As Tik Tok becomes Vlog, what opportunities are there for brand marketing?

This year, especially since the second half of the year, it is not difficult to find that the content forms of lip-syncing, showing off one's appearance, and telling jokes have gradually become a thing of the past when playing Douyin. 2019 is the first year of Vlog on Douyin. More and more UGC and PGC content are of the long video type and Vlog-style to show and record the author's life. With the rise of Vlog in the past two years, users have gradually developed an interest and started to spontaneously pay attention to the lives of others recorded through Vlog.

Tik Tok is gradually becoming Vlog-like. Users who were previously accustomed to 15-second short videos are now becoming addicted to 2-3 minute long videos.

For brand marketing , what new opportunities has the Vlogization of Douyin brought about?

Tik Tok Vlogger regular cooperation

This month, I saw some brands doing Douyin challenges, such as inviting Douyin celebrities to create exclusive dances, interact with products, and recruit fans to join the challenge and interact.

This approach was actually a more mainstream choice for brands to organize Douyin activities last year. At that time, the entire Douyin challenge atmosphere was very strong. However, starting this year, the only challenge that has truly entered the public eye is the previous #bottle cap challenge#, which is not commercial in nature. We are still using the marketing approach of challenge competitions, but the popularity and atmosphere are definitely not as good as last year.

At that time, I thought that instead of doing a challenge, it would be better to fit in with the current Vlog trend, select some high-quality Douyin Vloggers, give the brand's products to the Vloggers and cooperate with them for a certain period of time, and combine them with their daily Vlogs for soft implantation and exposure . This would be more natural and would be more ideal in terms of long-term exposure effects. Especially for home appliances and kitchen appliances, they are good implantation subjects in the daily cooking Vlogs of food Vloggers.

Coincidentally, I discovered these two days that Fangtai has already started doing this. Currently, two Douyin food Vloggers that I follow more, @早啊影影 and @肖尧_, have both received Fotile ovens. They posted unboxing videos and simultaneously demonstrated how to bake food with the ovens. They have also used and incorporated the functions of Fotile ovens into the production of corresponding baked foods in the future.

Brands tell good stories + Douyin information flow advertising helps

In addition to collaborating with TikTok celebrities, brands themselves should also learn to tell stories and use story-based content to resonate with users.

This year, more and more brands have begun to produce their own micro variety shows. Micro variety shows are more dramatic and entertaining, and with the addition of celebrities or popular Vloggers, brand advertisements become more interesting and fun.

Like the "Dare to Speak Out Season 1" and "Skincare Reality Show Season 2" filmed by SK-II this year, Tang Wei, British actor James Corden, Japanese actress Naomi Watanabe and others explored the power of "magic water" from multiple angles through a series of short videos in the form of micro-variety shows. The series of videos created original music and dramatic contrasting plots in the variety show format, making it easier for consumers to accept.

OPPO also produced its own travel variety show "Incredible Journey", inviting Vloggers to use OPPO to complete filming during their trip. OPPO actually started trying Vlog marketing last year and produced a number of excellent Vlogs. It can be regarded as a pioneer in brand Vlog marketing.

Brands like SK-II and OPPO are already stable leading brands in the industry. For mid-tier brands in their rising stage, their visibility and marketing budget may be relatively limited, but they might as well try to use strategies and methods that are more suitable for the brand to create short videos that are more story-telling and resonate with the audience, and to move towards Vlog-like and story-telling themes.

Common brand marketing activities conducted on Douyin include establishing daily operations of corporate accounts, contest challenges, in-depth sponsorship of Douyin, and other IP collaborations. Tik Tok advertising is still in its bonus period, and its customer acquisition conversion rate is at a relatively ideal level in the overall industry. Brands can use high-quality videos to place information flow ads to gain exposure or acquire customer retention, which is also a feasible direction in marketing.

Outlook for Douyin Brands

When Taobao emerged in 2012, a large number of original brands born on Taobao emerged, including the more successful ones such as "Handu Yishe", "Three Squirrels" and "Puppy Electrical Appliances". Taking advantage of the popularity of e-commerce shopping, these brands stepped up their efforts on Taobao and seized the initiative.

After all, Douyin is not a pure e-commerce website. Brand sales mainly rely on content, but Douyin has been gradually transforming its content into e-commerce. The previous "Product Showcase" put products bound to its own Taobao store on the shelves to achieve off-site traffic conversion; Douyin Store directly puts products on the Douyin site, without having to leave Douyin to achieve on-site conversion; and in March this year, Douyin launched "Doudian" for new regional marketing, which diverts online traffic to offline stores and achieves consumer conversion.

With the development of Douyin's e-commerce, there are now some new brands that have performed outstandingly on Douyin, such as the beauty brand Perfect Diary. In July 2018, PerfectDiary's official account released its first video. In one year, it gained more than 1.1 million followers. There are currently 21 items on sale in the product showcase, with sales reaching over 2.2 million, which is a pretty good sales result overall.

In addition to its own content creation and the support of some high-quality content, Perfect Diary mainly achieves continuous dissemination through influencer recommendations, information flow advertising, etc. Like the previous matte lip glaze, Douyin's e-commerce data platform "Dou Canmou" shows that a total of 42 accounts (43 videos) participated in the video release of this product, with the number of fans ranging from 10,000 to more than 1 million, including beauty vertical accounts and multiple non-vertical accounts, such as the promotion of many general traffic influencers.

Of course, Perfect Diary’s operations and placements on Xiaohongshu, Zhihu, Bilibili, and Weibo are also high-density and refined. It is no longer just an excellent representative of the “Douyin brand”, but has also successfully occupied several positions in the e-commerce marketing of domestic beauty products.

In the era of social e-commerce, successful Douyin brands are often not limited to Douyin, and will inevitably have a place on other social or e-commerce platforms.

To make a bold prediction, the next batch of Douyin brands that will rise are more likely to come from industries such as beauty, kitchenware, gourmet seasonings, small appliances, and catering. Many of the products in these industries are low-decision and easy to integrate with high-quality content in life scenarios, making them more likely to seize the initiative.

Conclusion

In the past two years when TikTok has become popular, many brands may still be wondering whether they should keep up with new communication channels and content formats, and whether it is worth investing in them. In fact, everything depends on your brand planning and budget allocation.

Leading brands with sufficient budgets and eager to market new products can delve deeper into Douyin marketing. Continuous operation of corporate accounts, large-scale cooperation with celebrities, cooperation with Douyin original IP, and cooperation on Douyin topics can all provide many ideas. Brands that want to increase exposure through Douyin but find it difficult to do so by constantly updating their corporate accounts can use high-quality videos with information flow ads, and choose to cooperate with vertical or general traffic Vloggers on a regular basis, to ensure a certain effect while also slightly controlling the budget investment.

Tik Tok is still a marketing trend that is still in its bonus period. If you embrace and grasp it, you can still find some opportunities in it.

Author: Ako Ako

Source: Ake Ake (ID: ake-0317)