Tips and Tricks for Utilizing TikTok in Hospitality Marketing
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TikTok has exploded in popularity over the past few years and it's no surprise that businesses are looking to utilize the platform for marketing purposes.
While the platform initially made waves due to its virality amongst a younger demographic, TikTok has since evolved to not only become a worldwide phenomenon spanning across age groups, but a critical marketing tool for both B2C and B2B brands. Though LinkedIn may be the preferred platform of choice for most B2B brands, TikTok should not be left out of the conversation. In fact, according to the New York Times, TikTok's targeted advertising revenue for 2022 represented a 150% growth from the previous year, when the company anticipated revenues of around $4 billion, already exceeding the 2023 forecast.
Louisa Grotkamp
Published on February 9th, 2023
In this Insight:
Reaching the Unreachable Target Group
The platform presents a unique opportunity to the Hospitality industry to benefit from using TikTok to showcase their unique offerings and engage with potential customers. But before we dive into the tips and tricks for effectively utilizing TikTok in your Hospitality marketing efforts, it's important to understand what TikTok is and who uses it.
TikTok is a social media platform that allows users to create and share short, lip-sync, comedy, and talent videos. It is particulary popular among the younger generation. In fact, a survey conducted by DataReportal and TikTok found that 72.7% of TikTok users are between the ages of 18 and 34, making it a prime platform for reaching this demographic.
TikTok for Hospitality Marketing: Content Creation & Hashtag Strategies
Hospitality services within sport can offer the ideal stage for non-traditional sporting fans to, not only take part of the rich story that sport creates, but also to allow them to write their own chapter in sport and bond over the truly magical moments that only sport can create. Here, we have selected some suggestions and methods for how you can use TikTok efficiently in your Hospitality marketing campaigns.
The content you create is one of the most important factors to consider when using TikTok for marketing. The main goal of TikTok is to attract people with entertaining, creative, and visually engaging videos. For businesses in the Hospitality industry, this could entail displaying the venue's distinctive features, showcasing the foods and drinks on offer or providing a peek behind the scenes. Consider what sets the business apart and use that to create content that resonates with your target audience.
Hashtags are another key aspect of TikTok marketing. They help users discover content that interests them and can increase the visibility of your business on the platform. Be sure to use relevant hashtags related to the location, business, and the type of content that is posted. Creating a branded hashtag to go along with popular hashtags to encourage users to share content related to the business can also be beneficial.
Maximizing Your Reach: Collaborating with TikTok Creators and Hosting Challenges for Brand Awareness
Collaborating with TikTok creators can be a great way to reach a new audience and build brand awareness. Creators with a large following can promote your company or service to their followers. Look for influencers who align with your brand and target market and work with them to create branded content that will be shared with their followers. For example, social media content creator @thepaddedseat rates Hospitality Packages, which he then shares with his 700k+ followers across channels. It is precisely this content that you can use to promote exclusive Hospitality Experiences - combined with the special atmosphere of sporting events such as NFL games.
Hosting a TikTok challenge is another effective marketing strategy. Challenges are a cornerstone of TikTok and represent some of the platform’s most popular videos. These challenges encourage users to create and share content related to a specific theme or prompt and can be a fun way to engage with your audience. This can be a great way to increase engagement and encourage users to share your content with their followers.
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people use TikTok
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of GenZ users use TikTok daily
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of all internet users aged 18+ are reached through TikTok ads
A Guide to Branded, Community and Paid Advertising Challenges
Looking at the various types of challenges on TikTok, you first need to differentiate between a branded or community challenge. Branded challenges are brand-created challenge-based campaigns. Brands typically work with creators to promote these types of challenges in order to raise awareness for both the promotion's hashtag and the challenge itself.
Community challenges, on the other hand, are completely natural, usually arising from a viral trend or question that has been circulating on TikTok. These challenges are not associated with any particular brand or product. Although community challenges are entirely organic, many of them do involve the use of products or brand mentions.
As for paid advertising options like sponsored hashtag challenges or sponsored lenses (augmented reality filters), these can be an effective way to reach a larger audience on TikTok. While organic reach on the platform can be limited, these paid options can help increase visibility and drive engagement.
Staying up to date with the latest TikTok trends and features to ensure that you're utilizing the platform to its full potential is crucial when using the platform for marketing purposes. This can involve experimenting with different types of content, such as live streams or interactive features like polls and quizzes.
There are many ways that businesses in the hospitality industry can effectively utilize TikTok in their marketing efforts. By creating engaging content, utilizing hashtags, collaborating with influencers, hosting challenges, and considering paid advertising options, you can effectively promote your business and reach a new audience on this popular platform.
