Time for TikTok? A Guide to TikTok for your School Marketing
Introduction
TikTok - unless you’re living in near solitude, it’s likely that you’ve heard of the new social media platform phenomenon that’s changing the way we consume online content. Of course, like any disruptive digital platform, its widespread and rapid growth has many marketers split on its usefulness in the world of business. Some believe that its distinct, flashy short-form video content is the way of the future, and others assert it’s simply a passing trend.
However, for busy school marketing offices, there’s no time to consider each debate, so we’ve taken the time to aggregate the most vital information on this new social media platform to give you the key benefits, challenges, and takeaways so you can best use TikTok for your school’s marketing and admissions.
What is TikTok?
To catch anyone up on what exactly TikTok is, essentially TikTok is a short-form video sharing app. What started as Music.ly, a video sharing and streaming app that was primarily used for creating lip-syncing videos. Over time, this app has transformed into Tik Tok, used to share a diverse array of short-form user-generated video content, from recipes, to dance videos, to product showcases, lifestyle and travel videos, and so much more. A typical video length lasts from 15 to 60 seconds on TikTok, and videos can be edited together in-app, or uploaded as an already-edited video.
For example, we created an entertaining, fast-paced short video for College Champittet, which was used successfully for their social media platforms.
What about Instagram Reels? Or YouTube Shorts?
Indeed! There are many alternatives to TikTok now, as market demand grows for this kind of content. The most popular alternative, Instagram Shorts, works in the same way as TikTok, but with integration into the current Instagram app. Trends are often shared between TikTok and Instagram, meaning that it is practically impossible to differentiate between the two platforms’ content. Often, online creators post the same content on both Instagram Reels and TikTok, as it can serve a wider audience across two platforms.
YouTube Shorts offers a similar short-form video content platform natively within YouTube, however this more acts as complementary content for a YouTube creator’s channel, and can be best used to drive users to the main channel.
Benefits of TikTok for School Marketing
Easy-to-consume content - TikTok’s tremendous success is in part due to how easy it is to seamlessly consume content on the app. This creates high reach opportunities for schools, as they can have their content delivered to many eyeballs.
Easy-to-create content - thanks to its intuitive design, it’s relatively easy to create user-generated content through the app. That means picking up your phone and creating content is simple. However this benefit also comes with a down-side, and more on that later!
TikTok is hugely popular with younger audiences, and so the app allows you to easily connect with swathes of millennial and Gen Z consumers.
Challenges of Tik Tok for School Marketing
Lower engagement - while it may be easy to reach many eyeballs with audiences on TikTok, a major downside is that its platform is not as conducive to engagement and interaction with your school as something like Instagram or Facebook would be. This is because TikTok is built to keep users watching as many videos as possible, prioritising alternative video content suggestions over promoting engagement with your channel. To overcome this, we recommend strong call-to-actions within your videos to encourage better engagement metrics.
Difficult to create good content - As there is an influx of creators on TikTok, sorting through the mass of user-generated content to find authentic and engaging content can be difficult for users. Thanks to this, to really stand out on TikTok and utilise its fullest potential, content needs to be carefully produced and created, and that’s why many of our partner schools turn to us as a media production and marketing agency to create content solutions for TikTok and other social media platforms.
Is there a place for TikTok in your school’s digital marketing strategy?
Like any new and popular social media platform, there’s no simple answer to if you should invest in its use. Instead, it’s important to answer a few key questions:
What are your marketing goals for 2022? Do you want to reach a new younger audience? Are you hoping to have a high reach for a new branding campaign? Do you want to create a larger portfolio of video content for your current and future students and families? If you answered yes, then likely TikTok is a worthwhile investment for you. It is ideal for reaching a younger audience, and especially if you are hoping to reach many eyeballs for particular campaigns.
No matter what, it’s important to consult with school marketing specialists before you make any investments in a new social media platform. If you’d like to get personal advice on how to best use TikTok and other major social media platforms, then please don’t hesitate to reach out! Our school marketing experts are always available, so you can contact us anytime using our website contact form, or calling us on +44 20 34 55 22 41.
