In January 2021 alone, TikTok had over 315 million downloads. Overall, it has been downloaded over 2.6 billion times as reported by Sensor Tower in December 2020. This surge in popularity can be blamed on the global pandemic. With so many of us stuck inside and glued to our screens, it’s no wonder that people are seeking the instant entertainment that TikTok videos provide.
But what is TikTok?
TikTok is a video sharing social media platform that has proved itself a global hit with GenZ audiences. The app may not have anything to do with clocks or watches but it is highly concerned with views. It's more than likely that you will have seen videos of dance routines or heard a song on the radio that initially went viral on the platform. Here, content can go viral in seconds with the biggest influencers possessing nearly 32.7 million followers and receiving almost 46 million likes for a 60 second video. Brands would be silly not to take advantage of the platform to promote their content to the masses.
How to make an interactive video ad on TikTok
TikTok offers several options for brands to advertise with interaction videos. For example, IN-Feed Ads, TopView, Brand Takeover, Branded Hashtag Challenge, Branded Effects.
In-Feed Ads
Videos have a “Sponsored” label
Videos appear on users “For You” page amongst other creator content
Videos have a clickable call-to-action ie, “Learn More” or “Buy Now”
Users can “like”, “share”, “follow”, “shoot videos with the same music”
TopView
Video first format that puts brand videos in unmissable view of audiences
Using sight, sound and narrative to capture user attention
60 seconds of full-screen and long form video, with autoplay and sound
Distraction-free viewing grabbing 100% user attention
Brand Takeover
Full screen visual ad experience for viewers
Multiple creative formats with static and dynamic display
3 second JPG and 3-5 second video supported
Branded Hashtag Challenge
Taps into user passion for creation, encouraging brand engagement that goes beyond simple clicks
Brands invite users to participate in creating content surrounding the campaign theme with all UGC aggregating in the hashtag challenge page.
Average engagement rate of 8.5% through likes, comments and shares.
Branded Effects
Tailor made shareable stickers, filters and special effects
Users can create selfie videos with these effects, sharing and promoting brands interaction videos.
TikTok Creator Marketplace is an official platform for brand and creator collaborations and videos from creator partners can easily be promoted as in-feed ads for an extra visibility boost. Here, brands can monitor their analytics and productivity of their campaigns.
The Best Brand Use of Interaction Video on TikTok
Motel Rocks: Call-To-Action and Influencer Partnerships
Online retailer, Motel Rocks has been taking advantage of Influencer followings to promote their brand. Their products are shown to millions of viewers via TikTok personalities in In-Feed ads. The clickable call-to-action “Shop now” takes viewers directly to the product page without leaving the shoppable video. With 2.4 million likes, the interaction video has clearly engaged millions of prospective customers.
Guess Jeans: #InMyDenim Branded Hashtag Challenge
“A Cluttered brand space demands unique, engaging content and integrated participation” said Edward Park, SVP of retail and digital at Guess. So, the brand took to TikTok to shake up their video content marketing strategy. The challenge asks users to demonstrate how they style their denim and transform their look from a mess to best dressed. The interactive element of the challenge drew together fans and the brand, successfully generating conversation with a new GenZ and Millennial audience.
Balenciaga: Shoppable TopView Ad
Balenciaga was the first luxury brand to launch a shoppable campaign on TikTok. This was a 24 hour takeover of the TikTok front page and generated 25 million views. The interactive video platform allowed viewers to shop the items in the video. By clicking the call-to-action, viewers could view the collection in a carousel. The interaction videos speed up the route to purchase by displaying the shoppable products directly before the viewer. Since the route to purchase is shortened, there is a higher chance of customers completing a conversion.
Innovative Interactive Video Platforms that can show brands how to easily make an interactive video on TikTok
Smartzer offers an interactive video platform that provides brands with a tool that turns content into interaction videos on TikTok.
Smartzer MINI Shop:
Brands can connect their campaign call-to-action with the Smartzer MINI Shop links. This will connect your ad directly to your product feed. A viewer will click the ad and instantly see all the shoppable products and a direct link to the e-commerce site.
Lightweight, easy to use pages help inform users about products. This can lead to higher conversion rates and a stronger ROI.
This could be through either makeup tutorial videos, fashion videos or recipe videos. Videos will have clickable components to clothing, makeup or ingredients.
Smartzer Interactive Experience
Every interactive experience is optimised for mobile.
It is easy to share the interaction video content across social media platforms.
Users can engage with the interactive content by launching the call-to-action or the URL displayed in the video.
This could be in TikTok work out videos (shoppable fitness gear), travel videos (interactive hotel tour), auto videos (interactive tour of car features).
With more and more users downloading TikTok everyday, the clock is ticking for brands to utilise the platform to reach millions of new and existing customers.
- Feb 12, 2021
Updated: Nov 1, 2021
The pressure is on for brands to provide effective online shopping solutions. Platforms like Instagram, Facebook and Tik Tok have harnessed tech to incorporate shoppable video to allow brands to interact with their customers.
Social, shoppable solutions
70% of shopping enthusiasts turn to Instagram for product discovery. Through a ‘see tap shop’ philosophy, the platform provides a straightforward online shopping experience. By clicking shoppable video, photos and stories, consumers can learn more details about products tagged. They can either buy the product or bookmark for later using the save feature. Soon, customers will be able to complete in app purchases. Using Instagram Story Ads, brands can connect with 500 million accounts daily using photos or videos of up to 120 seconds long.
Through livestream shopping, check-out enabled businesses can form richer connections with customers in real time. Viewers will be able to buy or save products added to the shopping video. Prior to streaming, you can add up to 30 products to a collection and pin one item at a time while Live to feature that product. Products shown must be approved before they can be added to live videos. An influencer looking to explore the shop live feature must have featured products approved before they can be tagged.
For Facebook Pages, there are three ways to feature your products:
If you have a Commerce account with Commerce Manager, a linked Facebook Page and a product set in your Facebook catalogue, you can tag and feature product sets from your shop and add links.
If you have a Facebook Page but no commerce account, you can manually add the products and links that you want to feature just before going live.
You can also just start a live shopping video without the setup and talk about your products as you go.
Since Facebook owns Instagram, businesses can replicate and unify their shops across the two platforms. Businesses and brands can compose collections to show in their ads once they are clicked on. Live stream shopping has been proven to be extremely effective, the app NTWRK saw their sales surge 400% after using the tech to sell limited edition fashion pieces.
TikTok has partnered with Shopify to launch shoppable video ads. Sponsored businesses on Shopify will be able to advertise using TikTok for business ad manager dashboard to run their ads. This will include a “1-click” pixel conversion tracking, target audience tracking, creative tools and $300 credit for eligible merchants. Even small businesses will be able to create shoppable video, so long as they are partnered with Shopify. Through a “shop now” call to action, viewers can purchase the products that they see on screen. In 2019, TikTok trialled shoppable video links with influencers but it is not yet clear whether this feature will roll out to TikTokkers. For now, the feature lies in the hands of pre-approved businesses.
Google’s Shoploop provides a video shopping platform for discovering, assessing and purchasing products. Here, users can view videos from real, relatable people using products available for purchase. The aim is to create an online shopping experience that feels like real life. Customers can select products of interest to save for later or be directed to the brands website to complete the purchase. Shoploop’s current focus is centred towards content creators, publishers and online store owners in the beauty industry.
In June 2020, YouTube introduced the “shop now” call to action on video ads shown. The feature was introduced to drive more traffic from the product listing to the brands website. With this, YouTube seeks to improve the way in which ad effectiveness can be measured.
Each platform offers an online shopping solution. However, as standalone apps, it can be difficult to manage multiple ad formats and directly measure and compare ad effectiveness from platform to platform. As a result, things could get unnecessarily complicated.
Cross platform solution
Smartzer offers a cross platform solution to these complications. The quick, easy and customisable interactive livestream and interactive video formats allow users to upload content and create immersive, shoppable video ads. These videos can be replicated across any social media platform, e-commerce site and even email newsletters. This removes issues associated with site specific advertising methods. You can efficiently measure the performance of your interactive videos by using the Smartzer analytics dashboard. Here, brands can see data for key video KPI’s like views and clicks as well as behavioural data across distribution platforms, devices and markets. By using Smartzer’s interactive video software brands observed a 50% increase in engagement rate as well as a 15% increase in click through rate four times more likely to lead to a conversion than regular video.
Smartzer encourages interactivity through mobile optimisation. For example, TikTokkers can experience highly engaging ads without glitches by clicking the call to action URL featured on brand campaigns. Through Smartzer’s MINI shop, TikTok ads can be connected directly to the product feed. By clicking the ad, users can see all the shoppable products and a link to the brand’s e-commerce, leading to increased conversion rates and stronger ROI.
To minimise issues, brands should consider moving towards quick and easy, shoppable and social solutions.
- Feb 12, 2021
2020 was the year for cancelled plans. The Summer Olympics was cancelled for the first time since World War II, Glastonbury 20/21 was cancelled, Taylor Swift, Harry Styles, The Rolling Stones and The Weeknd were all forced to reschedule their highly anticipated tours and ITV’s Love Island was unable to take place. The list goes on.
With the word of the year being “unprecedented”, the only thing we could be 100% sure of was that the events industry needed to adapt to accommodate for restrictions.
While some brands have refunded and rescheduled events, some have made the virtual transition to livestream. In fact, the occurrence of virtual events went up 1000% since the start of COVID-19 with 52,000 on just one platform, 6Connex.
Brands driving virtual events in 2021
Livestream Music
Online livestream venue StageIt has been helping to connect fans with lesser known artists for years. Here, acts stream live from the comfort of their homes via laptop cameras. Through an interactive chat room feature, fans can communicate with artists by asking questions and requesting songs. With venues closed, StageIt enables fans to financially support artists through a monetized system and acts can show their appreciation for viewers via a virtual tip jar. Through interactive video streams, fans can win prizes such as band merch or one-on-one Zoom sessions.
Bigger artists such as The Weeknd have held live, interactive virtual concerts. In August 2020 he took to TikTok drawing over 2 million total viewers and raising over $350,000 for the Equal Justice Initiative. Adam Lambert will host a series of live streams this February 2021 discussing Stonewall day and up and coming LGBTQ artists. Eddie Vedder, Phoebe Bridgers and more are set to perform virtually for the 34th annual Tibet House US Benefit concert with tickets starting at $25.
Livestream Fashion
Harnessing the magic of the internet, Dior streamed their Autumn 2021 Men's show live online as a part of Paris Men’s Fashion Week on 22 January 2021. The innovative, vibrant collection inspired by surrealism and science fiction reflected the limitless possibilities of combining technology with fashion. Featuring art from Kenny Scharf the show was streamed live using Amazon owned platform Twitch. The technology has also been used by Burberry in their Spring/Summer 2021 show. By contrast to Snapchat, Facebook Live, or Instagram, Twitch’s streaming service is more public, bringing the front row seat at fashion week to your device screen. The interactive video experience gave viewers the opportunity to connect with each other in live chat rooms. As a result, live streaming could bring the fashion community together during a socially distanced period.
Live Shopping
With store doors closed, interactive video is opening up new opportunities for ecommerce. Department store Brown Thomas partnered with Smartzer to create interactive and shoppable video events featuring brands like Laura Mercier and Bare Minerals. Customers could book onto breakthrough beauty masterclasses and tutorials to learn about makeup products and application techniques. They could shop the content shown in the stream via a product carousel and add items to their basket without leaving the stream. Through these exclusive events, customers were provided with a bespoke, live shopping experience that generated a community feel for like minded makeup enthusiasts.
By using Smartzer’s player that was fully integrated into the Demandware API, up-to-date product information could be instantly pulled into the Smartzer editor and player to be showcased to viewers. The private videos are now available on Brown Thomas’s ecommerce site for anyone to view. By using these videos for video content marketing, brands can engage and inform standard web visitors and turn general traffic into qualified traffic. Tests have revealed that a consumer who watched a video demonstrating a product was 144% more likely to add that product to their shopping cart. Through interactive, demonstrative video content brands can increase online engagement and build trust with their audiences to increase conversion rates.