New advertising horizons: ‘TikTok’ potential for business

‘TikTok’ is a rapidly growing social media platform, especially popular among young people. ‘TikTok’ lets users create and share short videos using a wide range of music, filters, special effects, and editing tool options. As ‘TikTok’ advertising became available in Lithuania, additional digital advertising horizons opened up for businesses, helping them reach a new and very active audience — according to statistics, around one million users in our country are currently using ‘TikTok.’

‘TikTok’ advertising goals can vary — strengthening the brand, additional sales, shaping consumer opinion. ‘TikTok’ advertising works similarly to other social media, but the platform’s uniqueness lies in its creative possibilities.

The main ad formats include ‘In-Feed Ads’ (ad videos shown between users’ content stream), ‘TopView’ (an ad video shown to all users as the first one), ‘Branded Hashtag Challenges’ (ads where users are invited to take part in challenges with specific hashtags), and ‘Branded Effects’ (ads that let you use special effects and filters).

Statistical data shows that ‘TikTok’ users are very active and share content more often than users of other social networks. This gives businesses the chance to attract new customers and increase the visibility of their products or services. Another particularly important advantage of ‘TikTok’ is its standout algorithm, which, being remarkably accurate, manages to tailor relevant content to each user. So businesses looking to reach a young, active, and — most importantly — targeted audience should consider advertising on this platform.

Successful ‘TikTok’ ad strategies are often tied to creativity and originality. Users on this platform want to have a good time, find something to laugh at, and see something relevant and interesting.
So to be noticed:

• create content that is interesting, relevant, and stands out from competitors for the platform’s audience,
• follow the constantly evolving content trends and respond to them quickly;
• pay attention to ad elements like video quality and copy, and use the right effects;
• take advantage of ‘TikTok’s’ algorithms that help you reach greater user engagement and visibility;
• try to understand your target audience and tailor your content to its preferences.

‘TikTok’ advertising in Lithuania may differ from other countries because of specific cultural particularities and audience tastes. To tailor your ad strategies to specific audiences, businesses can be helped by careful local market analysis and digital advertising specialists’ forecasts. Although there aren’t yet very successful Lithuanian ‘TikTok’ ad examples, the good news is that this opens up wide opportunities for everyone. It’s important to remember that, according to specialists’ insights, as much as 75% of paid ad success is determined by creative solutions — i.e., distinctive, unique, and attention-grabbing content.

Businesses that are starting to advertise their products or services on the ‘TikTok’ platform may face challenges such as understanding the audience, creating quality content, and competition. To overcome these challenges, businesses can use creative solutions — for example, partnering with influencers who already have a wide, trusted audience on this platform. It’s also important to constantly monitor your ad performance, test different strategies, and try to adapt to user reactions.

‘TikTok’ advertising offers businesses unique opportunities to reach a young and active audience and stand out from the crowd. Although in Lithuania this platform is still being discovered by many businesses, huge ‘TikTok’ advertising opportunities are already being predicted. Until they opened up, the most popular use of ‘TikTok’ in our country was creating organic content, but it wasn’t possible to predict what that content would reach. Content distribution through ‘TikTok’ influencers also worked. But now there’s no doubt that with the introduction of paid advertising, this very effectively and productively used channel will gain much more importance and significantly expand digital advertising opportunities in Lithuania.