With over 1 billion downloads, there is no denying that Chinese video app TikTok has taken off in a big way. Is the app the next big thing in social media marketing, or will it go the same way as similar video-based platform ‘Vine’?

Tik Tok is the new kid on the social media block, and marketing professionals are flocking to find ways to use the platform for a commercial leg-up.

In lots of ways. this is understandable. You will probably already have heard that video content runs rings around other formats in terms of user engagement, with one recent study finding that social videos generate a huge 1200% more shares than text and images combined. Merge this with the rapid growth of Tik Tok, which has amassed over 3.7 million users in the UK alone, and the benefits of effectively using the platform as a marketing tool are clear.

The premise of the app is strikingly similar to Twitter’s now defunct platform ‘Vine’: users upload short homemade videos to be viewed and interacted with by other users.

How to Use Tik Tok for Marketing

Like much social media marketing, one of the most effective strategies is to utilise influencers who already have a large following on the platform.

In the same way marketing teams pay or gift products to Instagram influencers in exchange for content published to their followers, one way to utilise Tik Tok as a marketing tool is to have popular users create videos advertising your brand, whether directly or indirectly.

Again, like Twitter and Instagram, much of TikTok’s content becomes viral thanks to the use of hashtags. If you manage to create a popular hashtag that inspires users into making content, you’re onto a winner, and TikTok has the potential to catapult the brands behind the trend into the spotlight.

Be careful though – getting it right is a fine art that can be tricky to master. Get it wrong, and it’s likely that your message will be lost in the mass of content.

What are the Drawbacks?

So TikTok is the new user-lead platform that marketers have all been waiting for? Well, maybe not quite.

Social media companies have been under scrutiny recently, as they grapple with how to regulate huge amounts of content and an ever-growing audience. Tik Tok is struggling with this more than others, partially due to its young audience demographic, and because of the lack of transparency around social media regulations in China, where the app’s parent company in ByteDance are based.

After receiving a $5.7 million fine for ‘disturbing child privacy failings’, TikTok have teamed up with charity Internet Matters in a bid to ensure that its content makes safe viewing for the young people using the app, but questions certainly remain.

Another difficulty for marketers is that TikTok does not offer advertising, though with the success of the app monetisation seems something of a ‘when’ rather than an ‘if’. For now though, marketing on TikTok is limited to using influencers or creating organic content, which can run into the same anonymity trap if it fails to go viral.

With the platform not linked to any of the ‘big three’ (Facebook, Google or Amazon), measuring the success of Tik Tok campaigns is difficult, as marketers have no way of tracking traffic generated through links posted on the platform.

If your target audience is of a young demographic, utilising TikTok as a marketing platform is definitely something to consider. However, whether the platform is just the latest social media craze, or whether it will stand the test of time, remains to be seen.