Why and How to Leverage TikTok for Influencer Marketing

By QuikPlace | July 21, 2021

TikTok, the social media platform that has become famous thanks to its 15 minutes short-video format, is a popular destination for brands and even creators or influencers.

Brands take advantage of the creative formats and relatively low barriers to enter the TikTok influencer marketing programs.

Why is TikTok the preferred destination for influencer marketing?

TikTok is the most popular among the short-video format social media platforms across the globe.

For the first half of 2021, TikTok was the most downloaded non-gaming app on the iPhone App Store and second on Google Play Store with over 385 million downloads.

The average monthly minutes spent on TikTok by a visitor increased from 443 minutes in October 2019 to 858 minutes in March 2020.

TikTok is expected to surpass the 1 billion monthly active users mark in 2021.

Before it was banned in India, TikTok had nearly 200 million users, one of its largest markets.

The projected value of revenues earned by TikTok in 2020 was around $1 billion with its valuation estimated to be about $50 billion.

Given its mass popularity, it is no surprise that brands are flocking to TikTok to take advantage of the influencer marketing program.

Why leverage TikTok for influencer marketing?

The top TikTok influencers have a massive fan following. Brands hire popular creators whose videos get high engagements.

Here is the list of the top 5 TikTok influencers with the follower count-

• Charli D’Amelio-118 million followers

• Addison Rae-82 million followers

• Khabane Lame-80 million followers

• Bella Poarch-75 million followers

• Zack King-60 million followers

While it is true that the influencers work hard to gain followers, the brands capitalize on the popularity of the influencers to market their products. It gets them sales and also helps in trust building.

Now, let us talk about the TikTok influencer reach and engagement when compared to other social media platforms like Instagram and YouTube.

• As per a survey by Upfluence, micro-influencers have an average engagement rate of 17.96% which is higher than YouTube (just 1.63% engagement rate) and Instagram (3.86% engagement rate only).

• Similarly, the engagement rate of regular influencers is about 10% on TikTok whereas it is 2.39% for Instagram and a dismal 0.51% for YouTube.

• When we look into the statistics of rising TikTok influencers, we see that their engagement rate is around 8.37%. On Instagram, the rising influencers command a 1.87% engagement rate and reduce to 0.43% on YouTube.

• When you hire TikTok influencers with a follower count of above 1 million, the engagement rate is about 5%. On Instagram, it is around 1.21% and it is 0.37% on YouTube.

The engagement rates for different types of TikTok influencers are as follows-

Types Of TikTok Influencers	Follower Count	Engagement Rate
Micro-influencers	Less than 15k	17.96%
Regular influencers	15k to 50k	9.75%
Rising influencers	50k to 100k	8.37%
Mid-influencers	100k to 500k	6.67%
Macro-influencers	500k to 1M	6.20%
Mega-influencers	Above 1 Million	4.96%

We derive two important results from the above statistics-

• TikTok influencer marketing is thriving. It is essentially better than other social media platforms like Instagram or YouTube.

• The second inference is that the micro-influencers, regular influencers, rising influencers have better engagement reach than the mega or the macro-influencers.

If you are trying to figure out where to hunt for micro-influencers, regular influencers or rising influencers, let us tell you about QuikPlace. It is a great TikTok influencer marketplace to hire and work with influencers to highlight your brand.

If you need more reasons for why you need to leverage TikTok for influencer marketing, here it is-

Saves time and effort-

Rather than waste time in creating content, testing them for engagement and again creating new content to get more traction, you save time and effort by hiring TikTok influencers.

No deep analysis about TikTok advertising required-

With TikTok influencers around, you needn’t worry about analyzing how the TikTok app works, who its audiences are or what entertainment they seek. You straightaway work with TikTok influencers who can market your brand. You take advantage of their fan following to build up your profile and make sales.

To leverage their follower base-

The TikTok influencers have already built followers who genuinely trust them. You simply have to leverage this for your brand benefit. You pay for a ready-built customer base. You just have to select the right customer base by collaborating with the right influencer.

QuikPlace is a TikTok influencer marketplace just perfect for you to search for influencers who are ready to promote your brand.

No content strategy required-

Brands needn’t have brainstorming sessions about the content required for TikTok influencer marketing. Instead, they should hire TikTok influencers who are creative and can come up with their own content. The influencers know their followers well. They create content to get you more sales.

How to leverage TikTok for influencer marketing?

With the rise of the new generation of influencers, brands are finding it easy to market their content through TikTok influencer marketing. If you are keen to market your brand, you will find plenty of creators on QuikPlace, the most happening TikTok influencer marketplace.

So, what are the tips and tricks to leverage TikTok for influencer marketing? The general rule is to entertain the audience. Just like other social media platforms, people want to be influenced and inspired.

Let us see some of the TikTok influencer marketing strategies here.

1. Use the power of TikTok features like the HASHTAG

TikTok is obviously a short video format. But another aspect that works in its favor is the hashtag feature. Brands have worked on promoting unique hashtags. There are countless people who launch videos with trending hashtags.

#InMyDenim hashtag was launched by the denim brand Guess. Initially, it hired influencers who posted videos of transforming themselves from messy to stunning by featuring the Guess denim. Once the hashtag started trending, followers jumped the bandwagon and it became popular.

With this TikTok influencer marketing, Guess was able to reach the younger audience and reposition itself in the US market.

2. Work with TikTok influencers who have high engagement rates

We have stressed this fact before too. Remember, don’t go blindly after TikTok influencers who have the maximum number of followers.

Instead, TikTok influencer marketing is all about selecting those influencers whose videos have high engagement rates. Hire TikTok influencers with a decent following and a good track record of the audience reach.

3. Bring uniqueness to your content

Bring fresh content to the table when you hire TikTok influencers. It has to be intriguing enough to grab a few eyeballs and highlight your brand appropriately.

One of the best TikTok campaigns was #TooSickToBeSick- Join The Challenge for the medicine brand Mucinex. It started a campaign at the end of Halloween and before the start of the flu season. The idea was to show that Mucinex helps people recover fast for an event or party. The TikTok influencers woke up looking like zombies. They grabbed Mucinex and lo! They were dressed up, ready for the event.

The influencers encouraged their followers to transform in the same way. The hashtag became popular and so the brand Mucinex.

4. Identify TikTok influencers who are creative

The trick is to discover TikTok influencers who have created great content before and are willing to experiment with brand promotion.

HaueterFamily is a TikTok account run by Kara Haueter who appears every day with funny videos on her kids and family. F’real, a brand that sells milkshakes, smoothies and frozen coffee, collaborated to promote their brand in her usual fun ways.

Such videos remain etched in the viewer’s minds because it seamlessly flows with the content format. It subtly promotes the brand while making no real mention of it or its features.

5. Allow TikTok influencers to create their content videos

Instead of brands imposing ideas and strategies on the TikTok influencers, give them the freedom to come up with creative content.

To promote the Nicky Jam x Sch song in Spain, Argentina and Italy, Sony Music collaborated with twelve TikTok influencers. The influencers created videos and the result was an impressive 6% engagement rate with more than 10,000 user-generated videos.

6. Don’t go after guidelines

There certainly isn’t a pattern to follow in TikTok influencer marketing. Most of the time, neither the hashtags work nor the influencer strategy. The idea is to be free to experiment.

Take the case of Gymshark, a fitness apparel and accessories brand. It started a 66 Days: Change Your Life fitness challenge. It asked users to set a personal goal and achieve it within 66 days. The best winner was promised a year’s supply of Gymshark goods.

Gymshark partnered with six TikTok influencers to use the hashtag #gymshark66. The hashtag had got 50 million views by the end of the campaign.

Wrap Up

Leveraging TikTok for influencer marketing is advantageous for the creators as well as the brands. Great content attracts followers and potential customers to your brand.

Brands need to choose TikTok influencers in an organic way to highlight their brand. QuikPlace is the best TikTok influencer marketplace to hire the exact influencers for your brand. Once you hire the right set of creators, there is no stopping your brand from reaching its target audience.