Episode 169: How Should My Business Use TikTok?

During one of our weekly Data Driven Q and A sessions with partners and clients, Gaye Lynn Wilson, VP of National Pro Fastpitch, asked a great question - how should our business leverage TikTok to promote an upcoming event?  In this case the event she was referencing is the 2019 NPF Draft, scheduled for April 15 in Nashville, TN. First of all, to set the stage for my answer, I talk about TikTok. What is it, exactly? Well, if you had heard of the lip syncing app Musical.ly, TikTok purchased Musical.ly and now basically is Musical.ly. TikTok, according to Variety and courtesy of FangDigital.com, has more than 80 million US users, and almost 800 million users when you include its international audience. Reference: https://fangdigital.com/using-tiktok-to-promote-your-business/ And if you remember the six second video app Vine, TikTok is like Vine, combined with Carpool Karaoke (a short on the Late Late Show with James Corden). Service providers, like Dentist - Dr. Chithra Durgam DDS have used Musical.ly, now TikTok to promote their businesses, and Sports and Entertainment companies like NPF can definitely leverage their assets in terms of players, mascots, cheer squads, coaches, etc. to create short, fun videos with music that are relevant to their brand. The example I talk about in this video refers to using the players "at bat" song or future "at bat" song, in the case of NPF draftees, and having them create short music videos where they lip sync to their future at bat song. What I don't mention in the video is that it could also be used to take highlights and simply chop them up in post production to make them shorter, like top 10 plays, but only showing 1-2 seconds of each play. I think the biggest thing to remember though is that leveraging TikTok is just like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Google My Business, Pinterest and others.... IT'S ABOUT CREATING THE CONTENT CONSISTENTLY and making it relevant and native to the audience on each platform. It's not about simply "being on a platform to check the box." It's about meeting your audience where they are, with a message that's relevant to them and doing it consistently over the long term. The actual question is: How can you repurpose your current content to consistently make it relevant to an audience on TikTok that you're ready to engage with over the next 24-36 months?