio silence on your company’s content?
You might be asking how… the solution is simple: TikTok.
What is TikTok?
If you have to ask this question, that’s certainly your biggest problem.
TikTok is a social media app that serves as a platform for short-form video content created for and by everyday users. The app took the United States by storm in 2018 when the Chinese company, Bytedance, merged with the popular western app Musical.ly. In the following years, we saw exponential increases in TikTok’s use and leverage by businesses.
According to Influencermarketinghub.com, in 2020, TikTok was the second most popular iPhone app downloaded and the most popular overall app downloaded globally. While this is certainly impressive, the astounding statistics don’t end there. While TikTok is known for appealing primarily to young, Gen Z aged individuals, its reach spans across a wide range of demographics from 10-year-olds to 55+-year-olds, hence why the app has amassed over 1 billion active monthly users. Today, these users spend more than 850 minutes per month on the app and collectively view more than 1 billion videos daily.
If this isn’t music to a marketer’s ears I don’t know what is…
TikTok Challenges
Cyberclick.net states that in 2021, TikTok has remained the most downloaded app globally, making it imperative for businesses to utilize it as an advertising tool. One of the most entertaining, fun, and engaging ways for brands to effectively advertise to a wide range of target markets on the app is to create a challenge tied to their brand.
What are TikTok Challenges?
All challenges are similar in that they require users to complete a task or follow a set of rules. This might consist of users recreating a brand’s video, dancing to a catchy song, or showing off a talent or athletic feat. Later.com explains that TikTok challenges are so effective because they harness fun trends that anyone can get involved in. Ultimately, these interactive challenges help to build brand awareness, create relatable content, and grow your TikTok community by tapping into a user’s desire to express themselves. These sponsored TikTok challenges are known as branded challenges as they are inspired and created by specific brands.
How Can Challenges Help Your Brand?
When done right, TikTok challenges can gain traction and reach millions of users on the app. By creating or joining a challenge, brands can increase exposure and awareness, increase ad recall, and better connect with their target audience. Branded challenges are so effective because they humanize a brand and allow companies to turn regular TikTok users into brand ambassadors by leveraging user-generated content.
Think of what this reach could do for your company’s growth beyond just followers, but total conversations and sales revenue. If you want to see your sales grow substantially, TikTok challenges are certainly the way to reach those potential markets.
Challenge Components
You might be asking, what exactly does when done right mean? Think of it this way: yes, challenges do require creative vision, and there are many different directions you can take when designing the guidelines for your challenge; however, there are a few components that should be included if you want the best results for your ad campaign, including:
- #HASHTAGS
- Catchy/Distinctive/Popular soundtracks
- Brand inclusion
TikTok themselves explains that hashtags help users to find and easily search for videos they’re interested in, join conversations they care about and increase a post’s visibility on a user’s For You Page. Similarly, brands can capitalize on trending, catchy, and memorable soundtracks which will increase their chance of their video challenge being pushed out to more people. Theringer.com claims that the best audio tracks to use have few lyrics, a base drop, and a thematic message that can be repurposed to make a joke.
Both of these components directly appeal to key characteristics that drive TikTok’s video classification algorithm and therefore make your video more likely to appear on a wider range of individuals’ For You feed.
Finally, although not essential, a brand can further increase brand awareness by including the product or company name in the hashtags or challenge requirements to make their brand recognizable. All three of these tactics will first serve to drive more traffic to a company’s TikTok account and from there to their website, thus resulting in an inevitable rise in sales as more people are exposed to their products and/or services.
Pepsi’s #PepsiCanBalance
Pepsi embedded its brand name in their hashtag challenge and required the use of their products in their challenge.
Chipotle’s #GuacDance
Chipotle’s creative dance challenge took on a fun and energetic brand persona while using a unique custom song. They even offered free guacamole to users who showcased their take on the challenge when in their physical store locations.
Guess’ #InMyDenim
Guess’s short, yet highly effective 6-day challenge used a catchy soundtrack and suggested that users use their brand’s denim jeans to show off their unique style.
The need for creativity
Simply posting videos of your product on TikTok isn’t going to cut it. You have to up your game… get creative and have some fun! Create challenges that take advantage of TikTok’s many tools. By simply incorporating branded challenges into your content strategy you’ll no longer have to suffer from that deafening radio silence on your social media platforms. Instead, your ears will ring with the melody of booming account and website traffic, skyrocketing content interactions, and record-high sales.
Make TikTok users a part of your brand, not just viewers and your sales will reap the benefits.
Start creating your own TikTok challenges here!
Teaching Social Media 
Great explanation of this sales tool thru innovative technology
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