May 19, 2022
3 minutes
Inspiration comes from everywhere and for those working in digital marketing the possibilities are endless. Social media continues to inspire trending topics and with everything from dalgona coffee, hair slugging and the “that girl” trend, TikTok is a gold mine.
Reactive PR is an essential tactic for your digital PR strategy. By monitoring the news and emerging trends, you can put yourself at the heart of key topics while securing high quality coverage. Speed is of the essence for a strong reactive campaign and it pays to be the first to spot a trend on the rise. Being able to spot these trends first on TikTok is an invaluable tool for reactive PR campaigns and something all digital PR’s should consider doing.
Why you should be using TikTok for reactive campaigns
Identifying and jumping on TikTok trends is the perfect way to put yourself at the heart of trends as they’re unfolding. Whatever your industry, there’s a TikTok community for that. Whether you’re busting myths, adding expert insight or backing up a trend, TikTok is the way to go!
Where to get started
Start off by creating a specific account to monitor trends in your vertical and tailor your ‘For You Page’ accordingly. By watching and engaging only with the content that’s relevant to your industry, TikTok’s clever algorithm will soon figure out where your interests lie and start serving you the latest trends and updates in that space.
If you’re a health and wellbeing brand for example, then start by looking at relevant hashtags like #gymtok or #skintok for inspiration and build out from there. Engage with some of the most popular creators in the space and signal to TikTok that you’re interested in similar content.
Monitor engagement
Look out for recurring videos or trending sounds on TikTok and delve deeper into what’s behind them. From here, take a look at key engagement stats such as likes and views to see what’s about to take off. Hashtags are also a great way to explore more specific areas of interest or trends.
When the HelloFresh team spotted that custard toast was racking up views, we knew that we were on to a winner. We decided to create a reactive campaign around the trend that helped us to land links in the likes of Hypebae and Cosmopolitan!
Add your spin on it
Once you’ve spotted a relevant trend, really drill down into it and see how you can comment or add value for journalists who may be interested in covering the story.
If you’re an expert in the area look at some of the claims and break down the truth behind them. If something doesn’t add up, bust those myths! Or, if you think there’s real value in what’s being shared, break it down and add an expert comment on why it’s so popular.
The most important part of using TikTok trends in your campaign is to provide useful insight to readers that goes beyond the videos themselves.
We worked with CBD and supplement brand fourfive to break down TikTok’s latest trending workout, the stairmaster, to see if the workout was really as good as gym-loving TikTok users were claiming it to be.
Don’t just stop at providing quotes though. You can back up your campaign further with data that supports your chosen trend.
Have search queries increased around the topic?
What are you seeing through your own internal data and user behaviour?
Backing up social media trends with additional data will only help to strengthen your campaign and help land those links.
But don’t forget that reactive TikTok campaigns require a quick turnaround. The app finds a new trend weekly, even daily, so you want to make sure your campaign is out before it becomes old news.
To find out more about NORTH and our digital PR services, get in touch with us today. We’d love to hear from you!