At Econsultancy Reside final month, TikTok’s Simon Hofmeister, head of vertical, ecommerce, shared some key developments on the platform and what they reveal about the way forward for commerce.
Hofmeister, whose earlier roles included seven and a half years in efficiency advertising at Asos, mentioned the ability of leisure in commerce and the way TikTok’s community-based, creator-driven and conversational platform is altering the standard buy journey.
The facility of leisure
In keeping with a 2020 Ofcom examine, a 3rd of our waking hours are spent watching TV and on-line video content material. That is the context for utilization of TikTok which, as Hofmeister factors out, regardless of being described by many as a social media platform, is at the start an leisure platform. “It’s a sound-on platform. You don’t ‘examine’ TikTok, you watch TikTok. It doesn’t function a second display screen.”
Accordingly, one Kantar examine discovered that 1 in 3 individuals say they spend quite a bit much less time watching TV or streaming movies due to TikTok, highlighting once more that the platform doesn’t act as a second display screen however is a totally immersive expertise.
The facility of leisure is pertinent for ecommerce, which might typically be a boring or unvaried expertise. Globally, 1 in 3 individuals need commerce to be extra entertaining (GWI Connecting the Dots report 2021) and Hofmeister believes that places TikTok in a novel place to bridge that hole between leisure and commerce.
TikTok’s mission is to encourage creativity and produce pleasure, and its personal commissioned analysis has discovered that 39% of customers say content material that lifts their spirits is essential in making buying choices. Crucially, TikTok additionally does this by content material that’s humanised. In Hofmeister’s phrases, “It’s made by actual individuals, for actual individuals, about actual individuals.”
Bridging the hole between leisure and commerce
“Actual individuals speaking about actual issues and actual conditions are capable of relate merchandise to different actual individuals in a really private..means,” he continues.
There’s all kinds of content material on TikTok that illustrates how on a regular basis customers are telling the story of a specific model and its merchandise in a optimistic, entertaining or amusing means.
Hofmeister shares examples starting from a consumer sharing their go to to an Ikea retailer, creating brief, humorous movies and creating one thing near an omnichannel expertise, to unboxing movies and critiques.
Although video critiques are usually not new inside social commerce, they’re proven to be impactful on TikTok, with 40% of individuals saying that product demos affect their buy choices, in response to one examine. The excessive proportion of customers on TikTok that create content material implies that buyers returning to the platform and reviewing their purchases adjustments the standard buy journey.
The period of TikTok made me purchase it – altering the linear buy journey
“The normal linear buying journey doesn’t actually exist on the platform,” says Hofmeister. “What you will have is individuals discovering merchandise by way of the hyper related algorithm, primarily based on what they like and what they’re enthusiastic about. Individuals uncover the merchandise, they take into account buying, and the model can speed up this with advertisements or by paying for prolonged attain and optimising for various goals. Then, [those that purchase] – it’s fairly regular for [them] to return again, overview the product and take part in dialog across the product. After which once more, undergo and discover different merchandise, thus having this loop impact.”
Proof of the propensity for brief, entertaining, humanised video to promote is the success of the ‘TikTokMadeMeBuyIt’ hashtag, which had seen c. 31 billion video views at time of writing, and is a key a part of this product overview tradition on the platform.
“The hashtag goes past the platform, too, which is de facto attention-grabbing and thrilling,” says Hofmeister.
TikTok and the way forward for commerce
“If you concentrate on promoting historically, it typically interrupts what you’re doing and the content material might look barely totally different from what you’ve been taking a look at earlier than or after and is mostly fairly intrusive,” says Hofmeister.
That dynamic is shifted on TikTok in 3 ways: a shift from prospects to group, from influencers to creators, and from intrusive to conversational model messaging.
Clients to group
TikTok turns solo buying right into a group exercise, because the platform is filled with what Hofmeister describes as “plenty of area of interest locations for individuals to search out different individuals who like what they like, and who’re speaking about what they like briefly type, snackable, entertaining, video format.”
Buyers on TikTok usually tend to purchase merchandise from a model if they’ll entry the group constructed round them, with mainstream examples together with ‘#booktok’ for books, ‘#foodtok’ for meals, and ‘#gymtok’ for going to the fitness center.
Influencers to creators
“The normal influencer mannequin is to go and discover individuals who have already got a following, those who already interact with them and their content material, after which get that particular person to endorse your merchandise,” says Hofmeister.
“Once we discuss creators, we discuss individuals that won’t have a following however they’re engaged with a specific group that’s related for that model. And these are simply regular people who find themselves superb at making content material, that’s entertaining and brief type. And tapping into these explicit creators on TikTok can supercharge commerce.”
Lounge underwear was one case examine shared by Hofmeister. Lounge’s take a look at with creator-led humanised, short-form artistic was comprehensively extra profitable on TikTok than the excessive manufacturing worth video they might usually produce in a studio. The model noticed a 72% improve in purchases and 72% discount in add-to-cart CPA (cost-per-acquisition), when utilizing TikTok’s Spark Advertisements, a local advert format permitting manufacturers to spice up natural creator posts.
Intrusive to conversational
As TikTok is a platform of humanised content material, the expectation is for manufacturers to indicate up in precisely the identical means, to be genuine, and to narrate to customers. Hofmeister talks about manufacturers “being daring of their conversations with the patron, responding to their requests with movies”.
This contains responding to customers who ask questions but additionally arriving in ongoing conversations about their merchandise and types, to maintain individuals knowledgeable in an entertaining means that’s pure on the platform.
With 2 out of three customers saying they’re doubtless to purchase one thing whereas utilizing TikTok, which at the moment has a billion customers, there’s little question the platform is seeing an natural mixture of leisure and commerce. As Hofmeister places it, “Individuals used to see TikTok as about foolish dancing movies – we’ve come a good distance since then.”
