When discussing advertising or creative agencies, we understand that they support brands in many ways, such as creating daily social media content, managing influencers, producing commercial ads, conducting product photoshoots, and buying media for both online and offline channels. These services have always been beneficial for both brands and agencies.
Now, TikTok, a booming social media platform, has entered the landscape. However, its algorithms and how the platform works differ significantly from other social media channels, despite still being categorized as one.
According to TikTok and online insights, authentic and real-time content performs exceptionally well on the platform compared to meticulously planned content. Agencies, with their dedicated time-consuming standard operating procedures (SOPs), often struggle to create a single ad or video instantly or on the spot, as multiple departments need to be involved in the process.
Does this mean agencies face challenges producing authentic and real-time content, hindering their ability to deliver their usual level of service to clients?
Honestly, yes. The old methods and SOPs that agencies traditionally utilize are highly challenging when it comes to producing effective content for their brands on the TikTok platform. Let's explore why these methods are considered ineffective and examine the tips for success on TikTok videos:
- Variety of content to reach different FYPs (For You Pages) and grow audiences naturally.
- Understanding platform trends and joining them.
- Short, catchy videos with hooks in the first 3 seconds.
- Authentic and customer-centric point of view.
- Understanding trending music.
These are the tips recommended by the TikTok for Business account on TikTok. As such, both big brands and agencies that require approval processes at each stage of content or ad creation face difficulties.
Understanding the TikTok landscape Myanmar
The top 5 brands from Myanmar who has high engagement on Tiktok surprising found to be
1. Asia Star Mobile from Hlaing Tharyar region, Yangon
They constantly use one of their staff as the main character and create creative story contents around it.
Frequency : Around 10 videos / month
2. KTA Mobile from Yemethin region
They leverage their staffs to create trendy storyline contents, dancing contents and real-life customer engagement contents.
Frequency : Around 20 videos / week
3. Mobile Phone Brand shop in called Anycall Mobile
Frequency : Around 15 videos / month
They develop characters and play different stories with these characters and thus, it's like short sit-coms entertaining the audiences creatively while endorsing products.
By checking out these Businesses, we can see they rely more on their in-house team to produce contents with
- trendy music
- authentic & customer-centric story contents
- high frequency videos where these kinds of content production is still hard to achieve with services from agencies.
So, are there any other ways for agencies to make a profit by offering TikTok content services?
In my personal opinion as a seasoned account director, agencies can. However, we need to invest more than ever in talent acquisition and scouting, focusing on project-based or client-specific needs. It's crucial to find creators who are already familiar with the client's industry background while also understanding the platform to produce their creative content. Ideally, the creator should be able to handle the entire process, from content planning and shooting to editing, to produce the required content in a timely manner. In this scenario, the agency's role would shift to finding and managing these talented creators.
With many brands now offering careers in short-form video content creation and agencies scaling up their services, it will be interesting to see how this industry majorly transforms in the coming years based on short-form video content production.
Read more about Shoppertainment 2024 by Tiktok
To understand more about the nature of the audiences on the platform, there is a new guide released from TikTok , check out this Shoppertainment 2024 The Future of Consumer & Commerce
