TikTok has experienced enormous growth, challenging established social platforms and creating a vibrant, creative, and experimental community that is shifting culture. However, most B2B brands are yet to understand if the platform is relevant to them and, if so, how to use it. 

Whether you think TikTok applies to your brand or target audience, it’s still important for B2B marketers to understand why it matters to digital marketing. And it might surprise you to learn how TikTok can benefit your brand. 

What is TikTok?

TikTok is a video-sharing social network that focuses on short-form video content with a duration of 15 seconds to three minutes. Users can create and edit videos within the app and share them with friends. They can also interact with videos by commenting, duetting another user’s video, or stitching part of another video or sound into a new creation. 

The unique structure of the TikTok platform is designed to create human connections. It is the fastest-growing of all the social media platforms, with over 1 billion active monthly users across the globe.

Originating in 2018 under the name Musical.ly as a lip-syncing app, TikTok soon rebranded. It expanded its short videos to include dance, comedy, social justice, reactions, reviews, recipes, small businesses, and much more.

One of the reasons that B2B companies tend to be hesitant to use the platform is that TikTok is seen as a Gen Z phenomenon. That statistic, however, is changing. 

In June of 2020, around 64% of active users were between the ages of 10 and 29. In March of 2021, that age group only accounted for 47% of users, a significant drop. Around 42% of users are now in the 30-49 age group, suggesting a shift in demographics for the platform. More recent data is available here.

This change in demographics means that B2B businesses have a better chance of connecting with users in their target audience.

While Gen Z might not be important to your B2B business from a sales perspective, brand awareness or employer branding could be a consideration. If you want to raise brand awareness and have younger people invested in your brand’s culture and values, TikTok is an unparalled way of doing it.

Let’s take a look at the opportunities that TikTok offers brands trying to sell their product or service in the B2B space. And for brands who want to reach a young audience.

What Does TikTok Offer Businesses?

TikTok has started to court the business of companies. Their "Don't make ads, make TikToks" campaign challenges businesses across industries to reach for creative excellence using TikTok's unique and versatile ad formats.

Business Tools

The platform provides businesses with management tools like ad performance tracking, metrics, and demographic information on users. These tools can help you understand how your content and ads are performing, and provides insights on where to improve.

In addition, TikTok has a video scheduling tool so you can plan social media content in advance and create a schedule for your video releases. This allows you to capture peak times that might be outside of working hours, on the weekends, or during holidays. 

The platform seeks to make creative creation easier than on other social channels. With music as such a foundational element, they offer a royalty free commercial music library that are pre-cleared for use.

They have also integrated a Creator Marketplace and campaign management toolset to simplify influencer marketing. TikTok can match brands with creators based on their industry, region, budget, and business goals and brands can keep the creation and review process in one place.

Extremely Engaging

The thing that captures most people's attention about TikTok is the power of its algorithm. Based on reactions to content, it creates a captivating and joyful experience that holds people on the platform. As a result, TikTok has a higher rate of user retention than most other social media platforms.

TikTok isn’t just taking attention away from other social media sites. People are using television and streaming services less and turning to TikTok visual content feeds instead. According to global research done by Kantar, 35% of TikTok users say they spend less time watching other video content after downloading TikTok.

As Sandie Hawkins, Head of Advertising for US TikTok so knowingly put it, "People check Facebook. But they watch TikTok."

User Generated Persuasion

TikTok's huge user base and quick, scrolling video format helps your content get in front of more eyes. Add a super-powered algorithm into the equation, and you increase your chances of both finding the right people and going viral.

You can also yield a large amount of user-generated content from duets or other creators using your audio to mimic your content. This can multiply brand awareness and can bring more people to your page.

On the B2C side, user-generated content is proving to be a strong driver of sales, with the "TikTok Effect" fast becoming a recognised phenomenon. The #tiktokmademebuyit and #tiktokmademedoit hashtags are perhaps testament to the persuasive power of the platform. Users post videos showing off purchases inspired by ads or other users, inspiring yet more users in turn. You might already be aware of it in the form of a wildly popular baked feta pasta dish that created a cheese shortage and made headlines.

Small Business Community

It is perhaps the strength of sales and the ability to go viral that has made the platform so attractive to small business owners. are some of the most successful accounts on TikTok. The platform has taken special care to market to small business owners and start-ups with a range of tools.

Hashtags like #smallbusinesscheck and #smallbusinessowner have billions of views, and campaigns like 2020's #smallbusinesslove have helped take their social marketing to the next level. Other tools like the user-friendly TikTok business manager, Shopify integration, and direct-to-consumer connections through comments and interactions all support small business owners. 

While TikTok easily connects small business owners to their buyers, it can also connect you to small business owners. If your B2B company has small businesses as a target audience, then TikTok allows you to start sharing content directly with that group. You can follow the hashtags and participate in campaigns to get directly in front of your target audience. From there you can help them understand the benefits your products or services can bring.

Thriving Creativity

Creative brands that want to showcase their abilities to create unique or experimental content, or to engage younger audiences, will likely find success with TikTok. TikTok creates an immersive experience that lends itself well to out-of-the-box visual content. 

The platform is designed to create connections between content and viewers. The more interesting, engaging, and creative your marketing strategy and content is, the more likely younger users will enjoy it. 

As a B2B brand, you also need to understand how young creators on the platform are changing content marketing strategies and creative. We’re seeing adverts filtering through on mainstream channels using trending TikTok formats and music. Other content and social ads are also changing to match the expectations set by the creative and engaging nature of TikTok content. 

Cross-Platform Appeal

Users love to share TikTok videos, and TikTok loves to make it easy. Making it easy for users to share content both within and across platforms has seen TikTok videos popping up everywhere. They're on rival platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, and reaching audiences beyond on messaging apps like WhatsApp and Telegram.

Instagram has repositioned in response. Initially they announced that the Instagram algorithm wouldn't promote Reels with a TikTok watermark, but that didn't seem to stem the tide. Now they have announced Instagram is no longer a "square photo-sharing app".

They'll be giving more prominence to full screen video, such as Instagram Stories and Reels. It's yet to be seen if the move will be able to combat the TikTok’s dominance and encourage users to create native content for Instagram instead of porting across branded TikToks.

Other visual media platforms are following suit. Take YouTube Shorts. These short videos are viewed in much the same way as a TikTok feed. And they are meant to capture the same level of attention that a TikTok video does.

Humanising

Creating a human connection with your audience allows you to show off a different side of your brand.

If you're willing to be more personal, creative, and interactive in the content you create for your social media account, TikTok can help you. You can showcase the unique parts of your company, and break out of the boring or stuffy B2B reputation many businesses struggle to shake off.

Beyond boosting your reputation with customer success stories, but many B2B businesses struggle with reputations for being stuffy or boring. However,

So, Should You Be Using TikTok?

So, as a B2B marketer, should you be paying attention TikTok? The short answer is, yes. 

The question you need to ask is how. After understanding the tools on offer, the audiences you can reach, and the culture on the platform, B2B brands will have to decide if they should start cultivating an active presence.  

Each company is different, so there’s no clear answer about whether or not you should be incorporating TikTok into your own digital marketing strategy. However, even if you don’t think TikTok is a good fit for your brand, we’d argue you still need to be learning from it. Marketing trends are being shaped by the platform as it influences social culture.

B2B Brands on TikTok

While TikTok is still strongly B2C focused, with small business owners using the platform to share and promote their products or services, there are many opportunities for B2B. If the above reasoning wasn't enough to convince you to check out the platform, here are a few examples of brands that are making it big on TikTok. 

Shopify

Shopify is the official eCommerce partner to TikTok. They provide the social selling platform for businesses using TikTok to promote products or services. In addition to the partnership, they also use their own channel to share industry news and insights that connects with small business owners and startups.

Sage Accounting Software

Sage Accounting Software made waves with its #BOSSIT2021 campaign. Sage celebrated small businesses in the UK by asking them to share their experiences of overcoming obstacles during a difficult year. 

In addition to the hashtag, Sage also used bespoke music and a premium TopView ad placement to ensure that their challenge was seen. With over 1 million entries in the challenge, Sage saw overwhelming success and connected with many other businesses. This campaign not only demonstrated how B2B can succeed on TikTok. It also showed how the wide range of tools can help create well-rounded campaign structures on just a single app. 

Adobe Creative Software

Adobe Creative Software has taken full advantage of the visual format of TikTok’s short videos. They have created a channel dedicated to helpful how-to's and tutorials that show their products in action. In line with their community building marketing strategy on other platforms, they focus on user-generated content that showcases the capabilities and benefits of Adobe’s software. 

Square

Square uses user-generated content to connect with small business owners and show how their product is helping grow other companies. This gives their brand image a boost as well as helps to promote the products or services offered by their small business customers. 

Conclusion

TikTok has an incredible user base and a retention rate that isn’t comparable to any other social media platform. The content that is being created isn’t just delighting users on TikTok. It is being shared across other channels, is influencing content creation, and changing marketing trends across the globe. 

The truth is that B2B brands need to have TikTok on their radar. You need to consider its application as part of your social media strategy, even if you’re not planning on launching an active presence on the platform any time soon. 

If you are interested in learning more about which social media platforms you could use to achieve your B2B digital marketing goals, get in touch with us today.