From viral challenges to being crowned the most downloaded app of the year, 2021 was a breakthrough year for TikTok. As a result, many businesses are considering leveraging this video-centric social media platform to refine their digital advertising strategy and better reach their audience.

Continue reading to learn all the signs that indicate TikTok ads will soon take over the advertising world by storm.

About Advertising on TikTok

TikTok has been rapidly rising in popularity. Since it is a relatively new platform, several of your competitors still don’t know how to advertise on TikTok. This alone can provide your business with a great advantage. TikTok receives over 1 billion active members monthly and it is filled with a young and highly engaged audience that relies on the innovation of the app to express themselves in a fun and creative way.

Below are critical statistics from HubSpot that marketers and advertisers should know about advertising on TikTok:

• There are over 120,768,500 TikTok users in the United States
• Around 43 percent of TikTok users are aged 18-24
• TikTok has over 1 billion monthly users worldwide

What are TikTok Ads?

TikTok Ads are advertisements that are displayed to users on the TikTok app. Whether it’s designed to generate more traffic or increase engagement, these ads typically fulfill a goal of a brand.

There are six different types of TikTok ads:

1. Branded Effects

Branded effects are less like ads and more like branded material advertisers can use to boost brand awareness on social media. These TikTok ad tools generally come in the form of a virtual sticker, or filter. Branded effects help bring brand campaigns to life beyond the traditional digital advertisement.

2. Branded Hashtag Challenge Ads

Branded hashtag challenge ads are digital advertisements brands create to promote a branded hashtag challenge. These TikTok ads can appear in three different formats:

1. Standard video ads that appear in-feed are one form of branded hashtag challenge ads. These are designed to boost engagement.
2. A featured banner ad on the Discover page is another form of a branded hashtag challenge format. These direct more users to the branded challenge page and are designed to boost traffic.
3. The branded hashtag page itself is another example of a branded hashtag challenge format. This page displays videos from all of the users on TikTok that participated in the challenge and included the music and hashtag in their posts.

According to BetterMarketing, over 35 percent of TikTok’s user base will eventually participate in a hashtag challenge. This is largely due to its viral capabilities and the visibility it offers.

For example, when Cheetos debuted their branded hashtag challenge, #ItWasntMe Challenge in 2021, a combination of incorporating a catchy song, targeting the right audience, and choosing the right platform helped it become one of the highest viewed TikTok branded hashtag challenges with over 14.2 billion reviews received today. The challenge enabled users to add “It Wasn’t Me”, a 90s classic by Shaggy as their background track while playing out scenarios of Cheetos thievery and lack of accountability.

The more #ItWasntMe videos TikTokers uploaded, the more visibility it provided to the Cheetos brand.

3. Brand Takeover Ads

Brand takeover ads can be a 3-5 second video or a 3-second image that appears the moment a user opens the app. TikTok users will only be shown one of these ad types per day. They are best to use when a brand wants to stand out from competitors and direct more users to its Hashtag Challenge or landing page.

4. In-Feed Ads

In-feed ads are TikTok videos that can be up to 60 seconds long and they appear as a user scrolls through their For You Page (FYP). When a user comes in contact with these ads, they can skip the ad or maximize it to full screen. These types of ads can also be used to fulfill many different business objectives. One of the best features marketers and advertisers love about in-feed ads is that a call-to-action (CTA) button can be included. This can be linked to a company landing page or another destination of your choice.

5. Influencer Collaborations

Influencer collaborations are one of the ad types that help put TikTok on the map. These sponsored ads allow businesses to collaborate with well-known influencers to boost awareness for their brand. An influencer collaboration on TikTok can be anything from promotion, a recommendation, or a review.

6. TopView Ads

TopView ads consist of videos that are 60 seconds long, typically include sound, and they occupy the entire screen of a user’s device. Like in-feed ads, TopView advertisements can also include a call-to-action (CTA) button.

Why TikTok Ads?

With TikTok ads, reaching your target audience where they are has never been easier. TikTok is responsible for helping several brands leverage the power of user participation to grow their brand. As other social media platforms struggle to keep up with the times, TikTok has experienced consistent growth, putting on the radar of marketing and advertisers in search of the next best advertising platform.

Below are some of the most common reasons businesses are now considering TikTok:

Facebook is on the Decline

In 2021, Facebook, the most popular social media platform nationwide, experienced its fair share of challenges. In October of 2021, the social media giant experienced a 6-hour outage on its platforms–Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp–causing it to lose almost $100 million in advertising revenue. But once the company announced its rebrand to Meta, it triggered its trustworthy score on the Harris Brand Platform to drop from 16 percent to 6.2 percent.

While Gen Z is TikTok’s largest and most engaged demographic, Facebook’s young audience is on the decline. According to The Verge, Facebook’s young users in the United States have decreased by 13 percent in the past two years. This is a sign that Facebook is losing its edge and the younger demographic, who are also responsible for catapulting many of our digital trends today, are spending their time elsewhere.

It’s Rapidly Increasing in Popularity

According to an end-of-year report by Cloudfire, Google has officially been dethroned by TikTok as the number one spot in its list of the most popular domains.

A report by Kantar ranked TikTok the number one platform for global ad equity. Ad equity measures the value advertising has to its end users. The platforms that followed were Amazon, Instagram, Google, and Twitter.

Audience Engagement is High

Since TikTok is fueled by user-generated content, its audience is already highly engaged. According to Influencer Marketing Hub, engagement rates on TikTok can range from 3 percent – 9 percent. Its engagement rate is higher than rival platforms, Facebook and Instagram.

Not to mention, many marketers and advertisers are gravitating to TikTok due to its ability to increase a company’s chances of going viral. Several brands have leveraged the platform and its very active user base to expand their business. Who knows, maybe your company will be the next big thing to come out of the platform.

How much do TikTok ads cost?

Are you curious to know how much TikTok ads cost? TikTok ads operate based on a bidding model that enables marketers and advertisers to manage all costs through daily and lifetime budgets.

In-feed ads, or TikTok native ads, are $10 per CPM (cost per mille or cost per 1,000 impressions) and there are two ways to bid:

1. Cost per view (CPV) – The cost per view is calculated as $10 per 1,000 views
2. Cost per click (CPC) – The cost per click charges can range from $0.02 – $1 per click

In addition, the platform also requires marketers and advertisers to spend at least $500 on a campaign.

While experts recommend a budget of at least $1,000 for your native TikTok ads, other forms of TikTok ads can be much pricier.

According to research conducted by Influencer Marketing Hub:

A branded hashtag challenge requires a flat fee of $150,000 for 6 days. In addition, they allow a brand to put down additional funding that can be allocated towards promoting the challenge.

Experts estimate the average hashtag challenge promotion budget to be around $100,000 – $200,000.

Brand takeover ads can typically cost a business around $50,000 – $100,000.

Are You Considering TikTok Ads for Your Business?

If you are looking to target more Gen Z’ers between the ages of 18-24, then TikTok ads would be a great platform to consider incorporating into your digital advertising strategy.

Its call-to-action feature allows marketers and advertisers to direct traffic to a landing page, a different account, or an app download. Secondly, its engagement rate is astronomical and it has only been continuing to grow. Lastly, TikTok ads are available in an array of price points ranging from $0.02 – $200,000. This provides businesses with a variety of options to choose from and allows all businesses–no matter the budget–to experience the power of TikTok ads.

The post Why TikTok Ads Will Rise in 2022 appeared first on DAGMAR.

The concept of LSM—localized social marketing—has been around for awhile, but an interesting study was recently released that’s causing a bit of a buzz. The Local Search Association (now known as Localogy) collaborated with SOCi to study 163 national franchise brands’ LSM strategies. The result is the LSM Benchmark Report.

While you may not have a national company with multiple locations, the report offers good reminders of how companies of all types, including your local small business, may be missing marketing opportunities on social media.

What is localized social marketing?

The report defines LSM as “marketing efforts that focus on building a local presence for a business, leveraging locally driven communication channels to reach the specific local communities it serves” (rather than a broad/national approach).

This may include social media marketing, review sites, social advertising, chatbots, and other two-way engagement channels.

National brands such as those featured in the benchmark report use LSM strategies to drive better engagement at the local level in the communities in which they operate.

Why LSM matters.

According to the benchmark report:

• When people are looking for a business, more than 90% of them start searching locally first.
• Reviews and ratings are the #1 factor for choosing a company to do business with and a local search ranking factor
• More than 70% of engagement with brands is occurring on local pages.
• Social content influences 78% of purchase decisions.
• Google is the top search engine, but Facebook is in the top three based on search volume.
• Two out of three Facebook users visit local business pages once a week.

For national brands with multiple locations, it’s important they create and maintain social media pages or profiles for each location. For a small business, it means making sure you are everywhere your customers are searching online.

Keep in mind that “social content” in the context of LSM is not only the content that you create for your company. It’s also people sharing recommendations (or warnings) about your products or services on their own accounts, review videos on sites such as YouTube, or reviews on sites such as Yelp.

Conversations about your business are happening across all kinds of social media channels, whether you are participating in them or not.

The takeaway?

Word-of-mouth is more powerful than ever, thanks to social media. Conversations about your business happen across all kinds of social media channels, whether you are participating in them or not. Make sure you’re taking advantage of the opportunities this offers, which can yield benefits that include higher rankings in local organic search results, building trust by demonstrating responsive customer service, converting new customers, and inspiring current customers to do more business with you.

The moving parts of LSM.

The tools in the LSM box include familiar things, such as paid social media advertising, managing your presence on review sites, and claiming your Google My Business listing.

They also include claiming your Facebook business page and Yelp listing. As the LSM Benchmark Report points out, the best-performing companies in the study claimed their location pages and listings at a much higher rate than their competitors. For example, in the retail/general category, Ace Hardware claimed 95% of their Facebook business location pages compared to their competitors, who claimed only 75.8%. In the home services category, Mosquito Joe claimed 96% of their Facebook pages, compared to 55% for competitors.

Zero in on zero click mobile searches.

This is a bit of a side tangent, but one interesting statistic in the report was on zero click searches: 61% of mobile and 34% of desktop searches do not result in clicks because users find what they need right away.

As stated in the report, “No click, or zero click searches are a search engine results page (SERP) that displays the answer to a user’s query at the top of a Google search result. This kind of search result satisfies the user’s intent without having to actually click on any search result links.”

How is this happening? As Sparktoro’s blog post on “Google CTR in 2018: Paid, Organic & No Click Searches” notes, there’s steady growth in zero click searches, but it could be worse “considering how aggressive Google’s become with their rich results and attempts to answer queries prior to anyone leaving the search engine.”

Remember, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing: Sometimes consumers just want to know your address or operating hours, which may mean they’re ready to engage with you. When you’ve optimized your online presence in your local area, it’s easier for these searchers to get that info and get in touch or go to your location. Make sure the information that’s displayed about your business is accurate.

Sparktoro’s advice circles us back to LSM strategies to respond to this trend:

• Invest in increasing your company’s influence on search results, even when you’re not getting clicks
• Increase your brand recognition with strategies such as social media, content, press and public relations to prompt searchers to search for your name instead of a generic keyword when they’re shopping for what you sell

Seize your local presence.

So, what’s the to-do list that comes from all of this? Several things you can do right away!

• Verify your Google My Business (GMB) listing. This is a must for ensuring your business has visibility on Google Maps and in search results and, according to the benchmark report, there are more reviews on Google My Business than anywhere else! You really don’t want to miss any of your opportunities here—the report “observed insufficient attention to reviews, Q&A response and local content posting,” all of which can help you extend your reach and visibility.
• Claim your Facebook business page. Did you know that if someone posts a check-in to your business, a page is automatically created? These pages are considered “unmanaged” and don’t make you look good. If you have an unmanaged page, claim it. If you don’t have a Facebook business page, create one now and start taking good care of it.
• Claim your Yelp business page. The benchmark report notes that too many businesses are ignoring Yelp and not responding to reviews there. In addition, numbers in a recent post from the LSA shows that outside of Google, “Yelp dominates organic results in most local business in the U.S.” Grab this opportunity to engage with your local customers by claiming your page.
• Monitor and respond to reviews, mentions and comments. Ratings and reviews don’t just happen on Yelp or Google anymore. A research report published by SOCi notes that “Consumers … are now also posting recommendations and reviews on social networks like Facebook—blurring the lines between traditional review sites and social media platforms.” Managing reviews could be a full-time job, but fortunately, there are plenty of tools out there to help you. Hootsuite offers a list of social media monitoring tools (including its own). And, for some guidance on managing Google reviews and how to respond to both positive and negative reviews, check out our post on “Customer Engagement Marketing and Google Reviews.”

Below are examples of some of the Google My Business, Facebook, and Yelp local pages of McAlister’s Deli, one of the brands featured in the benchmark report and the one ranked first in LSM among all of the brands studied. The company has more than 400 restaurants around the country, but invests in marketing itself on a location-by-location basis.

Finally, here’s a summary of the top-level areas the benchmark reports recommends paying more attention to:

• Claim/verify and totally build out your business pages across the web
• Respond to negative or critical reviews the same day
• Monitor and respond to other messages from users on social media
• Develop a local content strategy for both Facebook and Google
• Don’t overlook Yelp

Now get out there and compete!

Let’s say it again: Nearly 80 percent of consumers report being influenced by social content when making purchasing decisions. So make sure you’re there for them to find and that you control your fair share of the conversation.

If you’re ready to build a comprehensive presence for your local small business, get in touch with us. We offer local SEO, paid social media ads and other services that can help you compete with anyone, anywhere.

Additional reading:

5 Stats That Show the Power of Localized Social Marketing—statistics from SOCi’s Q4 2018 State of the Market report

3 Ways to Localize Your Marketing Strategy Through Video—the power of hyperlocal video

7 Mobile Social Marketing Tips to Connect With Mobile Users—ways to make your social media appeal to mobile users

The post Localized Social Media Marketing Success in 2021: Lessons for Small Businesses appeared first on DAGMAR.