TikTok is a participant.

With over 1 billion energetic customers who spend about 20 hours a month watching movies on the platform, TikTok has an enormous viewers hooked on its content material.

That viewers spent $824 million by way of the platform within the fourth quarter of 2021 alone. And even a Google government acknowledges the platform’s energy, estimating that 40% of Gen Z use TikTok as a search engine to search out issues like locations to eat.

So, the query isn’t whether or not TikTok is an efficient platform for content material advertising and marketing. The query is whether or not TikTok is an efficient platform to your model.

However there’s one other query to think about whether or not you take part on TikTok or not: How does the recognition of TikTok’s short-form movies have an effect on our viewers’s content material expectations and preferences?

We requested this query of the presenters at Content material Advertising and marketing World 2022. They shared their ideas on TikTok’s direct and oblique influence – they usually didn’t dance across the query.

Are @tiktok_us’s short-form #movies reshaping #content material expectations and preferences? #CMWorld audio system share their ideas with @AnnGynn through @CMIContent. Click on To Tweet

Take it as a reminder to get actual

At its core, TikTok is emblematic of an overarching development wherein viewers tastes – together with however not restricted to Gen Z – are basically altering.

How and what does that imply? Audiences are more and more rejecting the overly curated, picture-perfect imagery that had dominated platforms like Instagram. Customers crave authenticity, creativity, humor, and perspective – traits now synonymous with TikTok (and ostensibly rewarded by its algorithm.)

For a real-world instance, look no additional than Duolingo’s TikTok account, pushed by their really good social media supervisor Zaria Parvez. By giving her the autonomy to experiment and push boundaries, Duolingo has develop into probably the most profitable manufacturers on the platform. – Michael Bordieri, senior content material options guide, LinkedIn

Choose a lane

Use it (in case your prospects are there) or lose it (if they’re primarily elsewhere). Fable: You need to be all over the place. Actuality: You solely should be within the proper locations – and be good when you find yourself in these locations. – Kate Bradley Chernis, co-founder and CEO, Currently

Expertise the influence

Even when your group just isn’t on TikTok at present, will probably be within the close to future. Even in the event you don’t consider me, TikTok is already having a big impact on content material advertising and marketing in two other ways.

First, except you’ve been sleeping beneath a rock (or don’t have youngsters), TikTok is turning into the default search engine for Gen Z. Whereas Boomers have Google and millennials have YouTube, Gen Z is additional adapting their content material consumption developments. With increasingly eyeballs going to TikTok trying to find options, and with the fundamental tenet of content material advertising and marketing about being seen all over the place, TikTok merely can’t be ignored anymore.

The opposite motive is that TikTok is really impacting social media advertising and marketing, the first place the place content material entrepreneurs distribute content material. Even when your group just isn’t on TikTok, your push in direction of creating extra Instagram Reels and doubtlessly venturing into YouTube Shorts is due to TikTok’s emergence and growing influence on how we devour content material. – Neal Schaffer, president, PDCA Social

Undertake a search and repurpose mentality

TikTok – and all social media – can have an amazing influence in your content material advertising and marketing. An increasing number of searches for info occur on social platforms, and your content material ought to be optimized to reply these queries. Digital natives (influencers, model followers, and prospects) – in the event that they’re loving your services or products (or hating it) – will submit about it on social. Consumer-generated content material is very large.

TikTok itself is a good platform for repurposing a few of your greatest content material in inventive methods, however please, please, be certain that somebody who is aware of TikTok and genuine engagement creates the content material. – Jenn VandeZande, editor-in-chief, SAP Buyer Expertise

Welcome the beforehand inaccessible

TikTok has opened up an entire new creator economic system that reaches an viewers that isn’t all the time accessible by way of extra conventional channels. Content material entrepreneurs ought to embrace TikTok if their viewers spends time there.

However, most significantly – they shouldn’t simply be making their very own content material on their very own channel. Harnessing the authenticity and energy of TikTok creators to talk genuinely about your model can do wonders. This implies you could let go of some management. However in the event you do it proper, everybody wins. – Inbar Yagur, director of content material and product advertising and marketing, Lusha

Don’t simply make your individual @tiktok_us #content material. Harness the authenticity and energy of TikTok creators to your model, says @Content_Fairy through @AnnGynn @CMIContent. #CMWorld Click on To Tweet

Say hello to all ages, however don’t pressure it

The hashtag #TikTokTaughtMe has greater than 6 billion views on TikTok. Whereas TikTok is understood for dance crazes and viral sounds, extra manufacturers discover a captive viewers for his or her content material advertising and marketing on the platform. It isn’t only for teenagers and younger adults. It’s turning into a go-to place for folks to search out info that’s academic, too.

However manufacturers should be cautious how they implement the developments on TikTok. Movies should be pure and never pressured. Many manufacturers have even assigned or employed particular people to be their face on the platform. – Andi Robinson, world digital content material advertising and marketing, Corteva Agriscience 

Expertise the very best or the worst

It relies on how a lot of your viewers is on TikTok and if it’s an applicable channel to your model. Most individuals will say it’s. For them, it’s immediately diverting consideration and assets away from the extra funnel-driven content material actions that assist produce enterprise outcomes. However the consciousness and engagement that may derive from good TikTok content material may additionally pour gasoline in your content material advertising and marketing hearth. Relying on the enterprise and the savvy of your content material workforce, TikTok might be the very best factor affecting your effort. It is also the worst. – Jason Falls, senior affect strategist, Cornett

Think about the return (or lack thereof)

What’s TikTok? Present me the ROI from any program in TikTok (or Snapchat, for that matter.) – Michael Brenner, CEO, Advertising and marketing Insider Group

Get good at short-form tales

TikTok immediately impacts content material advertising and marketing as a result of it units the bar excessive for short-form content material. It places followers on the heart and is all about engagement. I can dissect a five-second TikTok for a half hour in a workshop as a result of it’s wealthy in storytelling. There’s no room for fluff. It’s a ravishing distillation of what all of us want to attain in all our content material, even when we’ve been allowed to waffle on with lengthy codecs. It’s a pleasure peddler, and all of us want extra of that in our content material advertising and marketing groups. – Jon Burkhart, founder, TBC World Restricted

Spin a sticky internet

TikTok is quickly rising and perhaps sticker than Spiderman for multigenerational audiences. Customers spend over 50 minutes on the app every day watching and creating new developments, which is taking time and eyeballs away from different channels.

TikTok has overthrown Fb and Twitter on my cellphone and even has me attempting the silliest developments to see what it’s like. For my part, it’s the most effective user-generated platforms out there proper now and reveals no indicators of slowing down. Competitors is excessive, and content material entrepreneurs should be extra inventive to recapture a few of their viewers’s time if their model just isn’t Tik Tok suitable. – Karen McFarlane, chief advertising and marketing officer, LetterShop

@tiktok_us could also be stickier than Spiderman for multigenerational audiences, says @KarenMcFarlane through @AnnGynn @CMIContent. #ContentMarketing #CMWorld Click on To Tweet

Get inventive

TikTok is forcing everybody to be some sort of inventive. This can be as a speaking head or an editor. You might be pressured to be taught and adapt in some sort of capability. This additionally blurs the road of edutainment. – Michelle Ngome, founder and government director, African American Advertising and marketing Affiliation

Pace it up

Have a dialog with somebody beneath 25, and also you’ll understand how a lot TikTok impacts content material advertising and marketing. “I noticed it on TikTok” is a typical phrase. Take heed to the TikTok channel on SiriusXM and spot what number of songs are sped-up variations – two to a few instances the conventional pace of the track. Even Saturday Night time Reside has skits about TikTok.

The TikTok era desires quick, simply consumable content material that helps them do one thing. As TikTok customers more and more develop into that worker researching a B2B buy, take into consideration how they need to devour info. It’s not a 20-page e-book viewers. Brief, helpful info is the brand new fashion for early-stage product analysis. – Penny Gralewski, senior director, product and portfolio advertising and marketing, DataRobot

Develop relationships

TikTok has mastered the artwork of speedy influencer creation. So, if there’s an untapped alternative, it could be understanding how one can construct deeper, longer-term relationships with the influencers and micro-influencers you uncover on TikTok. – Andrew Davis, creator and keynote speaker, Monumental Shift

Be there

You want to have a plan for TikTok. It’s not a platform that may be ignored. – Meg Coffey, managing director, Coffey & Tea

Recognize the potential

TikTok has confirmed how highly effective video content material might be and bolstered many greatest practices when creating video content material. Not each model ought to be on TikTok – and most manufacturers shouldn’t be on TikTok except they’re in a consumer-facing house with a Gen Z viewers.

Nonetheless, content material entrepreneurs throughout industries ought to spend a while on TikTok to see how one can craft partaking short-form movies, examples of how one can overlay textual content and captions, and inspiration to create enjoyable video content material. – Erika Heald, founder, lead guide, Erika Heald Advertising and marketing Consulting

Content material entrepreneurs ought to spend time on @tiktok_us to see how one can craft partaking short-form #movies, says @SFerika through @AnnGynn @CMIContent. #CMWorld Click on To Tweet

Go there for large promotion, however don’t anticipate belief

It’s a spot to make very short-form movies seen to massive, various teams of individuals. If brief movies can convey one thing significant to your model, and if you wish to attain massive, various teams of individuals, it might be a promotion channel.

If you could construct belief, you want longer kind content material. If you wish to be environment friendly, you want smaller, extra focused audiences. You want account-based advertising and marketing (ABM). TikTok is the polar reverse of ABM. – Andy Crestodina, co-founder and chief advertising and marketing officer, Orbit Media Studios

If you wish to be environment friendly, you want smaller, focused audiences. @tiktok_us is the alternative of ABM, says @crestodina through @CMIContent. #CMWorld Click on To Tweet

Know your content material rivals

Something that alters our expectations for on-line content material impacts content material advertising and marketing. In relation to the eye of our viewers, we’re not competing solely with our enterprise rivals. We’re competing with every part they learn or take a look at, or hearken to on-line, together with TikTok. Individuals anticipate manufacturers to respect their time and earn their consideration by educating and even entertaining them with our content material—even content material that has a enterprise goal. – Monica Norton, head of content material advertising and marketing, Yelp

Have a plan

TikTok generally is a distribution channel for content material if the model’s viewers is there and if there’s a devoted technique. No model ought to launch a distribution channel with out devoted administration of that channel, although, together with a technique and KPIs to measure its effectiveness over time. – Tracey Wallace, director of content material technique, Klaviyo

Suppose and assume once more

Everybody acknowledges the facility and effectiveness of the TikTok algorithm. Any content material marketer that isn’t no less than exploring methods to leverage that channel is leaving income on the desk. I’m not saying that each model ought to have a channel on TikTok, however each model ought to no less than be excited about how they will leverage TikTok. – Brian Piper, director of content material technique and evaluation, College of Rochester

See short-form potential

Unquestionably, TikTok has highlighted the significance of short-form video throughout the content material advertising and marketing board. But it surely doesn’t imply content material entrepreneurs ought to go all-in on creating simply one of these content material for one platform solely.

As a substitute, TikTok is inspiring extra inventive thought of how short-form video can develop into a part of your general content material technique and how one can streamline its creation. Maybe you need to lead with creating short-form movies for a number of channels (e.g., TikTok, Instagram Reels, YouTube shorts), or perhaps you need to create longer-form movies and repurpose them into short-form movies. Video is probably the most versatile content material format, so create with repurposing in thoughts, and your funding will go far. – Amy Woods, founder and CEO, Content material 10x

Is the time proper to your model?

None of those consultants can let you know whether or not your model ought to be on TikTok. However their enter ought to higher put together you to reply the query.

And even when the reply is not any, don’t disregard the favored platform. As a substitute, proceed to watch its influence on content material creation general. Genuine, short-form content material will probably be a robust participant for years to come back.

Cowl picture by Joseph Kalinowski/Content material Advertising and marketing Institute