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  • Leveraging Social Ads for Enrollment Growth in Higher Education

    Leveraging Social Ads for Enrollment Growth in Higher Education

    The student recruitment process is never-ending – your institution is always targeting the next class. Paid social media gives your higher education institution affordable and measurable ways to reach prospects all year long on the influential social and streaming media platforms where prospective students spend their time.

    Standing apart from the competition, especially during busy enrollment periods, can be a challenge and effective social advertising strategies on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and Snapchat, as well as streaming platforms like YouTube, deliver quick and very effective ways to narrow down your prospects and attract the students you’re after. You can easily customize and format your ads that you show on each platform based on audience preferences and further hyper-target and personalize those ads by optimizing your data and analytics.

    Students spend a lot of time on their favored platforms gathering information.  According to Experian, 98% of college-aged students are on social media, which makes it imperative that your institution find ways to engage with students at all levels of education. Social ads can be tailored for high school sophomores and juniors, in addition to seniors, and for transfer-minded students and individuals pursuing graduate degrees. You want to reach your prospects with social ads before a decision has been made. Providing a targeted, appealing visual, text, or video message can grab their attention and begin building brand awareness early in their search process. 

    Social Ads Can Target Your Audience

    Social ads offer tailored options that can be based on specific demographics of your targeted prospective audience. Use your current students’ data and alumni information to gain a better understanding of the ambitions of your prospects and how your institution will fit into their plans. Go beyond mere demographic data, like age, location, and family income, and delve deeper to create messaging based on the field of study, extracurricular interests, career-building opportunities, or athletics.

    Social Ads Attract Awareness

    Social ads put your institution in front of people who are scrolling their favorite platforms and let you get found and discovered when they are most likely to want to learn more. This places importance on the look and relevance of the ad as well as the call to action. Social ads don’t let the moment pass by prompting your audience to visit your website, complete contact forms, or download additional information right from a click within their favorite platform. Create contests or highlight campus events and activities to encourage further participation and seize opportunities to collect data. Applying the newly gained data can help you to tailor further ads and campaigns to the likes and preferences of prospective students to keep growing the relationship.

    Social Ads Generate Interest and Appeal

    Draw interest and share the uniqueness of your institution’s academic curricula, campus culture, and community by offering your audience incentives like school swag, free event tickets, and scholarship offers in exchange for information. Share blogs, videos, and other content that they can use to make more informed decisions and be better prepared for the challenges and exciting times that await them. You can use the information you gather to build ever-more accurate prospect personas. Social ads also let you retarget audiences through other marketing channels and reinforce messaging through email and print collateral.

    Social Ads Supplement Multi-Channel Marketing

    Social ads work best when deployed as part of a unified and cohesive multi-channel marketing campaign that fits in nicely with the ways prospects search and gather information in today’s marketplace. When social ads have a strong call to action, it’s easy to direct prospects to your website, send them to watch videos on YouTube, or collect email addresses to stay in contact. According to a Nielsen study, audiences evaluate multiple sources of information along their journeys. Incorporate direct mail, printed promotional items, and email marketing to put information about your institution every place the prospective student looks.

    Social Ads Scale To Meet Your Budget and Campaigns

    Throughout the year, your institution’s enrollment marketing ebbs and flows to reflect periods of heightened prospect interest and increased campus events and activities like school tours. You’ll want to make sure your social ad campaign is established with a budget and metrics that provide insight into your cost-per-acquisition (CPA). CPA is an important metric for gaining valuable information on the effectiveness of your ad for converting prospects into qualified inquiries. Knowing your CPA allows you to adjust the levers of the campaign to gain the most from your ad spend as the season’s enrollment needs change. You’ll have more confidence and control over digital ad spending when adapting to the changing needs of your enrollment efforts by applying this data. 

    Social Ads Intensify Testimonials

    Social ads allow you to use your strongest advocates – students and alumni –  to provide validation and support during social media ad campaigns. Recommendations and positive reviews by current students and alumni are more trusted than traditional advertising, and can speak to the prospects’ situation from a personal, shared perspective. Social ad testimonials add authenticity to messaging and play a powerful role in the decision-making of your prospects. 

    Adding social ads into enrollment recruitment for higher education institutions has never been easier. Contact a Marketing.com social advertising expert today to learn more about how we can help your school connect the dots and integrate social ads into your enrollment recruitment marketing. 

  • Impact of Signage on Driving Sales in Grocery and Convenience Stores

    Impact of Signage on Driving Sales in Grocery and Convenience Stores

    How does signage affect your grocery or convenience store sales? Imagine the mayhem if shoppers arriving in your store found no signs to help them get what they came for or to encourage purchases of things they didn’t come for. And if you had no exterior signage, how would they even find you in the first place and pick your store out from among all the buildings they walk or drive past?

    Grocery and convenience store signage matters, and serves two important purposes. First of all your signs, in particular your exterior signs, are your first, and often largest, brand ambassadors. Signage gets your grocery or convenience store recognized from among your competition, draws customers into your store, and guides them once inside. Your signage also drives sales, and when placed strategically in windows, in aisles, on shelves, atop counters, or hung as banners, they can influence buying behaviors and lead to loyal, repeat customers.

    Your Grocery and Convenience Store Retail Signage is Always Selling

    Your signs, whether you realize it or not, are always selling, even your wayfinding signage, because when they are deployed with purpose they show a focus on the customer. That means your signage strategies should all center around creating a welcoming and enjoyable experience for your shoppers. Using a mix of digital and printed signs, and adding QR codes to printed signs, gives you new and fun ways to share stories and information and connect with your shoppers. 

    Exterior signage can stand out and enhance the appearance of your store with big and bold graphics, images, or logos in bright colors on brilliantly lit signs. They can also be used to add elements of your brands personality set the mood inside your store and give your interior dashes of brightness and color. Quality signage, exterior signs constructed to withstand the elements, and regularly maintained indoor signs made from recyclable, sustainable materials, make a difference. When your signage looks good, so do you in the eyes of your customers.

    Grocery and convenience retail store signage can impact your sales in the following ways. 

    Retail Signs Enhance Customer Service 

    When you have a clear understanding of your customers, you can use your signage to anticipate their needs and provide solutions for them at every turn. This frees up staff to process payments and serve your shoppers with greater attention. Use your signs to create an atmosphere throughout your store that builds on the qualities of your brand. Use images and graphics that connect with your shoppers. Keep your messaging consistent and up-to-date, especially if you have multiple stores, to prevent customers from being disappointed if their expectations aren’t met. You want to make your store into a familiar, comfortable place that your customers want to come back to time and again. Signage can help you do it.

    Retail Signs Inform and Educate

    Today’s shoppers want to know more about what’s in the food and products that they’re purchasing than might be found on the label. Signs provide opportunities to show and share information your customers want to know. Digital signage can keep messaging current. QR codes printed on signs allow shoppers to watch videos, animation, and other digital content on their smartphones learn more about product and ingredient origins, allergy information and receive upsell opportunities. For instance, printed displays at the deli and fish counters can provide recipe suggestions through QR codes. Customers can watch a presentation on their phone while waiting in line or download the video to watch later. The store gets the opportunity to increase sales while also gaining trust as a source of useful information. 

    Retail Signs Grow Loyalty Programs. 

    Your store should never miss opportunities to recruit new loyalty program members or provide benefits to frequent shoppers in order to gather data about their shopping habits to craft a better customer experience. Use signs to display potential savings available to loyalty program members when products are on sale or at reduced prices for program members. Signs encouraging loyalty program membership are particularly effective at checkout counters or when incorporated into point-of-purchase (POP) signage. QR codes on the signs can direct shoppers to customized registration landing pages to sign up. This is especially effective when enrollment offers immediate rewards that the shopper can apply while in the store.

    Strategic Retail Sign Placement Increases Impulse Purchases 

    In order to be effective, your grocery or convenience store signage must be placed where it can be seen. Even more importantly, the strategic placement of your signs can increase sales and drive revenue when placed where they can influence buying decisions and spur impulse purchases. Signs placed higher on shelves attract more attention than ones down lower and horizontal displays are easier for your customers to process and understand. You can use you them to draw attention to promotional items or highlight seasonal items. They can be placed in high-traffic areas like endcaps, store aisles, near product displays, and at checkout counters as point-of-purchase (POP) displays to generate sales lift and increase sales volumes.

    Retail Wayfinding Signs Lead To Sales

    Keep in mind that your signage must attract and communicate with your customers while they are on the move. If your customers can’t find your store or have difficulty locating things, they’ll grow frustrated and go to one of your competitors. Your wayfinding strategy should be well thought out, using easy-to-read fonts and recognizable directional symbols, and adhere to Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) guidelines. Retail wayfinding signage offers countless ways to add creativity to function, with an assortment of wayfinding static and digital sign options, including pylon, monument, and channel lettering outside your store and customized wall murals, floor decals, banners, and overhead signs to guide people when inside.

    Retail Signs Drive Promotions 

    Your grocery or convenience store relies on a constant stream of promotions to attract new customers and give your regulars something special in appreciation for their business. Even as your promotions rotate, your signage must stay on brand.  This is a case where bigger is better for drawing attention, and large, colorful aisle displays, banners, posters, and window decals can be designed and produced in all shapes and sizes. Exterior digital signage sells day and night with messaging that can be updated in moments as promotions change. Promotional signage inside your store has the capability of enhancing the shopping experience with signs that use QR codes to link to digital promotional content or social media that supports the sales event. Factors to focus on for promotional signage are relevancy, freshness, and consistency, especially for campaigns running in multiple locations.

    Digital and Print Retail Signs Create Fuller Experiences

    Digital signage lets you introduce multimedia elements like animations and video content into your grocery and convenience store signage strategy. Coordinated with print signage, adding digital into the signage mix creates a complete brand experience for your customer. Digital messaging can be integrated into physical, branded exterior billboards, monument signs, and store windows and can feature multiple promotions or provide helpful information, like time and temperature, that draws attention day and night.  Inside the store, digital screens can provide interactivity improve your customer’s mood, and provide a visual counterpoint to the tactile impressions made by your print signage. And while your print signage offers a consistency that shoppers value, bringing digital into the mix gives your messaging relevancy because you can change it in an instant.

    When it comes to retail signage for grocery and convenience stores, two things remain constant. One is that retailers that place the customer experience first and foremost, and see every engagement and interaction as a means to develop deeper loyalty, are the ones that will succeed. The other is that effective strategies require attention to brand consistency and relevancy to attract attention and stand apart from your competitors. Marketing.com can help you connect the dots to find ways to make all your grocery and convenience store print and digital signage appealing and sustainable.

  • Personalized Promotions: Using Print-On-Demand and Variable Messaging to Increase Conversions

    Personalized Promotions: Using Print-On-Demand and Variable Messaging to Increase Conversions

    Don’t treat your favored customers and prospects like strangers. To increase your conversion rates, build loyalty, and realize greater ROI in your marketing campaigns, make every interaction personal by leveraging consumer data with personalized messages that are printed on demand.

    Variable data printing revolutionizes traditional printing methods by allowing for the customization of each printed piece within a single print run; every direct mail piece can contain unique content tailored to the recipient, including personalized messages, QR codes, images, and even offers. According to a study by InfoTrends, personalized direct mail can yield response rates that are 36% higher than non-personalized mailings, highlighting the effectiveness of this approach. Print on demand (POD) further enhances the capabilities of variable data printing by enabling businesses to produce customized marketing materials on an as-needed basis. Instead of relying on large print runs and storing excess inventory, businesses can leverage print-on-demand to print materials in response to specific customer actions or events.

    Adding personalization to their experience leads to great results. With the application of variable data print, you can effortlessly customize every contact by optimizing your customer data to include personal touches that help drive more meaningful engagement with your audience. In addition, you’re shaping your customer’s experience around what they want, and letting them know that you’re paying attention to their needs. By analyzing customer demographics, purchase history, and behavior patterns, companies can craft personalized messages that resonate with individual recipients on a deeper level. According to Statista, 63% of marketers have observed that personalization increases customer interaction and ultimately produces better conversion rates.

    Print on demand capabilities let you respond quickly to customer behavior and more accurately target every promotion with messages that are relevant to client needs.

    Behavior-Based Print-on-Demand

    Behavior-based messaging lies at the heart of effective variable print campaigns. By leveraging customer data and analytics, companies can tailor messaging to align with individual behavior patterns and preferences. Print on demand lets you react and take an active role in the timing of your contacts with customers by providing the ability to engage with customers at various stages of their buying journey or life events. Taking the data a step further, you can build lookalike audiences that match segments of your current customers to pattern campaigns around lifestyles of your prospects or create prospect lists based on major life events.  According to research by Forbes, personalized marketing campaigns based on behavioral data can result in a 20% increase in sales. The real-time customization available through the combination of variable and print on demand options ensures that the information remains accurate and up to date, enhancing the overall effectiveness of the campaign.

    Loyalty-Based Print-on-Demand

    Based on an understanding of the motivations of your loyalty program members, print-on-demand and personalization through variable data printing combine to create opportunities to keep every communication relevant and valuable to members. You can establish trust and strengthen the relationship when your personalized messaging matches their expectations and mirrors the way audiences make purchasing decisions. Personalized direct mail serves as the engine for loyalty program membership or plan enrollment, from personalized welcome letters and membership packets to customized thank you notes, milestone cards, reward redemption opportunities, exclusive invites and samples of new products – all which can be produced on demand through POD. According to Shopify, as many as 84% of consumers say they’re more apt to stick with a brand that offers a loyalty program, and 66% of customers say the ability to earn rewards changes their spending behavior.

    Membership programs are especially effective when communications are coordinated with other marketing channels and linked to digital marketing efforts. Variable data printing gives you the ability to print QR codes that connect through smartphones to immersive WebAR and digital content exclusive experiences. Personalized multi-channel options provide emotional attachments, maps, promo codes, and personalized URLs that direct customers to content curated especially for them that generate better leads and higher conversion rates. According to Zipdo, 72% of consumers say they would prefer to connect with businesses and brands through a multichannel approach.

    Promotion-Based Print-on-Demand

    Promotional-based messaging remains a staple of direct mail marketing. Potential customers are far more likely to pay attention to a personalized message in your promotional mailings when it closely aligns with their interests and needs. Print-on-demand allows you to scale up marketing efforts and customize promotions in small batches to help you control inventory and more closely tailor your promotions to speak directly to your prospect. The results are higher engagement rates. increased brand awareness, and ultimately, more sales. According to McKinsey, companies that grow faster derive 40% of their revenue from personalization in comparison to their competitors.

    Variable data printing combined with the ease of print-on-demand provides customized products using automation via API’s or other marketing automation platforms like Marketing.com’s Dot™, SaaS through channel marketing platform, that streamlines the ordering, printing, and distribution of your direct mail campaigns. It negates the need to keep and manage marketing collateral inventory and helps you reduce both costs and waste through variable data options that are as easy to order as a single click.  According to a survey by Adobe, approximately 4 out of every 5 marketers see a positive ROI when they use personalization in their campaigns.

    Print-on-demand is not only for small batches, but useful anytime you want to get your promotion out the door quickly with personalized messaging that directly targets customers, loyalty program members, and prospects. Marketing.com can help you connect the dots to find ways to leverage your data and integrate print-on-demand and variable marketing solutions that increase conversion rates and generate revenue.

  • TikTok: It’s Time To Explore How TikTok is Changing Search Behavior For Gen Z

    TikTok: It’s Time To Explore How TikTok is Changing Search Behavior For Gen Z

    TikTok users are rapidly advancing the platform from what was once primarily a source of entertainment into a powerful way to shop, find restaurants, and gather information on products and services. According to a recent survey of more than 1,800 U.S. college students, 74% of the respondents attested to using TikTok for searches, with an astounding 51% choosing the platform over Google as a news source, to find products, view relevant content, and discover local businesses with maps.

    Marketers need to understand the impact that the evolution of TikTok into a search engine is having on how Gen Z shops. They are exploring new ways to incorporate user-generated content (UGC) and influencer content to attract followers and adapting their SEO and other promotion strategies to capitalize on its phenomenal growth and opportunities.

    TikTok had more than 1.5 billion users in 2023, a number expected to grow to 2 billion by the end of 2024, and is the 4th largest social media platform in the world in terms of monthly active users. While Google is still the unquestioned source for searches, the increasing reliance of younger audiences on TikTok, as well as other social media platforms like Instagram, YouTube, and SnapChat for discovery and information cannot be ignored. According to Google’s own data, nearly 40% of Gen Z prefer to make web searches via Instagram or TikTok instead of Google.

    Adopting and Adapting Strategies for TikTok for GenZ Search

    For many marketers, this will necessitate new or some tweaking to existing ways of distributing and sharing content and measuring success beyond recording impressions and engagements. With TikTok, creativity and community matter, and content is rewarded for its entertainment value as much as the information it provides. Like other social media, to get the best results marketers should coordinate organic with paid advertising. In TikTok’s case, the platform offers the ability for long-form story-telling with short, attention-grabbing content, and TikTok’s Duet feature allows creators to invite viewers to post alongside their own on a split screen. These features add to the effectiveness of brand influencers and empowers followers to create engaging, user-generated content that can take on a life of its own around your brand.

    Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategies must evolve to not only achieve high page rankings for TikTok posts on traditional SERPs, but also have results appear first on the user’s TikTok ‘For You Page’ or display prominently on the search screen. In terms of paid advertising, TikTok allows you to create ad campaigns and display them in a variety of ad types that include brand takeovers, in-feed ads, and hashtag challenges to accommodate any budget.

    Marketers will require a deep understanding of the how TikTok’s AI-driven algorithm delivers search results faster and personalized to the tastes and preferences of the user. Businesses that recognize the growing importance of TikTok as a search have a future that looks promising. A recent study found that nearly three-quarters of the Gen Z respondents purchased a product after seeing it on TikTok.

    Why Gen Z Prefers TikTok

    TikTok’s meteoric rise in importance both as a social media platform and a search engine to rival Google can be traced in part to the short-form video content created and shared on the platform that users find authentic, organic, and honest. The videos themselves don’t have to look perfect or require high production values to be effective and garner attention.

    The important factors are that TikTok posts grab attention quickly and be entertaining. Research has found that the Gen Z attention span is only 8 seconds, which places an emphasis on getting to the point quickly and relying on visuals and a compelling story to keep the user engaged.

    TikTok appeals to younger audiences for the following reasons:

    • Visual Sharing – TikTok users don’t want to read pages of web copy. First of all, it’s difficult to comprehend on small smart phones screens, and secondly, they don’t want to take the time to scroll through search results and descriptions on a page. Instead, in a matter of moments, the Gen Zer decides whether to view the video content on the screen or swipe to watch the next video that has been pushed to them by TikTok’s algorithms.
    • Short and to the Point – Gen Z and young audiences have grown up consuming information via video on screens and getting that information fast. TikTok delivers search responses quickly. A viewer can absorb complete stories, watch recipes get made, or watch product reviews in less than a minute in many cases. It’s also possible to add compelling captions to posts to produce call-to-actions in short, understandable bites of text.
    • Community Building – Young audiences go online and follow social media to find others who share their tastes, outlook on life, and interests. TikTok is the social media platform that encourages interaction, invites creative expression, and motivates users to create, as well as consume, information. The result is a vibrant place for people to visit and connect. In many ways TikTok is redefining what community means for Gen Z. According to McKinsey, 66% of Gen Z believes that communities are created by causes and interests, not economic backgrounds or educational levels.
    • Entertainment Matters – TikTok followers are part of a creative generation that shares stories visually with audio soundtracks enriching the experience. They want story-telling and content that feels fresh and new. In fact, according to TikTok, 62% of their users say that the best way for brands to connect with them is through organic content created in collaboration with another brand on TikTok or a TikTok creator. 

    How Does TikTok Work

    TikTok has done a good job protecting exactly how their unique and powerful AI-driven algorithm works, but they have shared the dynamics that go into delivering fast and personalized content through searches performed on the platform. They are:

    1. User Interaction – TikTok’s algorithm learns from viewing history, comments, likes, and shares, as well as videos that have been saved or marked as ‘not interested’. The platform uses this data to predict with uncanny accuracy what videos to load onto the viewing screen.
    2. Video Information – TikTok looks at the captions, hashtags, and audio in videos that include relevant keywords in titles, descriptions and calls-to-action. The algorithm determines whether the video is relevant or covers trending topics.
    3. Devices and account settings – TikTok also curates videos according to settings like language preference, location, type of device, and the categories selected when setting up the TikTok account. Of the three, TikTok places a lower importance on these conditions.

    How Marketers Can Seize on TikTok as a Search Engine

    Businesses can capitalize on the emergence of TikTok as a preferred search engine with search strategies that integrate organic, paid, and influencer content and promotions.

    Organic TikTok Search

    TikTok does not take the numbers of followers into consideration with its SEO ranking algorithm. This means every brand stands an equal chance of landing a video in a ‘For You Page’ as any other. This places a premium on the content created, and an understanding of the best TikTok SEO strategies to get results in order to become the next big viral success story.

    Fortunately, creating a strategy to get noticed on TikTok does not involve re-inventing the wheel. TikTok organic search strategies involve most of the same elements deployed in traditional SEO practices insofar as finding keywords that audiences use in searches and embedding them into the content. In TikTok’s case this means both with text and speech. In terms of content creation, like Google, TikTok finds and promotes posts that establish authority, have fresh and unique content, and provide expertise. And as is always the case with any marketing channel, a clear understanding of the user greatly improves the odds for success and the ability of TikTok to push the content shown in the For You Page.

    According to a recent survey by Adobe, on average, business owners allocated 15% of their marketing budget for TikTok content creation for 2024. The most searched-for content types include:

    • Product or service reviews – A study by The Female Quotient on the shopping habits of Gen Z found that for that age group searching for and discovering new products is more important than brand loyalty.
    • Video tutorials – Gen Z prefers to learn how to cook watching videos of recipes being created rather than reading recipes and they find inspiration to tackle arts and craft and DIY projects by viewing TikTok posts.
    • Personal Anecdotes – Many TikTok users welcome authenticity and TikTok inspires users and creators to share experiences through rich story telling delivered in short, impactful posts. According to Nielsen, 88% of TikTok users find content on TikTok to be unique and different than other platforms.
    • Challenges, Trends, and Memes – TikTok users want to be part of the latest craze and creators are always coming up with new video challenges to promote causes, attract brand awareness, and generate engaging user-generated content. TikTok is also used to follow and keep track of the latest trends in fashion, shopping, or music.

    Paid TikTok Search

    TikTok also has paid advertising options. Costs vary, but businesses can integrate affordable paid ads into the TikTok marketing to capture interest. The five most common include:

    • In-Feed Ads
      In-Feed ads on TikTok have the look of organically created content and appear as just another video as a user scrolls through their For You Page. These posts, optimally between 20 and 35 seconds, let viewers like and share the content, and the ad includes a call-to-action that leads to customized landing pages.
    • TopView Ads
      Top View ads are the first thing a user sees when opening TikTok and the ad appears for 3 seconds before showing clickable video posts that can last up to 60 seconds and are shown before any other content on the platform. According to TikTok, 71% of users agree that TopView ads are effective for grabbing attention.
    • Brand Takeover Ads
      Brand Takeover ads appear immediately when users open the platform as a full-screen ad that converts into an In-Feed ad. These ads offer exclusivity in their advertising category and, for an entire day, TikTok will prevent other ads in the category to be seen. These are great for product launches, but are TikTok’s most expensive ads.
    • Spark Ads
      The only difference between Spark Ads and In-Feed Ads is that rather than create their own content, marketers repurpose successful user-generated content developed by influencers and talented creators. Spark Ad campaigns are easy to launch and have been shown to be extremely effective, generating a 43% higher conversion rate than normal In-Feed Ads.
    • Hashtag Ads
      These ads are used to encourage users to create their own content around a specific challenge. They feature a hashtag and are integrated alongside In-Feed or TopView ads. This ad format can result in a lot of user-generated content that will get shared and can be repurposed in Spark ads.

    Influencer-Driven Search

    Influencers have played a large role in making TikTok so successful and, as the platform continues to grow, they are gaining even greater importance. Social media has always benefited from the contributions of influencers, but their impact is more profound on TikTok. It’s vital for businesses to find the right influencer to promote their brand. According to the Small Business Blog, TikTok micro-influencers have an engagement rate of 18% as opposed to Instagram’s micro-influencer engagement rate of 3.86%.

    TikTok influencers can be categorized by the number of followers they have. The six most common influencer types are:

    • Nano Influencers – Typically have between 5,000 to 50,000 followers. While they may not have a large following, they can be useful reaching niche audiences
    • Micro Influencers – The most common type of influencer found on TikTok, they can have between 50,000 to 150,000 followers. Ideal for small businesses with tight budgets.
    • Mid-Tier Influencers – The next step up, with between 150,000 and 750,000 followers, this group of influencers usually has a devoted admirers based on shared hobbies, interests, and life styles.
    • Macro Influencers – This group tends to cover more diverse topics and may be seen as trendsetters by their 750,000 to 2,500,000 followers. They offer greater exposure, but to be truly effective campaigns should have an organic association with products and services that match with the influencer’s brand.
    • Mega and Celebrity Influencers – With the possibility of reaching 2,500,00 or more followers of these influencers, partnering with this group will definitely draw a lot of attention to a brand and help a post go viral overnight.

    TikTok influencers can also be categorized based by the target niche of their expertise and fame. These include gamers, sports and fitness experts, bloggers, photographers, travel guides, and beauty and fashion gurus. Regardless of the size of their following or area of knowledge, marketers can capitalize on the high esteem by which influencers are held on TikTok. A recent study found that 61% of Gen Z trust influencers and brands more than family or friends for recommendations.

    TikTok’s growing influence as a search engine for Gen Z marks a momentous change in the way marketers sell products and services on social media. It reflects the emphasis this age group places on short, entertaining video as their preferred means of gathering information, staying on top of trends, and forming communities. Marketing.com can help you connect the dots to find ways to harness the importance younger shoppers are placing on TikTok and take advantage of the opportunities it offers.