TikTok today, is like what buying real estate in Australia was 20 years ago. For me, growing up in the South Eastern suburbs of Melbourne (Bentleigh to be specific), Brighton was where the dreamers moved. When we first moved there my parents purchased a ramshackled, nicotine stained, federation style house that needed to be knocked down. We slogged it out in that place for a solid 3 years, moved out, demolished and rebuilt. Ten years post-purchase my parents essentially flipped the place for a 10-12x return. Setting them up for the rest of their lives.

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You can see where I’m going with this. TikTok is all the rage, and rightly so because the numbers are showing why the investment (like my parents in Brighton) was worth it. If you’re thinking of expanding your content strategy onto TikTok though, the last thing you want is to waste time on things that don’t work. So what do you need to focus on? Formats, content strategy, tone of voice, memes and consistency. If you want to learn more about how we’ve nailed TikTok for consumer brands, keep reading.

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Contents

• What is TikTok?
• Core TikTok Concepts
• Content Creative on TikTok
• Metrics that Matter for Business
• Neuralle’s TikTok Organic Content Strategy

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What is TikTok?

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TikTok is, fundamentally, a short-form entertainment platform of UGC videos (User Generated Content). The Feed is for all intents, similar to Reels (yes they copied TikTok) and has the speed in the spread of content formats similar to what you’d expect on Twitter.

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Originally a boom in for Gen Z, the breadth for targeting now is much more widely distributed we’re seeing the following numbers for generic audience targeting as of Jun 27, 2023:

• Australia, All ages - 7,417,000-9,066,000  
• 18 to 24 - 3,280,000-4,010,000
• 25 to 34 - 2,296,000-2,807,000
• 35 to 44 - 1,013,000-1,239,000
• 45 to 54 - 521,000-637,000
• 55+ - 305,000-374,000

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Note: all of these numbers exclude under 17s as they’re not able to be targeted.

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Clearly these are numbers that you should be turning your nose up at.

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Yes, Instagram still has bigger and a more commercially minded audience, but don’t be surprised how quickly this is moving. Per AppFigures, these are the screenshots we had on the  the most widely downloaded App as of May 2022.

But it won’t be here forever. Intriguingly, you can see how hard quickly attention is being reduced on-platform by the amount of creators minted overnight, from The Information & Trendpop. Talent often act as long tail signals for what happens for brands, and the per capita number of 1M+ following creator can be seen in our own roster. Back in 2020/21 it was an arms race between us and other talent agencies to sign as many people as possible. Now that the dust has settled, it’s proving harder and harder to find those “up and coming” creators. 

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But with the throttling of creator growth, the platform has reached a good equilibrium where more and more brands are now coming on board for organic content, influencer marketing or paid ads with TikTok For Business.

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The investment by TikTok in the For Business System is significant as well for such a young platform, comparatively to Meta we find their Creator Partner and Business team far more engagement and with triple the headcount here in Australia.

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Core TikTok Concepts

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This entire guide will use lingo that I think is important for you to have a grasp on, so you can understand what works on TikTok organically. This includes:

• What is the For You Page (FYP)
• Content Formats
• Memes

Feeds and The For You Page (FYP)

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When you’re on the native app you have different content feeds you can access.

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All of your discovery happens on FYP, it’s where everyone spends the bulk of their time. Accounts you follow will also appear here:

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You can also view content from those you are Following or Friends if you want to keep up with what’s been going on there:

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Content Formats

The concept of a format is something I come back to repeatedly with talent when we’re coaching them through what makes and drives their attention as a “brand”.

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A format, is essentially a combination of a creative and story. Think:

• POV: Toxic Guy asks you out on a date
• That Dull co-worker shows you their lunch
• Day In The Life or Vlog
• Unboxing Video

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There are 1000s of iterations and remixes of UGC formats that can work on TikTok, and every niche has its own style that clearly suits it. But every now and then someone will come along to that industry or niche and blow things up, reinventing the wheel on-platform. What matters is you’re unique, willing to test what works on platform and find what works.

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When I talk to talent we consistently emphasise the Disney model of content creation and commercialisation. That is finding stories (or formats) that people love, doubling down on them, but also keeping the window open for the experimentation of what’s new with the market.

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Whether you like it or not, you don’t do $82.7 billion (USD) in revenue without understanding the entertainment business and its commercialisation to customers.

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The results we see from talent that we sign or brands that we represent creatively over sees an explosion in attention when they follow this strategy.

Memes & “Trends”

Memes are like the DNA of our internet culture. Think of them as these viral ideas, images, or catchphrases that spread like wildfire across the web. Richard Dawkins coined the term "meme" back in 1976 in his book "The Selfish Gene", to explain how ideas spread across generations. 

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Fast-forward to 2023 and thanks to platforms like Reddit, Twitter, and the OG days of Tumblr, Memes blew up. They capture feelings, jokes, and reactions in just one picture, video or GIF. 

So, whether it's a dancing baby from the 90s or that iconic Kermit sipping tea, memes are the beating heart of online pop culture, connecting millions, if not billions, through shared laughter and relatable moments.

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What TikTok has done, by being an inherently digital first platform, has translated memes at a far greater volume.

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Memetic “Trends” on-platform will blow up overnight and almost die instantly, while others will go for weeks on end.

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The aim of the game here is to keep yourself exploring the search element and FYP of the platform to understand those trends, then hijack them, and remix them in a way that works for your brand.

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This is the hardest part of any good TikTok strategy, and often why brands hire our team. Which leads us to creativity.

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Content Creativity on TikTok

The hardest part of nailing TikTok from the get-go is creativity. Creativity is a talent that you can be born with, for others it requires work. You must understand your personality to deliver a cadence that will work for you as a brand on-platform. If you think that you can bash out 5-6 pieces per week, but have never been a truly extroverted or creative person, you are setting yourself up for failure.

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What matters first on TikTok is consistency, if that means you can only publish twice a week at first. Do that.

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Then you need to get onto writing and planning your content.

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Copywriting & Hooks

This is where you get into the remixing. Let’s say you’ve defined your format. Now you need to write out your Hook (the line/thing/idea) that will keep people engaged in those first 3-6 seconds. If you can keep someone’s attention on-platform for greater than that, they will often watch the full video.

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If you’re every stuck on where to start, consider looking at:

• TikTok Creative Centre
• Talking it through with ChatGPT; or
• Looking at your competitors

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Here’s a process we’ve developed internally for identifying the perfect hook, and is something we discuss every Tuesday during our creative pow-wow on current accounts on the roster:

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• Identify Desire

• What is the mass desire of your end customer/market? Why would people purchase your product?

• I.e. an entrepreneur wants to save time

• Identify Benefits

• What are the benefits your product/service contains? Group the benefits to the main desires of your product
• Turn features into benefits
• Identify 1 benefit to feature, you can only use one at a time without confusing the customer

• I.e. save time = make more money

• Identify Market Awareness Target

• Unaware > I’m unaware how my lack of time could be a problem
• Problem Aware > I need to save time but I don’t know how
• Solution Aware > I’m aware of solutions to save time, but I don’t know which one to choose
• Product Aware > I’m aware of difference solutions, but don’t know which company to go with
• Aware > I really wwant this solution from this agency, but price is the issue

• Market Sophistication

• How many products/services have they seen before ours?

• I.e. use this education program to save time vs use this agency to save time (how sophisticated and how many $$’s can they expend to solve the problem)

• WRITING PROCESS: Write the Hook/Headline

• Take into account all of the points above
• State the claim in its purest form

• Save time

• Strenghten the claim

• Measure the size Save hours
• Measure the speed Save hours in 2 weeks or less
• Metaphorise the claim Like taking a time machine
• Remove limitations to the claim First frictionless agency onboarding

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Editing on TikTok & CapCut

Assuming you have your concept and have filmed the video, now it’s time to edit. Your best place to do this is CapCut, not on the in-built platform editor.

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Why? I asked our Creative Associate Ainsley Coote why.

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What is CapCut Ainsley?

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CapCut is a free, all-in-one video editor that also offers advanced features such as keyframe animation, smooth slow-motion, chroma key, stabilization, audio extraction, auto-captions and text-to-speech. The app also has a community section where you can access green screen and video transition templates created by other users. CapCut was developed by ByteDance; the parent company of TikTok.

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Why is CapCut better than the on–platform editor?

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The TikTok in-app editor is actually a condensed version of CapCut, and offers a limited range of its features. The main benefits to using CapCut outside of TikTok are as follows; access to community templates, your content can be saved directly to camera roll and then shared to Reels as well, your work will always auto-save (no risk of losing a draft like when TikTok crashes), interface is more accessible, access to a wider range of features such transitions, fonts, and the ability to chop and change audio.

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How do you approach editing on it?

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The CapCut interface is very accessible and straightforward to use. Basic video editing can be done easily, and if you begin to explore and test the features available on the app, you’ll pick them up fast.

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What are the coolest hacks that can save people time?

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Here’s a few hacks that save time:

1. If you import a video to edit and plan on changing the ratio, ensure you do this first before splitting it up. 
2. You can screen record an audio and then extract it from your camera roll. Saves the time of importing it via the sound library!
3. When inserting overlays, there’s an in-app option to remove the background and turn them into pngs
4. When adding text to a video, add your first text box and then edit this to the desired font/size etc. and then every text box you add afterwards will format the same way. 

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Why is CapCut better than using other editing platforms or Adobe? Particularly for TikTok.

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As ByteDance owns CapCut, videos edited on this app carry an embed across to TikTok that is platform friendly. If you were to edit a video in Reels then repost it to TikTok, the algorithm supposedly picks up on the Meta embed and crushes the video. This is why CapCut templates always go viral, become trends perform well on TikTok.

Metrics that matter for business success on TikTok

There is only one thing that matters when taking an organic content strategy on any social platform and particularly for TikTok is attention. Attention is best measured on a social platform by these core metrics:

• Views
• Activity (Shares, Likes, Comments, Saves
• Engagement Rate % (Activity/Views)
• Watch Rates (Watch Time, Play Through %)
• New Followers

I would say that followers can often be a vanity metric, but as a brand, understanding how many followers you’re acquiring per post is a solid metric to compare against other platforms or the cost of running ads.

Really we just want to know whether we’re reaching more people and they’re engaging with us over time. A brand that’s nailing its engagement should be seeing 8% yield’s or more on TikTok.

A word on brand truth’s

If you can’t accept that people will be very direct to you and your brand on TikTok, with often very little filter, then this platform is not for you. We’ve been engaged by numerous brands in the past who have an idea on who their perfect demographic is or messaging they want to pursue and it just doesn’t work. You must accept the reality of what your brand is to people. Do that and consumer’s will respect it, particularly if the consumer is young.

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This acceptance of brand truth creates brand salience. 

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Fiat’s Technicolour campaign is the perfect example of acceptance of a brand truth. It rocked the boat, but that gave Fiat a true identity. Don’t see it as a weakness, but a positive.

Neuralle’s TikTok Organic Content Strategy

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Now we’re into the meat and potatoes, and assuming you’ve read and understand everything we’ve discussed prior. Here’s a winning strategy that we use for organic TikTok.

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1. Clearly define the overlay of the profile and niche we’re playing in
2. Identify the formats that will give us immediate wins with the algorithm (low risk videos)
3. Identify the formats (or remixed formats) that will give us potential big wins (high risk videos)
4. Spending a couple hours each week doing trend research every week, and identify key trends that can be adapted to the niche. 
5. Ensuring audio tracks used are upwardly trending in use, or have a large usage already
6. Allocate a % the client is comfortable with between high and low risk videos
7. Break those videos into silo’d formats
8. Start building concepts into a library in Monday.com ready for client approval
9. Riff every Tuesday internally on this to build our creative muscle for the account 
10. Get approvals from the client to film and publish on that concept
11. Publish
12. Report and analyse the data on what worked
13. We look at everything from views, to engagement, watch rate to even the way the video was filmed
14. Double down on what worked
15. Start amplifying if budget permits - targeting our ideal audience
16. Invest in influencer collaborations that make sense, consistently

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Best organic TikTok brand accounts

Some of the best brands that we’ve seen nail TikTok and really accept brand truth’s are:

Ryan Air

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Telstra

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Drumstick

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Jetstar

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Summary

Jumping into TikTok for your business? Think of it like buying a run-down house. TikTok’s all the rage, and for good reason: the numbers show it has and will overtake Instagram. The platform has expanded beyond Gen Z, and brands are flocking to it. But what's the secret sauce for TikTok success? Formats, Content Strategy, Tone of Voice, Memes, and Consistency. 

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Feel free to contact Neuralle if you’re serious about launching onto TikTok.

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