Brands’ Organic vs. Paid TikTok Content Strategy

As TikTok continues its rapid user growth worldwide, brands are starting to follow suit to go where the “eyeballs” are to stay relevant and engage with a broader set of audiences.  Many of such brands are still in the experimental phase of testing different types of content that strike a chord with TikTok’s uniquely young audience, while staying aligned with branding and marketing guidelines.  The first decision brands usually need to make when building social media presence in a new platform is: whether to focus on creating organic or paid content. And today, we have noted a few points to consider, for your brand to excel on both types of content in TikTok.

Organic Content on TikTok

The unique edge of TikTok over other platforms is its ability to let users (and brands and agencies) create entertaining content without having to invest large amounts of time and effort to create polished videos.  TikTok is full of features that add visual and audio effects on your content to make it engaging for viewers.  Big Potato Games is a prime example of a brand that nailed organic content on TikTok and successfully grew virally.  This London-based game studio gained 13,000+ Followers in a few short months after its release. Here’s what you can learn from them: 

1. Don't hop on all types of trends to gain followers. Wait for the right moment to join the perfect song or hashtag challenge that is aligned with your brand to participate. Just like on any social media platform, users expect consistency from your brand’s social feed, so try to maintain this and stay true to your brand.  
   
   
2. Be experimental and dedicate time to find out what uniquely works for your brand on TikTok to make content that engages and excites your audience. Don’t hesitate to leverage user feedback by asking the opinion of your Millennial and Gen Z followers on what they find entertaining and expect from your brand.
   
   
3. Be raw and don’t overproduce. Save your impeccable content for Instagram. Users on TikTok prefer content that is relatable in their daily life. Videos of Big Potato Games and other exemplary TikTok brands are always genuinely authentic, which let brands connect better with their audience.

Paid Content on TikTok

If you have social media budget to spend (wisely), you can always amplify organic content or launch campaigns to accelerate your brand’s TikTok growth.

1. Hashtag challenges are the gold standard for advertising on TikTok. It is a powerful method to elevate your brand’s exposure on the platform, generate virality, and sharpen audience targeting, while experimenting on various types and formats of content to excite your audience: be it dances, lip syncs or trending internet memes.
   
   
2. In-feed advertising is another potent paid ad format, especially since it is fully-immersive on TikTok by occupying the users’ entire smartphone screen. If your paid content concept is creative and authentic, sometimes users might not even notice that it is a paid ad, which is why it can be a very effective marketing tool.  
   
   
3. Influencer Partnerships. Last but not least, influencer marketing is always a great avenue for brands to amplify their content and engage with audiences outside existing social circles.  TikTok even recently launched TikTok Creator Marketplace to let brands conveniently identify influencers to engage for brand collaborations.