The great Tom Fishburne at marketoonist.com delivers yet again with a useful reminder for marketers…
Here we go again. Marketers are circling around a hot new social media property heralded to be the next big thing. One representative FOMO headline — ‘Brands not on TikTok in 2019 will be left behind.”
From a marketing perspective, TikTok promises a perfect storm of big numbers (500 million monthly active numbers and record app downloads), a hard to reach young demographic (Generation Z), and high engagement. The New York Times wrote a fascinating article on the impact of TikTok on social media at large: “How TikTok Is Rewriting the World.”
You can read the whole thing at “tiktok and the next big thing”.
At the risk of coming across as a complete marketing dinosaur…I confess I had never heard of TikTok before coming across Tom’s cartoon and article. Then again, I’m not a “Gen Z”. But it does mean that if, for some reason, I was your target audience, then you wouldn’t have much success reaching me through TikTok.
Now, TIkTok may possibly turn out to be a great opportunity for marketers. However, before investing time and money in exploring this avenue, it’s probably worth reviewing these points…
1. Do you have a clearly defined audience for your product or service?
2. Do you have a clearly defined message for that audience explaining why they should do business with you?
3. Do you have a compelling offer to put in front of your audience.
If the answer to those questions is “Yes”, then…
4. Can you reach your audience via TikTok?
If you can reach your audience, it’s worth looking at TikTok further. Even then you need to decide whether this particular channel is the best use of your time and marketing resources. Usually there are alternative channels available for marketing and some will deliver better results than others.
The lure of the marketing “next big thing” is understandable and I’ve discussed the dangers of being seduced by the latest “shiny object” before, for example in this post…
“The Peril Of The “Shiny Object” For Copywriters…”
The desire to get an edge over the competition…to find that one solution that solves all problems…is part of human nature. However…all too often the “next big thing” doesn’t deliver…and turns out to be a distraction from what does deliver the goods. Tested principles and strategies of direct response marketing may not be as exciting as the latest social media sensation…but they are much more likely to deliver success when applied properly.