TikTok wants to focus on influencer marketing

With over 1 billion monthly active users, TikTok is the latest social network that brands and advertising agencies are betting on. 2020 was the year of the challenges, twelve months in which major fashion brands, from Gucci to Moncler to JW Anderson, had still to figure out how to best use this new app, a unique platform characterized by an unpredictable algorithm.

For 2021, on the other hand, it's the Chinese social network itself that wants to focus more strongly on the sponsorship of its creators, introducing new tools, similar to those on Instagram and Facebook, to ensure that the platform becomes a new space to monetize. At the moment, in fact, the advertising spending of big brands and luxury groups are divided between Facebook - and therefore Instagram - and Google, owner of YouTube. According to a survey conducted by Kantar, TikTok's advertising investment is expected to grow 66% over the next twelve months. Among the innovations involving e-commerce and advertising options, TikTok intends to introduce affiliate links - links that allow creators to earn a small percentage every time someone purchases a product they recommend and shared - a feature that has been very popular since it made its first appearance on IG and YouTube. On top of that, the implementation of the option to make in-app purchases would help increase the time a user spends on the app, as they will be able to find - and buy - everything they need and want in just one place. Anticipated by a Financial Times report and later confirmed by the same company, TikTok would also be preparing for the introduction of real sections within the app in which to consult the collections and catalogues of the brands in their entirety. 

On the one hand, these new strategies would allow brands to conquer an audience, that of Gen Z, much more elusive and less reactive on other social networks. On the other hand, these innovations would give new life to a sector, that of influencers and influencer marketing, which in these months of the pandemic has had to reinvent itself, starting from TikTok. In this sense, a big point in favour of social would be in the way it works: being a content-based platform, with the main page full of videos recommended based on the likes and preferences of every single user, sponsorships could also be more organic and targeted, therefore effective. The virality, or rather, the greater ease with which content can become viral on TikTok, is another factor that makes brands and advertising agencies "entice", as they would see their product amplified on a large scale. 

Finally, TikTok is also experimenting with live-stream shopping, a type of content that is very popular in China, and which was tested for the first time in December with the American chain Walmart. In general, with the new tools that TikTok is about to introduce, brands will be able to create, measure and optimize their ads on the platform directly and independently, without the need for an intermediary from TikTok.