TikTok Influencer Marketing: The Keys To Successful Campaigns

In 2018, TikTok was introduced to American audiences and the short video format social media platform quickly started gaining popularity. Within 2 years, it became the most downloaded app from 2020-2023 and its popularity with younger users is not slowing down.

With this much popularity and a highly engaged user base, brands are eager to get their messaging onto the platform to boost their reach and increase awareness.

Many brands currently have their own TikTok accounts, but due to the nature of the content on TikTok, these accounts generally don’t perform as well as pure creator accounts.

This means to access this platform’s users, TikTok influencer marketing is the choice of top brands finding success on the platform

In this guide, we’ll go through the key points to know so you can understand TikTok as a platform and how to start building your TikTok influencer campaigns that tap this highly desirable user base.

What Is TikTok Influencer Marketing?

TikTok influencer marketing uses established influencers and creators on the platform to promote your brand, product, or initiative. TikTok influencer marketing is similar to Instagram influencer marketing, but it focuses on unique short-format videos that can quickly shift as new trends emerge.

Overall, this can make marketing on TikTok a bit overwhelming for brands who aren’t submersed in the day-to-day culture of the platform and understand the nuances that separate engaging content from less popular content.

Being aware of the digital culture on TikTok is the key to creating successful influencer campaigns on the platform and in many ways, it’s more crucial than on older platforms.

Understanding TikTok

Before TikTok, there were a few other short-form video platforms such as Vine and Snapchat. But while both of those have had success, TikTok was able to crack the code and turn the format into a long-lasting success that continues to draw users in and has become a cultural phenomenon.

The key differentiator with TikTok that brands should understand is the video content itself. There is a particular format to videos on TikTok, making it unique compared to other platforms.

For example, on YouTube, the content can vary from short videos shot while walking and holding a phone. While other content can be highly produced with custom graphics and animations that match mainstream televised news productions.

Each type of content can succeed and there is room for almost anything in between those two extremes. 

With TikTok, things are different. There is a narrow window when it comes to the look, tone, and vibe of the content that performs well on the platform.

Videos have to be clear, sharp, and concise. But they can’t be overproduced. It’s a delicate balance that the best creators and influencers understand well.

Even though each creator has their own unique personality and audience, there is less variation in the look and production of the videos across the TikTok platform when it comes to successful content.

This means that brands and marketers need to be sensitive to this unique aspect of the platform and plan their campaigns and partnerships accordingly.

Campaigns that work on other platforms may not directly translate to TikTok. You can still cross-promote the same core messaging across platforms, but you will likely need to modify the campaign to make it successful on TikTok.

What Makes TikTok’s Algorithm Unique

Every social media platform uses an algorithm to serve content to users. Marketers rely on this algorithm to make sure the right audience is exposed to their messaging through the influencer partnership they’ve forged.

TikTok’s algorithm has a few unique features that make it especially useful for marketing and cost-effectively reaching audiences.

Influencer Popularity Has Less Influence On how Content Is Algorithmically Promoted

Of all the social media platforms, TikTok places the least amount of weight on the creator’s existing popularity and audience size when promoting content.

Popular influencers will still have their content pushed out to their followers and users who show similar interest. However, smaller brand influencers can immediately gain additional traction on a per-video basis if the content has viral engagement and other positive metrics.

To translate this into marketing, it means that nano and micro-influencers have a much easier time creating specific videos that can outperform their usual content.

The Tiktok Algorithm Gives Content A Second Chance

Another unique aspect of the TikTok algorithm that benefits marketers is the way it promotes content after an initial surge in viewership.

If content is successful on TikTok, the algorithm will often pick it up again and start promoting it at some time in the future.

Usually, this happens several weeks after the initial content does well and it’s like the video gets a “second life”. 

Another benefit is that because TikTok tends to not show users content they’ve already watched, the second time a video is picked up by the algorithm it will be shown to an almost entirely new audience.

For brands, this means they should consider their partnerships and ensure successful content stays up after its initial publishing.

Some creators and influencers will take down content after a certain period based on their contract with the brand.

When working with influencers, make sure you can keep content up, especially for more evergreen content that isn’t time-sensitive or promoting a one-time event.

How To Build A TikTok Influencer Campaign

Now that we’ve covered how TikTok differs from other platforms and the way the algorithms promote content, it’s time to dive into some campaign creation tips.

Using TikTok Audience Insights

Audience Insights is a tool available to TikTok advertisers and can provide an enormous amount of useful data when understanding the platform, creators, behaviors, and other metrics.

Audience Insights is designed for those using the paid-advertising features within TikTok, but anyone can access the data for free as long as they have a TikTok account and have posted at least one video.

Determine Your Niche And Find Influencers

When finding influencers on TikTok you want to be as targeted as possible. Many of the general influencer areas like “cooking” are oversaturated and aren’t specific enough to really take advantage of the hyper-targeting you can achieve through TikTok.

You can start your search by using specific hashtags unique to your brand and campaign goals.

Additionally, you can create new TikTok accounts representing the various customer personas you’ve created during your marketing research.

These persona accounts can then be used to interact with TikTok to find what creators are within that niche and the areas of interest that overlap with your brand’s audience.

Doing this will also help you start to understand the TikTok hashtags and which ones are most relevant to your brand.

TikTok relies heavily on hashtags and this influences what appears on the user’s For You Page (FYP) which is essentially the user’s home page feed.

Vet Your List Of Potential Influencers

Once you’ve identified some influencers that match your brand’s audience, you want to start vetting them to determine which ones offer the best partnership possibilities.

A key area to look at is the audience engagement with the influencer’s content. This includes how often users comment on the influencer’s post and whether those comments are relevant to the post.

How often the content is shared is another key metric that indicates the influencer has a strong connection with their audience.

Something else to consider during the vetting process is the influencer’s overall tone and values. You may want to search off-platform to learn more about the influencer to ensure they align with your brand’s values and voice.

Deciding On Content

Creating the content for a successful TikTok campaign is one of the more nuanced and difficult aspects of marketing on the platform.

Due to the short videos, you need to work closely with the influencer to make something that immediately engages the audience and causes them to watch the entire piece of content.

A key part of the TikTok algorithm is whether or not users watched the entire video. If a video fails to grab attention, the metrics can quickly start to fall and the video won’t be promoted as it should.

Another aspect to consider is whether you can deliver any necessary CTA within the short video format. For some campaigns, this may not be possible and you should consider other platforms first.

Directly clickable links on mobile are not possible, but campaigns can still drive web searches, hashtag searches, or use workarounds for the inability to link within the content.

Optimize Publishing Details To Maximize Popularity And Reach

The success of content published on TikTok is determined relatively quickly, often within the first few hours. This makes optimizing the publishing details critical for the video to gain traction.

The influencer should have some idea of the time of day when their content performs best. 

Make sure to confirm these details by researching their past content and also by using the analytics available on the TikTok platform such as Audience Insights.

Hireinfluence Partners With MTV For A Successful TikTok Influencer Campaign

Hireinfluence was approached by MTV to help launch the upcoming #MTVMyStyle brand awareness campaign. The goal of the influencer marketing campaign was to promote the Capsule Collection, which would be available through a major retailer.

After researching the target audience, Hireinfluence recommended the campaign start on TikTok due to the platform’s high percentage of GenZ users that matched the brand targets.

The campaign included popular TikTok influencers who each created different looks that incorporated pieces from the Capsule Collection.

The campaign was a success and it took advantage of many of the unique aspects of TikTok that we described earlier in this guide.

Key Takeaways From This Successful TikTok Campaign

• The content continued to perform well after the initial successful launch of the campaign. This is a unique aspect of the TikTok algorithm and user behavior on the platform. A successful influencer campaign should look to take advantage of these opportunities to sustain a campaign’s effectiveness even after it ends.

• Influencers with fewer than 1 million followers had better watch percentages than larger accounts. This allows brands to use a more diverse group of influencers and still get great results.

• The campaign’s CPM and CPE were lower than other similar platforms such as Instagram.

Finding A TikTok Influencer Marketing Agency

Advertising on TikTok offers brands a great deal of potential, but it is one of the most difficult platforms to find the right blend of content and messaging.

Users on TikTok are savvy and the short video format means any influencer campaign needs to be carefully crafted and executed for it to gain traction and get the desired results.

Working with an experienced TikTok influencer marketing agency can help your brand start to leverage the potential that TikTok offers.

Because of the unique aspects of TikTok, make sure you work with an agency that has a history of success working with TikTok influencers and creating campaigns that resonate with audiences on the platform.