TikTok: a social media platform overflowing with amateur videos of teenagers lip-syncing and dancing to popular remixed songs. For most adults, this app would be deemed irrelevant. But for tech-savvy entrepreneurs like Enrico Frezza, it’s a sales-generating machine.
As any successful entrepreneur knows, it’s important to look into social media when it comes to selling your product. Today, mobile advertising accounts for one-third of total ad spending; hence, the importance of taking advantage of social media apps. The goal then becomes to find the most popular and fastest-growing platform to advertise your brand.
TikTok was officially launched back in 2016, and in the past three years, has acquired an audience of over 800 millions users per month. TikTok is already advancing ahead of other social media platforms like Twitter, Snapchat, and LinkedIn. And to top it all off, TikTok has become the most downloaded app of 2020.
In an exclusive interview with Shopify, Frezza, founder and CEO of Peace Out Skincare, reveals how TikTok has contributed to the overwhelming success of his brand.
Getting Involved On TikTok
The business was first introduced to TikTok back in February, when the coronavirus began to hit hard in the US. With everyone looking for ways to amuse themselves while social distancing at home, many turned their attention to social media.
This year, TikTok’s audience has nearly doubled from 35.6 million to 65.9 million monthly users — nearly 20 percent of the US population. And TikTok’s growth doesn’t end there; the app is predicted to grow 67 percent in 2021, and then an additional 25 percent on top of that.
Amid the pandemic, Frezza saw an opportunity to advertise his brand. “We started gifting influencers on TikTok and reaching out to them to get our products into their hands,” he says.
He goes on to discuss the first video that made them go viral. “One great video that came from that was we gifted Peace Out Pores to a TikTok influencer who then did a duet video with the biggest skincare TikTok influencer, who has 5.4 million followers. We had more than 12 million views, and it was liked more than 2.4 million times and shared over 60,000 times.”
In a separate interview with Glossy, Frezza says, “Our pore-strip sales grew by four times in 24 hours. We sold 15,000 units in one day on our website.” That’s when Frezza saw the brand’s potential influence on TikTok.
TikTok’s Individuality and Using Influencer Marketing Strategies
Frezza continues, “What was fascinating was that with TikTok, there are different opinions on actually driving sales versus just driving views. This experience kind of proved that it can actually drive sales, and a lot of it, more than any other platform that we’ve ever seen.”
He goes on to explain why TikTok is so profitable for entrepreneurs compared to other platforms. “With TikTok, as things trend, they can be trending for six months to a year, just like YouTube in a way. We felt that was also a great investment, where you can keep trending for such a long period of time for something that you invested once into.”
Frezza comments on how important it is to find the right TikTok influencers to promote his product. Since his skincare line specializes in fighting acne, Frezza searches for people who are struggling with any skin issues that his brand is specifically designed to combat.
Here at Sourcify, we’ve written about how much of an impact influencers can have when it comes to promoting your brand: “Influencers are capable of persuading others online by virtue of their authenticity. If executed properly, social media influencers are the game changer that allows you to reach and engage an audience you didn’t even know existed.”
A Sure-Fire Way to Go Viral
Frezza gets specific when explaining how TikTok influencers create videos that result in 15,000 sales in a single day.
“What worked for us was showing both the instant gratification of the pore strips peeling off the nose and showing all the junk that it sucked out. So it’s that visual, gross effect. And in the video, she showed her before the nose close-up, and then the after, in the video going close to her nose, showing the aftereffect of how clean it was afterward.”
In other words, people want to see results. Using a “before” and “after” strategy like Frezza describes convinces the viewer of the success of the product.
“In that 30 seconds, or 45 seconds video, showing both the product, the instant gratification of showing the junk on the strip or the dot, and showing the after results, it’s what really makes something go viral.”
Going Forward, TikTok Is The Way to Go
Even during Peace Out’s humble beginnings, Frezza saw the influence TikTok had. His team shifted their focus to this one platform and quickly began putting together a strategy to reach the largest audience possible.
Nearing sixth place in the global mobile app rankings by monthly active users, TikTok is only predicted to grow even more as we approach the next year, making the platform a no-brainer for advertising. Frezza admits “TikTok is pretty much the game” when it comes to driving sales. And the increasing number of statistics speak for themselves.
Sure, Twitter and Instagram are great platforms. But they can only take us so far. TikTok is always showcasing new and original content, and just as Frezza said, it never gets old.
So before you try to discredit TikTok as a legitimate advertising platform, consider this: Peace Out Skincare experienced an exponential 15,000 sales and generated thousands of followers in a single day — all thanks to one viral TikTok video.
Image Credit:
- Featured Image, Unsplash
