Top TikTok Strategies to Promote Brand Activations

Using TikTok to Promote Your Brand Activation

With more than a billion active users, TikTok is one of the largest and most effective social media platforms available to brands looking for a way to publicize their events and grow awareness. No longer just a global hub for memes and viral dances, TikTok has evolved into a powerful tool for reaching a wide audience and generating excitement, says an article on.

Can TikTok help promote your brand’s events? Yes, says inevent.com. Not only does TikTok offer a vast, engaged audience, it’s also “a platform where trends and challenges constantly emerge and evolve, creating a culture of participation and interaction.” These characteristics make it ideal for promoting brand activations, pop-ups, or other forms of experiential marketing.

As with any social media channel, successful TikTok content for event promotion is relevant, brief, and includes a clear call to action — everything a user needs to get involved with the event you’re promoting. On TikTok, unlike other platforms, having an organic look and feel is equally important. “The main thing that separates TikTok from other platforms like Facebook, Instagram, or Pinterest is that TikTok users expect organic, user-generated and -produced content,” says an article on socialtables.com.

Stay relevant.

In this context, relevance means content that aligns with the event’s themes and goals in a way that connects with your audience. The key is producing content that bridges the space between event and prospective attendees — and this is an area where a partnership with a content creator can be especially helpful.

Influencers and content creators know how to connect with followers via TikTok. “It’s no coincidence that certain people become TikTok influencers,” says socialtables.com. “They usually gain a reputation for the high quality of the content they provide.” TikTok creators are the experts; trust their judgment in developing content that will connect with your target audience.

Strive for organic and user-generated (even if it’s not really).

In social media terms, “organic” means content that’s not polished or staged, explains socialtables.com. Production values are often lower than one would expect from traditional advertising, which is a good thing because it makes the videos look and feel user-generated — and ideally, the content really is user-generated.

In addition to “producing authentic, front-facing camera content, savvy marketers often use attendees’ natural enthusiasm to advertise on TikTok.” Make a habit of asking experiential event attendees (or your staff) to record themselves moving through the event, then use this material to promote currently running and future events. “Something like that will gain a lot more impressions than a professionally produced video that is uploaded to the platform.”

Behind-the-scenes content produced during the planning stages for the event can also make powerful TikTok videos, building anticipation for the event itself while putting a human face on the brand.

Don’t be afraid to follow trends.

TikTok is famous for trends — topics, hashtags, songs, sounds, effects, filters, stickers, challenges, dances, lip-syncs, and other interactive video memes that go viral and often jump to other platforms. These “reflect the TikTok audience’s current interests, moods, and preferences,” says inevent.com, and while some of these are decidedly silly, like Jimmy Fallon’s #TumbleweedChallenge, which had viewers rolling on the ground like tumbleweeds, participating in a popular challenge can be a fun way to help your brand connect with viewers and join the TikTok “conversation.”

By harnessing a TikTok trend to promote your event, you can also “increase your chances of being discovered and featured on the For You page, the main page where users discover new content,” says inevent.com.

Another strength of these TikTok trends is that they relieve some of the creative pressure of producing multiple videos to promote an event or your brand over weeks or months. Interpreting a popular trend in your brand’s “voice,” look, or personality can be as effective as original content, says socialtables.com. “There’s no need to reinvent the wheel. If you’re not sure where to begin, you can take any current trend and add something unique to it.”

Use TikTok features and effects.

Similar to trends, TikTok features help users and brands produce content centered around those trends. Duets and stitches, for example, “allow the user to create a video alongside another user’s video, either by adding to it or reacting to it,” says inevent.com. Duets and stitches epitomize TikTok’s interactive, collaborative culture, and brands often use them to promote events or products by dueting with videos relevant to the event, audience, or industry. You’ve probably seen “business TikTok” users employ stitches as a way of quoting experts or colleagues. “For example, if you are promoting a webinar, you can duet or stitch with a video that asks a question or shares a tip that is related to your webinar topic or with a video from a speaker or an attendee of your webinar.” These kinds of posts often make their way into Facebook and Instagram as users recycle content across multiple platforms.

Challenges are another TikTok staple that adapts readily to event promotion. Branded hashtag challenges “invite users to participate in a user-generated content campaign around a specific hashtag.” These challenges appear on the channel’s Discover page, where users can find challenge details, rules, and prizes; you can include a custom banner with the challenge that drives users to a page with more content about the event and associated challenge/s.

Help your target audience find you.

To find the right trends for your brand, audience, and event, “use tools like TikTok Trending Page, TikTok Discover Page, TikTok Hashtag Generator, and TikTok Trending Sounds.” Adapt trends to your brand’s purposes using built-in TikTok tools like its Video Creation Kit or Smart Video Soundtrack. Use TikTok’s analytics and scheduler to optimize posting time and hashtags to get the biggest reach and engagement.

Hashtags are essential to TikTok success because they’re a primary means of inserting your posts into the conversation. Tap into this power by creating and using a unique hashtag for the event in addition to hashtags already in use for your brand. Always include any hashtags associated with the meme or trend you’re adapting, too.

According to inevent.com, creating a unique hashtag for your event not only develops a brand identity and recognition for your event and increases organic reach and exposure, it also encourages user-generated content and creates a sense of community among your audience.

Get a TikTok Business Account and invest in paid ads.

On TikTok, like other social media platforms, a mix of organic and paid ads is a solid strategy for success. TikTok advertising starts with creating a Business Account, which opens up a wide range of features and tools. “You can also customize your profile by adding your logo, bio, website, and contact information,” says inevent.com. “You can also link your other social media accounts to your TikTok profile to cross-promote your content” — which is one of the reasons we see so much content that originated on TikTok show up on Instagram and Facebook.

TikTok paid ads come in five varieties: TopView, Branded Hashtag Campaigns, Brand Effects, Brand Takeover, and In-Feed Ads. All five can be valuable for advertising an event, but they all have their specific niches, according to socialtables.com: “For example, TopView and Brand Takeover ads command attention by using full-screen displays, which are great for selling tickets. Branded Hashtag Challenges and Branded Effects tailored to your event style are useful for engaging audiences during single or multi-day events.”

The next step: creating a TikTok Ads Manager account, which allows you to build ad campaigns. The manager is a self-service platform that lets you create, manage, and optimize your campaigns as well as access additional tools and resources.

Track performance, iterate as needed.

Use TikTok’s built-in analytics to track the performance of videos, ads, and campaigns. Track event attendance and engagement and, if your event has a retail component, track performance before, during, and after each piece of the TikTok campaign to see what moves the needle.

Analyze this data to understand what works and what doesn’t, share these learnings with content creators and influencers, and use the information to shape future campaigns.

Reuse and recycle content.

Repurposing content is the secret sauce to making the most of your brand’s social media efforts (and budget). Repurposing takes an existing piece of content — such as a video — and transforms it into a format to share on a different channel or use for a different purpose. According to inevent.com repurposing content can save your brand time and resources, boost SEO and organic website traffic, increase awareness and exposure, and ultimately reach a wider, more diverse audience.

Repurposing works in the other direction, too: Mine your brand’s blog, user-generated content, photos and videos from events, and other materials for potential TikTok use. Conversely, you can turn your educational, inspirational, or entertaining TikToks into blog posts or articles that provide more details, information, and context. “You can then post your blog posts or articles on your event website or landing page or on other platforms like Medium, LinkedIn, or Quora. You can also include a link to your original TikTok video or your TikTok profile in your blog posts or articles to drive more traffic and conversions to your event.” The opportunities for reuse are nearly unlimited.

Promobile Marketing is a dynamic experiential marketing agency based in New York City. For over a decade, Promobile Marketing has collaborated with a range of brands—from budding startups to major CPG brands—on immersive marketing campaigns. Get in touch to discuss your next project.