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Understanding the TikTok challenge
So you’ve decided to start a TikTok account for your organisation. Maybe you’ve even worked with an agency to produce some content, posted a few videos, got a few likes. But the levels of engagement you were promised aren’t materialising, and all around you are videos achieving millions upon millions of views. Your content, in contrast, languishes.
It’s a tough cycle to break, and you’re not alone. Plenty of brands have tried to expand onto TikTok. And plenty have failed. There’s a simple reason why.
People don’t like being sold to.
We’ve all met the pushy salesperson. That one who won’t take no for an answer. Who just keeps showing up. Whose every word seems faked in the hope you’ll buy their products.
That’s how the majority of TikTok’s audience sees sponsored – or branded – content. In an algorithm that tailors each and every video to the individual tastes of the user, a video that doesn’t fit those tastes sticks out like a sore thumb.
Overcoming the algorithm
So how do you overcome the algorithm? You play into it.
The fantastic thing about TikTok is that it knows its users inside and out. It knows what makes them tick (no pun intended), and it knows what keeps them watching. That’s, in part, what makes it so successful. And it’s something you can harness.
Harnessing authenticity for engagement
If you create authentic content that plays to your strengths, the odds are that it will reach an audience. Your content doesn’t necessarily need to ‘sell’ your organisation in any way, it just needs to get people to engage. That’s how you begin to build a brand.
Those that are interested will find out more. And, as you engage more and more with your audience, you can begin to pepper in content specific to what you’re trying to achieve overall. Whether that’s selling a product, hiring into a profession, or building brand awareness.
TMP’s success story on TikTok
At TMP, we’ve started doing exactly that. And it’s working.
You can find us on TikTok at tmpworldwideuk, and as of writing this article, our videos have garnered millions of views and over 295,000 likes.
Making TikTok work for your brand
How have we achieved that success? Partially, by mentioning our brand, our services, and our business very little.
It might seem counterintuitive, but it works. Our videos are centred around topics like workplace culture, office small talk and work friendships, and they follow the trend cycle like a hawk. They’re not designed with selling in mind, but engagement. We want to make our audience laugh, not buy. Smile, not sign up. And that’s why people like it.
Quite quickly, it translates into results. One of our hiring managers had a candidate tell us she knew us from TikTok, not our website, and that our videos had inspired them to apply for the role.
Now that we have an audience, we can drop in the occasional video that talks to our offer. It might not resonate with all of our audience, but those that it does resonate with are more likely to engage with it based on their existing relationship with our brand.
So, what’s the lesson that brands can learn?
Stop trying so hard.
Poke fun at yourself. Hand the account over to someone new. Don’t take it too seriously. Make meaningful, authentic content for the joy of it, not because you want it to achieve something.
Treat TikTok like a journey. And it might just treat you right back.
