Social media has become an integral part of our lives. Many head to apps like Instagram and Facebook for product information and inspiration. Consequently, many social media users follow fashion, beauty, food or fitness influencers to stay informed on what’s hot. In an astonishing fact sourced by Google, 4 in 10 Millennials said their favourite influencer understood them better than their friends. This has placed influencers on a powerful pedestal that brands can capitalise to build a bigger, more loyal customer base.
How are brands partnering with influencers?
Brands have been using shoppable video and streaming commerce to connect with customers via influencers. The medium seamlessly integrates direct purchase options with immersive and interactive content. Smartzer’s interactive tag video platform adds a clickable overlay to video content. This might be over an influencers livestream, image or video post. The brand will add the desired links to Smartzer's software either manually, via Product Feed or via Product API. This will enable the viewer to click the products and access details and purchase options as the video continues to play. This tech speeds up the route to purchase for a consumer, increasing the chance of a conversion. By combining trustworthy influencers with instantly informative interactive video brands can win big.
Here are some of the ways brands are implementing this strategy…
NYX Pro Makeup: Livestream Shopping and Tutorials
The digital first brand targeted the social media generation during a time when bricks and mortar beauty counters were closed. By launching their large scale influencer outreach programme they have secured a close relationship with their customers. The livestream makeup tutorials with LGBT influencer Matt Bernstein reached thousands. Fans were able to see the products in action and purchase them directly from the livestream shopping video.
The Sport of Being Hannah Bronfman for Harper’s Bazaar: Shoppable Day in the Life
Famous online retailer, Harper’s Bizarre collaborated with DJ, fitness guru, model and blogger Hannah Bronfman to deliver a clickable and entirely shoppable editorial. Viewers could interact with the video by clicking on the pieces worn by Hannah. The video would then display the products, showing more information and the option to “Buy Now”. The shoppable video received 80K shares on social media.
Trisha Hershberger: Amazon Live Influencers
Amazon has created their own platform for influencers and brands to come together to promote products to the masses. This form of streaming commerce features live reviews that demonstrate how products work. These videos are tagged with the items for the viewer to purchase without leaving the video. Tag videos have the potential to reach huge audiences as demonstrated by gaming influencer, Trisha Hershberger. By partnering with influencers like Trisha to promote their gaming products, brands could reach over 145K potential buyers.
Sofia Schwarzkopf-Tilbury: Brown Thomas X Charlotte Tilbury Beauty Masterclass
Using Smartzer's shoppable livestream video platform, Brown Thomas teamed up with celebrity makeup artist, Sofia Tilbury to deliver an interactive beauty masterclass. Makeup enthusiasts pre-booked tickets for the exclusive event and tuned in for live makeup tips. Demonstrated products would appear in a shoppable side-bar for the viewer to purchase without leaving the stream. After the livestream shopping event, the video was made public on Brown Thomas’s e-commerce website with the aim to turn regular web traffic into qualified traffic. This bespoke, immersive form of streaming commerce can successfully increase engagement by offering a memorable and unique customer experience.
Influencer voices can help brands obtain thousands of new customers through just one video. It is clear that in 2021, influencer marketing is key to maintain customer trust and loyalty when physical stores are closed.
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.