Benefits To Brands
This shift provides major opportunities for brands to connect with consumers at critical points in their decision-making journey. TikTok’s search-centric role allows companies to reach users who are actively looking for product recommendations, reviews, and tutorials. Moreover, TikTok’s unique algorithm ensures that content finds the right audience. The more engaging and relevant the content, the more likely it is to be pushed to users who might not have initially followed the brand but are interested in related topics. This provides a level of organic reach and brand exposure that traditional search engines, like Google, often struggle to replicate.
TikTok is also perfect for conversion and helping to tip consumers considering a purchase into parting with their hard-earned cash. By creating content that answers consumer questions or highlights the benefits of a product, brands can position themselves as a trusted resource. The visual nature of TikTok is also key here, as seeing a product in action through a video is far more compelling for many users than reading a text-based review.
How Brands Can Adapt to the TikTok Search Revolution
To capitalise on the opportunity, brands need to edit and evolve both their owned social media output and their influencer marketing campaigns to tap into the search potential of the platform.
Of course, on a basic level, brands must ensure that all content is keyword rich. As TikTok initially discovers what a video is about by scanning its content, social media managers and content creators need to put key search terms in captions, in text on screen and in voice overs. As a result, what you add in-app is what shapes where that content initially goes.
But, it doesn’t stop there. Brands can go so much bigger – extending into influencer campaigns to ensure you dominate those search terms! At summer. we have just launched a new service called ‘React’. We use search insights to discover WHAT consumers are hunting for – this includes queries about a brand, product and category. With those results to hand, we then secure creators to shoot content quickly that directly responds to those questions and keywords. Not only does this ensure the content is highly relevant, but it also means the brand can dominate discovery on TikTok, helping them to appear in front of those consumers who are actively seeking information and products in that space.
Another huge benefit of ‘React’ is the ability to understand conversion barriers. When delving into insights, we can see the questions consumers are asking about a specific brand or product and how these questions are preventing purchase. Whether it’s concerns around the efficacy of an ingredient or even confusion over how to use a product, we can discover these terms and create content that helps satisfy that doubt and convert the sale.
The approach of using influencers to dominate search also allow brands who don’t have an owned channel on the platform to ensure they’re still front and centre on TikTok.
Change Is Here
TikTok’s emergence as a search engine is fundamentally changing the way people find and consume information, offering brands a unique opportunity to engage with audiences through compelling, short-form video content that is not only entertaining but also directly addresses the consumer’s needs at every stage of their purchasing journey.
Brands that embrace TikTok’s potential as a search engine are the ones who will win!
