🕜 TikTok, TikTok
B2B organisations across the world are going to have to start facing facts: it’s time to get TikTok. It’s been years since its conception, and a lot of us B2B marketers are still hidden in the corner, crouched into a ball with our precious little LinkedIn and Facebook apps, clutching for dear life.
Perhaps the ‘TikTok made me buy’ trend isn’t all that much of a trend anymore, but it certainly speaks volumes about its influence on the average consumer – hell, even the music industry has clocked onto this, to the point that artists will use it as their main marketing platform!
But what about B2B? Well, there are a fair few brands like Shopify and Semrush making the most of the social platform, using it to establish their personality and brand, as well as getting customers to engage with them – and it looks like it’s working.
None have gone quite as far, however, as The Croc, who might just be the first B2B marketing company to dedicate an entire studio towards it. “B2B marketing works really well on Tiktok,” says Jack Trew, Strategy Director at The Croc. “We know, though it might seem counterintuitive, that the audience is there; that brands can not just reach targets, but gain insights on the platform – and moreover, that it works.”
👀 The Demographics of TikTok
Let’s take a look at some stats to see if Mr Trew (that sounds rather cool, actually) is correct:
- 73.6% of its daily users are older than 24
- 42% of its daily users are over 35
- TikTok is the third-most used platform for both Primary Decision Makers and Influencers
- 39.4% use TikTok
- 41.8% use WhatsApp
- 42.7% use Facebook
Jack Trew even goes on to say “We believe that B2B brands need to think differently, more fiercely. This means experimenting with and embracing the new. Otherwise your competitors are going to get their first.”
He’s right, of course. B2B marketers really need to get their arse in gear, embrace TikTok, and think up new and creative ways to reach their audiences. Because, quite frankly, LinkedIn and Facebook just aren’t cutting it anymore, especially not if we ever hope to grow.
💡 What Do Now?
There is a bigger, more philosophical question that we’re not asking, though, and I would like to be among the first to do so: how long does TikTok have left in it? Are B2B marketers a little too late to the game? And if so… what do we do?
As we established early on, TikTok really has been around for a long time, ever since 2016 (some of you may remember when it was called Musical.ly). That’s almost ten years. When will the next big social media platform take over? By then, it might be too late, and it might take us a while to even think about putting ourselves onto it.
No doubt the next one will have something to do with artificial intelligence given ChatPGT’s popularity and its constant acceleration; when that happens, we need to be the first ones to use it. We need to embrace it and figure out how it works before it’s too late. Kudos to The Croc for being the first B2B Marketing brand to dedicate an entire studio to TikTok (it’s about time!) but something else is approaching, not to destroy it, but to steal the limelight for a while.
And as always, we will resist it. We will hate it. We will – as the internet has a tendency to do – cringe at it. Then, almost seamlessly, we will accept it, and think it’s weird that some don’t even use it. That’s just how it always goes.
Sam Hollis is a Writer for Fame, SaaS Marketer, as well as his own fictional short stories. He lives and works in Birmingham with his three cats and his dog (way too many pets, if you ask us)