TikTok Newsletter 18
🎓 Academic Papers on TikTok 🍔 TikTok’s Addictive Feed 🧰 Ads Case Study
Hello subscriber!
Hope you are good. Here is your weekly infusion of TikTok related infos. This week we try out something new. A little interview. Scroll down now if you can not wait.
I will wait before i write more about TikTok and the US election. You have probably seen Sophia’s documentary for the BBC or you have read about the latest Biden-Harris PAC funding TikTok’s Newest Virtual Creator House. Let´s see if that was enough to get Donald Trump out of office. Political scientists and communication researchers will have a great time analysing the last months.
This week we talk about:
🎓 Academic Papers – and the multidimensional space of TikTok
🍔 TikTok’s Addictive Feed – and the observer-expectancy effect
🧰 Ads Case Study – and the Swiss TikTok game
🎓Academic Papers on TikTok
I have been checking my Google scholar alert on “TikTok” for quite some time now. On October 2 a paper called “Fifteen Seconds of Fame: TikTok and the Democratization of Mobile Video on Social Media” (PDF) was published by two PhD students (Department of Politics and Public Administration, Konstanz & School of Communication Research, Amsterdam) and a Assistant Professor from Penn State (Political Science).
The paper “represents the first large-scale quantitative descriptive analysis of TikTok Politics”, scraping 712,193 videos from 5,495 accounts. Interesting enough the scientists admit that “; if we take an empirical, inductive approach to study every new platform, we will always be fighting yesterday’s war.” They “define four theoretical angles to understand politics on TikTok. Each of them is a synthesis of previous research …: information density, ease of posting, algorithmic rewards, and sounds.”
I highlighted one of the most interesting aspects for me above: Consumers “might agree on a given political fact, they are quick to contextualize it with a model of the world that accounts for that fact.” They sum up these observations on page seven: The “space” of political tiktok is thus likely to have more than one dimension, matching the space afforded by the thick signifiers of televisual communication.” Sounds rather academic to you?
Well, here is an example. Julia Schramm from the german party Die Linke (The Left) has started a TikTok account March, 30. Her most successful tiktok, posted six days ago , where Schramm explains why she has been posting about the Nazi-background of Beatrix von Storch, a German politician who has been Deputy Leader of the Alternative for Germany, on Twitter daily, includes some clear visual hints to contextualize her statement. For instance the poster including the anarcho-syndicalism flag or the overall setting that signifies a socio economic background in stark contrast to von Storchs dynastic style from birth (“Her Highness Duchess Beatrix”).
🍔 The Feed
In newsletter 03 i summed up first observations and findings about the ominous algorithm. Today i found this nice, short and sweet comic style explainer: The Psychology Behind TikTok’s Addictive Feed. It takes four minutes of your time but provides snackable insights.
I for one learned more about the variable rewards and habits that make TikTok “more addictive than other platforms” (Short, Snapped, Surprising), more about how to make your content “sticky” and the term “observer-expectancy effect” – you behave differently when you know you’re being observed. And - well - while using TikTok you are. I recently saw a great video showing a data overlay on your screen while you browse. Unfortunately i can not find it anymore. Anyone?
🧰 Ads Case Study
TikTok still remains uncharted territory for many marketers. Meanwhile TikTok is taking steps to make the app more accommodating to advertisers. Earlier this week, the company partnered with Shopify on an ecommerce integration, and last month, it launched a marketing partner program that provides better support for advertisers. (Adweek, October 29).
There are several different options for so called “brand solutions” meaning different sorts of ads and campaigns: A campaign includes ad groups and these include individual ads. They currently include: TopView, Brand Takeover, In-Feed Ads, Branded Hashtag Challenges and Branded Effects. See examples here.
The entire field here is under constant development. Despite TikTok announcing “that its self-serve ad platform is now available to all businesses globally” (Socialmediatoday, July 8, 2020) the Ads TikTok site does not list Germany yet. While trying to set-up an account the website crashed multiple times and eventually brought me to a page in russian. 🤷
A good starting point for your endeavour whatsoever is the TikTok for Business site, including best cases in the inspirations section. To dive a little deeper i am trying something new here after Mattia from Postfinance, a subsidiary of the Swiss Postal Service and one of the listed TikTok inspirations, got in contact. Here is our little Q&A for you and me to learn a bit more about their campaign and strategy. I am curious if you are interested in reading more things like that. Feel free to write a quick mail.
Marcus: When and why did PostFinance come up with the idea for a TikTok account and a TikTok ad?
Mattia: The idea came up in early 2020. The concept process started in April 2020 and was approved in June 2020. Kick-Off on the platform was August 3rd. Our strategy was to be on TikTok for real, not only use the platform for ads. This is why we put a lot of work into our TikToks and only occasionally posted Ads.
Marcus: Who did help? With the concept? With the ad? With the execution?
Mattia: Mostly our Social Media Team, as well as our sparring partner Senler Media GmbH, based in Zurich.
Marcus: How much did you pay?
Mattia: We were able to profit from early mover media fees TikTok offered, up until September 2020. We spent approximately spent 1/3 for the production and 2/3 for mediabudget.
Marcus: How long did the ad run? TopView and One Day Max In-Feed Ad
Mattia: We ran a total of 6 Ads in August. 2x Top-View, 4x One Day Max In-Feed.
Marcus: What kind of impressions, Click-Through Rate and Engagement rate did you aim for?
Mattia: As it was the very first time and kind of an experiment for us, we just got the benchmarks for Germany and aimed to reach those.
Marcus: Who is responsible and who is running the PostFinance TikTok account? Is it a side project or is anyone engaged full-time?
Mattia: We are a team of three Social Media Managers that work on TikTok, besides our many other tasks. Nobody is responsible for the project full-time. We also get support by a Content Creation/Creative Agency.And of course, we have many talented, motivated and beautiful co-workers who were happy to participate in front of the camera ;)
Marcus: What is the goal here?
Mattia: We have different goals: we want to be where a younger audience on Social Media is, we want to improve our Brand Awareness (we want to be part of the TikTok game), we want to show that we are a competitive employer and we want to be a first mover (first Swiss bank on TikTok). But, as mentioned before, primarily we want to be part of the TikTok game, so we play it. We’ve only done one Ad Campaign so far, we want to focus on just making entertaining TikToks. You’ll find our account here.
Marcus: Which analytics tool do you guys use? Are you happy with it?
Mattia: For now we only use the official Analytics TikTok is providing.
Marcus: How do you see the Swiss TikTok market in general. There is obviously some buzz. Just found this older list.
Mattia: It is definitely growing. More and more users in Switzerland get quite big audiences and we have been noticing several brands moving to TikTok. But all in all it is not yet “overcrowded” by companies and ads (but it’s getting more, we’ve recently noticed). But for sure the platform will be even more relevant in 2021 for a brand that wants to target a younger/creative audience, as well as for brands who are willing to make TikToks, not ads.
Marcus: Thx!
Now what? Here are some more infos about the TikToks Ads Manager and the TikToks ad structure. If you as a brand are looking into using Tiktok Startupnation has a nice write-up on how to start: How to Use TikTok for Business: 4 Key Steps as Told by a Brand. Before coming up with ads you should ask yourself a bunch of overall questions and engage with the platform. TikTok Ads are step 4, not step 1,2 or 3.
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That´s it. You have reached the end. It is all over now. Feel free to share. See you next week. Probably with more about #teamhalo.
Ciao, Marcus 💥