The clock is ticking on TikTok’s future as the company gets pulled into geopolitical privacy concerns, political tug-of-war, and increased pressure on Chinese-owned businesses. So, is it time to let go your TikTok marketing strategy? Do you need to realign your social and content strategy as TikTok faces challenges? Let us find out.

TikTok saw a meteoric rise and became one of the most sought-after short-video platforms not only for the users but also the marketers. Bite-sized videos, high engagement, user-generated content, influencer campaigns, and organic opportunities made TikTok extremely popular in the recent times.

But things are going awry for TikTok.

While U.S. President Donald Trump announced a banOpens a new window on the Chinese video app, if ByteDance (parent company of TikTok) doesn’t divest its U.S. operations to an American company before November, 2020. As a result, big enterprise brands such as Microsoft, Oracle, and Twitter are said to be in talks to buy ByteDance’s operations in the US, as well as Canada, Australia, and New Zealand as reported by CNBCOpens a new window .

After losing out on a user base of more than 1Opens a new window 19 million active usersOpens a new window in India and facing a loss of more than 27 million users in the USAOpens a new window , tables have turned for marketers.

And a poignant question is, how to readjust the marketing sails as the clock ticks on TikTok?

We may have an answer for you.

How to Re-Adjust the Sails as the Clock Ticks on TikTok?              

Consumers love videos for entertainment and discovery and marketers love them for engagement, creative campaigns, and eventually sales. TikTok’s fanbase had skyrocketed from an initial 30 million users to 800 million active users worldwideOpens a new window . Naturally, marketers too were  hooked to TikTok for a niche user base. But the recent turn of events has put their marketing plans in jeopardy. With an uncertain future, how should you reshape your social and video marketing strategy? 

Let us chalk out a contingency plan:

1. Go for Bite-Sized Videos

The success of TikTok lies in bite-sized videos rife with creativity, humor, and authenticity. Audience attention span is limited and hence 6 to 15 seconds videos capture more attention and have the capability to go viral. Thus, brands should now align with their ‘niche’ audience’s tastes to craft shorter, compelling videos.

Here are a few tips for your next bite-sized video content campaign

• Align your content with current trends – hot topics, popular speeches, voiceovers, and popular songs, dialogues, memes, etc. for better engagement.
• Intersperse brand message with humor to make it entertaining.
• The key lies in authentic content. Thus raw, unedited videos with relatable scenes and locations will garner more interest. For example, behind-the-scenes, a typical day in the office or goof-ups videos can help the audience relate more with your content.

You may not have the TikTok platform to share short video content, but the users will be hungrier for such videos in the absence of their favorite platform. Thus, crafting video content that resonates well with your TikTok user base will help you stay connected with them and maximize brand awareness.

Learn More: Why Short-Form Video Content Is the Best Way To Tap Into Consumer Emotions: Q&A With Loop Media

2. Sign Up for Influencers’ Migration

With a ban in India and TikTok’s future hanging in a balance in the US, TikTok influencers too are exploring ways to connect with their followers. Now, is the right time to collaborate with TikTok influencers and promote them on other social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, etc.

We list down a few dos and don’ts for influencers migration to other social media platforms:

• Collaborate with influencers that share the voice of your brand.
• Promote TikTok influencers on your brand handles across various social media platforms so that their followers know where to find them.
• Sign them up to create fresh content or repurpose existing TikTok content. Although TikTok allows you to export watermarked TikTok videos, sharing it on other social media platforms may land the content creator in legal trouble.
• Give your influencers creative freedom to create content so that their existing followers still relate to them and root for them.

3. Encourage and Reward User-Generated Content  

Another reason behind the success story of TikTok is that amateur users could create content, go viral, and become overnight celebrities. For your upcoming social media campaigns, you can encourage users to participate in contests that require them to create short videos. Here are a few ideas that could work well:

• Contests to create short funny videos on how to use your products or related bloopers.
• The audience version of your latest creation.
• Contests to create the next video ad for your upcoming product launch.
• You could share the top five videos of contests every day to encourage more participation and engagement.
• Giveaways and freebies motivate users to produce more content.

The user-generated  contests will help you capitalize on the users’ need to create content as they miss one of their favorite platforms. And this will help you improve your outreach to your audiences. 

Learn More: Why Big Tech Wants Social Media Platforms: Microsoft’s Play for TikTok

4. Explore and Experiment With Alternative Short Video Apps   

It is no secret that rival platforms will swoosh in to take competitive advantage and launch TikTok like features to pull the TikTok’s user base. You could explore these short video apps (or features) to help your content gain traction. The key lies in monitoring, collecting data, and gleaning insights to understand how your audience is engaging with your content on these platforms.

And before you ‘pick’ a platform as an alternative to TikTok, you need to experiment and test different strategies across these platforms. Here are the five platforms you could explore:

• Instagram ReelsOpens a new window : Instagram is not new to ‘adopting’ rich features from other apps. And they have already launched Reels for users to “create and discover short entertaining videos”.  They have already taken over Snapchat when it comes to stories. Will Reels be as popular is yet to be seen.
• TrillerOpens a new window : A five-year-old AI-driven platform has started gaining popularity as the news of the TikTok ban started trickling in. Many popular TikTok content creators like Josh Richards, Griffin Johnson, and Noah Beck announced their move to Triller as reported by USA Today.Opens a new window
• ByteOpens a new window : It is touted as the next big thing after TikTok. Byte, launched this January is the second coming of Vine, with even shorter videos (6 to 8 seconds) has also added a lot of TikTok like tools. And Byte, too, observed a massive surge in downloads after the potential ban announcement.
• DubsmashOpens a new window : It is also looking at a resurgence after TikTok’s dwindling luck. Dubsmash has a growing audience base but you will find more of content creators like video gamers, cosplayers, superfans of various characters from video games, movies, and books dress up in home-made costumes.
• Facebook Short Videos: Facebook is already testing short videos with the Indian users to make the most of India’s ban on TikTok. It is very likely that the U.S. users too will start seeing FB Short Videos in their apps. But how short videos make room for creativity and experimentation is yet to be seen.
• YouTube Shorts: Google is not far behind, with YouTube to planning to release ‘Shorts’Opens a new window as a rival to TikTok. Shorts will be a feature in the YouTube app. It will take advantage of the platform’s catalog of licensed music and songs that can be used as soundtracks for short user videos – just like TikTok.

The ban on TikTok is speculative and if ByteDance sells its U.S. operations to a home company, TikTok will stay. Although, TikTok fans have not dwindled, the strings of controversies and bans have cast a dark cloud on its survival across regions – especially in the U.S. Thus, marketers need to adapt not just to the changing audience needs but also to the highly dynamic geopolitical scenario. We vote to keep an eye on upcoming rival platforms, monitoring user engagement across these platforms, and not ruling out TikTok, yet.

What do you think of these social media marketing alternatives as TikTok’s future looks bleak? Share it with us on FacebookOpens a new window , TwitterOpens a new window , and LinkedInOpens a new window .