Should my Association Join TikTok?

We don’t need to tell you that TikTok is all the rage. More and more brands are flocking to the “entertainment platform” including publications like The Washington Post, consumer brands like Dunkin’, non-profit institutions like the University of Florida, and even the San Diego Zoo.

Could short-form video on TikTok be the missing piece to your association’s marketing or engagement strategy?

By all accounts, TikTok users are engaged with the platform (29% of users open it every day) and the audience may be more age-diverse than you think; Comscore data provided to AdWeek shows that 62% of TikTok users are aged 10-29, and that means, maybe surprisingly, 38% of users are people over 30.

Ready to sign-up your association? Not so fast. Below are three considerations before you jump in.

1. Who will create the content?

One of the biggest considerations before adding any channels to your marketing repertoire is ensuring you have in-house staff or an agency dedicated to creating content. This is especially true for TikTok; not only do users expect highly unique, entertaining video content, they also want a steady stream of it with some brands posting multiple times per day. There are also technical considerations; video on TikTok is vertically oriented, which means past video content you may have captured at your conference or interviews with your board were all likely filmed horizontally. The time to create new content from scratch on such a regular basis is not an investment to take lightly.

2. How does it complement your other channels?

These days, an association may be managing more than six other channels in its marketing mix, including social media platforms, email marketing, its website, and association-owned platforms like member forums. Before adding another channel, consider what the new outlet provides you that your others do not. In the case of TikTok, you may want to ask: are you after a new audience? Do you want to demonstrate a new side of your brand? How does TikTok fit into your overall marketing goals for the next 2-3 years? If these answers aren’t clear (for TikTok or any channel), it may be time to take a step back to assess.

3. How will you measure success?

I can guarantee most marketers ask themselves daily: “Is this working?” And establishing a TikTok account is no different. Say you have your content creator lined up, a clear picture of how TikTok fits into your marketing goals and strategies, and the account is up and running for a year. How will you know if it was a success? Will you track new visitors to your website from TikTok? Is engagement on each post how you’ll demonstrate success? How will you continue to grow your presence year-over-year? A clear roadmap of how you’ll measure TikTok’s efficacy is critical to ensuring your marketing efforts are going to the right place. And if you aren’t hitting your goals, how do you decide if you should continue to allocate resources to TikTok or when it’s time to pull the plug?

The decision to add a new channel to your marketing mix should not be taken lightly and the amount of work to establish a successful channel should not be taken for granted. That said, we know associations are full of creative people that may just add the perspectives TikTok needs.

Laura Ludka is in Corporate Marketing at Smithbucklin.