5 Creative TikTok Video Ideas Brands can Use

TikTok is one of the hottest social media platforms there is. As such, there are plenty of opportunities for you as a brand to create and post engaging content on the network.

As with any social media platform, creativity holds the key to your audience’s hearts.

This post is all about creative ideas you can use on TikTok.

1. Create a branded hashtag challenge

Just like social media platforms say Instagram or Twitter where hashtags enable search and categorization, TikTok is no different. TikTok uses hashtags to enable users to create, share and search for content. And as a brand, you can capitalize on the trend by running hashtag challenges.

Hashtag challenges are popular, particularly so on TikTok. Here’s why?

16% of all TikTok videos that are created spring from hashtag challenges.

Clean and Clear’s (a cosmetic brand) #UnbottleApnaSwag TikTok challenge reached hundreds of thousands of new users. The brand’s audience grew by 10.4k followers courtesy of the challenge and it became one of the most successful challenges ever in India.

Hashtag challenges use the idea of encouraging users to post videos and content around a central theme using specific hashtags.

These contests are so popular that several companies regularly conduct challenges using branded hashtags. These contests often end up going viral and growing your brand in proportion.

For instance, Chipotle used the occasion of the National Avocado day to launch the #GuacDance hashtag challenge. With this challenge Avocado lovers were challenged to dance to the Guacamole song(a song inspired by avocados) 

Do you know what happened next? Around 250,000 users participated in the challenge. The huge participation caused the challenge to go viral. Chipotle’s popularity soared even higher.

The challenge lasted a mere 6 days during which the hashtags #Guac dance was used hundreds of thousands of times and Chipotle saw 430 million video starts with the hashtag.

Was it all likes and views or was there more to it? Chipotle sold over 800,000 sides of guacamole on a single day of the challenge.

The key takeaway? 

• Make the challenge easy and relatable. The song is addictive and the dance steps are so simple that anyone can follow. That’s the reason the challenge went viral so quickly. The fact that you don’t require many skills to accomplish the dance was what inspired so much activity. As some people began responding to the challenge, the online chatter around the event snowballed.
• When you create a challenge it should celebrate your brand. Chipotle didn’t take just any song and decided to wing it. The song they chose highlights its products and how it tied back to the brand. Such promos are most likely to succeed.
• Always have an end goal in mind, be it brand awareness or something you can measure the impact of.

Finally, if you don’t have a big brand presence on TikTok, you can always consider driving traffic from emails, through offline marketing say custom QR codes, or other social networks to the challenge.

2. Use International days and occasions to drive brand awareness

When International Women’s day came around on March 8, TikTok sprang the hashtag #SheCanDoIt for the occasion. Over 310 million people watched the videos created as part of the hashtag.

This was an opportunity for accounts dedicated to women’s organizations to take center stage.

It’s not every day that users will search for videos around women’s equality, gender, and similar issues. But on Women’s Day with so many accounts talking about these topics and TikTok itself sharing the spotlight on the issues it’s the perfect time for brands to pique their ears and act.

This is opportune and timely content that can help a brand draw attention to itself. This is repeatable too. How? Just keep track of holidays and events and especially ones that are niche-relevant. This means entering relevant keywords into social listening tools and keeping an eye out. The good thing—once the year ends, you get to repeat this all over again.

Keep a social media calendar that marks these events. This will help you prepare for the future. Brand mentions have the additional impact of growing search traffic, according to research.

3. Create tutorials

Beauty tutorials on social media channels have turned amateurs into people with serious makeup skills. Tutorials on all things can find their way to social media and end up generating word of mouth for your brand.

If the tutorials are under 60 seconds, all the merrier.

Cooking tutorials, cooking hacks are popular on TikTok. The idea is to post short videos to TikTok and funnel the traffic to YouTube where the longer versions of the same videos exist. The only thing to keep in mind? Keep the branding consistent. That implies using the same logos, colors, and design elements. You can do that with a free tool like the DesignHill logo maker.

Here’s an example. The example below is not from TikTok. But it can still inspire you to create and promote brand content.

Sarson’s Vinegar wanted to connect with millennials, a sizable segment for its products. But unfortunately, this was a segment that had lost touch with kitchen staples like vinegar. They did this by creating videos around creative uses of vinegar in the kitchen and posted them to their YouTube channel. 

The videos went viral attracting thousands of views, exponential growth in sales, and many new subscribers. There are multiple opportunities for you to do something like this for your own brand.

Another example is creating DIY and art tutorials

This is great for artists and people whose brands are artistically inclined. To showcase your art, record a short video of you creating a piece of art.

Since art takes time, you can up the speed of the video and post it. You only have 15 seconds.

This is great for crafts and DIY projects and other examples to show off your creative side.

Another case in point: StuDocu, a website where students can exchange their study documents with each other, uses TikTok to show what workflow is behind the scenes in a funny manner. But occasionally they inform people how to get premium access, for instance.

4. Collaborate with influencers

Collaborating with influencers on TikTok and other TikTok users can help drive more traffic and recognition for your brand. This is content you can use for your brand.

A collaboration should benefit both you and the Tik Tok influencer. You should try to choose a more famous Tik Tok personality to work with, or at least someone on the same level as you.

The pharma brand Mucinex collaborated with 5 different influencers to promote its over-the-counter cold medicine with the hashtag #TooSicktobeTick with a zombie-based theme.

The influencers who participated were all from different backgrounds— one a Nigerian American influencer who posted funny videos, another a singer and lyric writer, and yet another Youtube star Jayden Croes. That goes on to say that if you can plan something engaging there’s no need for you to work with only niche-relevant influencers. None of the above influencers are relevant to the pharma industry and yet the results were stupendous.

Each TikTok influencer created a 15-second video and posted it with the hashtag #TooSickToBeSick a week before Halloween.

For instance in one video, we can see an influencer appearing sick but 5 seconds later, he’s recording a song with no signs of cold or fever. 

That particular video clocked 400 million views in 4 days. The campaign as a whole generated over 984 million views in a few months. Here are a number of proposal templates you can use.

5. Use UGC on TikTok

To communicate better with users on TikTok, brands first need to fully understand the platform. That implies understanding the people who use the platform and the content they find to be most interesting.

Gen Z consumers are 41% of TikTok’s entire community. 

The thing about Gen Zers is that they are a socially dependent generation. They trust user-reviews and UGC content for making purchase decisions.

And Mode understands that well. For the #Mode runway campaign, followers were asked to strike poses around town keeping to their personal tastes and style and upload those videos with the hashtag #Mode. Users submitted over 20,000 videos that generated over 120 million views.

To encourage UGC you can start by offering free samples, trials, or discounts on products. That always works.

Finally,

When it comes to any social media channels like TikTok consistency is the key. To be popular on TikTok as with any platform, you should post content regularly say weekly or daily. Don’t go for 3 or more days without posting any new content. TikTok as a platform is fleeting in user attention, so you need to be constantly in front of them to gain user attention.

Regular content of this nature that can entertain your audience and make them interested in what you have to say and do is going to build up a huge base for you.

What do you think of our tips and tricks?

Author bio

George is a freelance writer and blogger who’s worked with several SaaS brands over the years. He specializes in long-form content for SaaS and B2B brands and has seen his work published on CrazyEgg, Kissmetrics, and Coschedule. He blogs at Kamayobloggers.com