Brands know they should be on TikTok. However, what they often overlook is how much goes into making that presence meaningful. There’s a difference between posting videos and actually executing campaigns that move the needle. Unfortunately, too many companies find themselves stuck in the middle, unable to transform good intentions into impactful digital strategies.
Giving TikTok strategy to professionals is more than relieving internal teams of their responsibilities. It’s about plugging into systems, know-how and partnerships that many brands don’t have the time or resources to foster on their own. So here’s what really happens when you give over your TikTok strategy to the pros.
The First Step Is Not What You Think
When a brand partners with professionals to take over their TikTok strategy, the first step isn’t picking creators or coming up with exciting ideas. It’s an audit. The professionals look at everything the brand has done on TikTok (or failed to do), their competitors and dissect the current industry niche.
This means unfortunate realities may come to light. Maybe the brand’s content doesn’t translate well to the TikTok format. Maybe their target demo isn’t even on the platform in the way they’ve always believed. Maybe they’ve been barking up the wrong creator tree for too long.
An audit also allows professionals to see what’s working in like spaces, meaning which trends are over-saturated, which content concepts are receiving authentic interest vs fake views as they’re compiled into research for the next step. Professionals aren’t looking for an excuse to do what everyone else is doing; they’re simply trying to map out the landscape before attempting to navigate.
Creator Discovery Is More Than Just Finding Those with Many Followers
This is where it gets down to the nitty gritty. Pros won’t just look on TikTok for well-known accounts on their own. When working with a tiktok influencer marketing agency, pros have access to platforms that compile creator data in ways most companies cannot.
Meaning, they pull metrics, engagement rates across varying content types, audience demographics beyond just the surface level stats, performance history and even predictive analytics about which creators are on the rise. But it’s not just data that counts; it’s the interpretation.
A creator with 500,000 followers but an abysmally low engagement rate and an audience skewed detrimentally will seem appealing upon first glance, but a professional will quickly spot the Achilles heel of this creator. Conversely, a creator with 80,000 followers with a highly engaged audience that’s perfectly aligned with the brand’s target demo will stand out much better in comparison thanks to professional scanning.
They’re also checking metrics that most brands wouldn’t think about, for example, whether a creator’s content style aligns with their values, whether they’ve ever been involved in controversies, whether they work with competing brands or how often they post sponsored vs organic content. This all matters when it comes time for campaigns.
The Vetting Process Is Serious
Once creators who might be a good fit are selected, now it’s time for the vetting process. This isn’t a scroll-through-and-go process. Teams are watching full months of content for consistency, creativity and responsiveness in sponsored posts.
They’re reading comment sections for audience sentiment and gauging how prior sponsored posts performed vs organic views. They’re validating follower counts and engagement as it’s probable that real followers are mixed in with bot accounts, even engagement pods are a serious issue on TikTok these days.
Professionals know the signs. They also do background checks of sorts – cross-platform social media history reviews. This is to avoid any negative circumstances coming to fruition that could embarrass the brand later on down the road. This takes time and resources many internal groups may not have.
The Campaign Structure Happens from Scratch
With vetted creators in play, now it’s time to structure the actual campaign – and this separates strategy from throwing shit on the wall and seeing what sticks. Professionals create content calendars mapped out with timing based on TikTok trends, seasons and overarching branding campaigns set for other platforms.
They’re not just thinking about one video at a time. They’re thinking about content series, hashtags and potential momentum over time. The timeliness factors in play alongside the content types and creator promotion aspects among one another all matter.
Briefs will be created giving creators just enough direction to stay on brand but not so strict that authenticity is eliminated, the type of authenticity that makes these creators successful in the first place. It’s a fine line that’s been walked many times before; the pros know where it lives.
The Management Aspect is a Full-Time Job
Once campaigns kick off, professionals become the management team for constant communication, content approval, deliverables tracking and troubleshooting – and trust me, things need troubleshooting all of the time.
A creator can have a change of post date, content may require more revisions than anticipated (instead of nailing it on round one), quality may be lost due to some technical issues (read: some TikToks move faster than others), or personally a creator may need additional time for production because of something else occurring in life. All of this requires swift responses.
But professionals don’t stop there, it’s not just about making sure videos go live. They need to monitor what’s performing well and what’s falling flat, data can drive rapid pivots, whether it means putting more money into something that’s going above expectations or figuring out why something’s falling below them.
The Analysis Is More Than Views
At the end of a campaign (or during it, if it’s an ongoing relationship), professionals reveal what’s worked through analysis that’s more than just views. They look at engagement rates, click-throughs, conversion data when traffic leaves TikTok to the brand’s site or landing page.
They compare performance across creators, content types and presentation styles to determine what worked best when and why, and this feeds future strategy components:
Which creator drove the most valuable traffic?
Which content type had better engagement?
What time of day worked best?
All these metrics matter beyond what’s appreciated across other social media platforms.
In addition, it’s important for brands to understand what they’ve gotten for their budget investment which requires reporting from professionals who know how to connect TikTok efforts to business analytics that go beyond just social media aesthetics boasting what looks sexy on spreadsheets but ultimately don’t matter.
What You Get Beyond Just Appreciation
The most valuable part of giving it all away to professionals isn’t just better campaigns (though that’s part of it). It’s about saving time and mental space by divesting responsibility, effectively executing TikTok campaigns requires constant attention from those with established platform knowledge and creator relationships accumulated over time.
Most companies can’t spare seasoned marketing staff from working with other clients to give their all to this option, and junior staff don’t have enough knowledge or experience yet. Therefore, giving it over saves valuable time that professionals already have acquired themselves.
They also already have valued relationships in place meaning negotiating times are smaller with better rates up front, frustrations exist when creator outsiders keep blowing up a professionals team but without institutional knowledge in place, it’s unavoidable until someone gets frustrated enough.
Finally, TikTok is fast, and things that work today may not work tomorrow or even later today; algorithms change constantly; so, do trending storytelling formats and audience interest shifts.
When brands give their TikTok strategy over to professionals they’re investing in expertise that would take years to develop internally, and realistically, for most companies, that’s an implausible idea, making giving it over not just valuable but easier and far more worthwhile no matter how grand the budget investment seems in lieu of initial implementation practices all by themselves.
