With the emergence of new technology over recent years, the digital world has become a staple in today’s society. More specifically, social media has gained an immense influence in how individuals engage with the general public and themselves.  The attraction social media presents to users encompasses user-friendly platforms that are relatively inexpensive and allow for the possibility of engaging with countless individuals due to its vast reach of mass audiences. Most social media platforms allow users to create and share various forms of media content including text, photo, and video.¹

As a result of it’s widespread use and direct engagement with target audiences social media has become a new channel for businesses to market their goods and services.² Brands can now target specific audiences based on data collected through the online behavior of users allowing them access to those users preferences and online activity.³ Considering these factors, it’s no surprise that social media marketing has taken over the advertising world, in some instances is more effective than traditional advertising.⁴

 One of the fastest growing social media platforms today is the media app TikTok. In the time since it’s release in 2017, TikTok has grown to over 1 billion active monthly users.⁵ Consequently, the media platform has become a new marketing channel for brands to advertise and interact with consumers while receiving real-time feedback. In addition, TikTok has also created it’s own advertising platform, “TikTok for Business”, that businesses can partner with and get access to all the features needed to launch effective ads, drive sales and measure performance.

The three main marketing techniques used on TikTok are collaborating with an advertising agency or TikTok for Business, collaborating with influencers or celebrities, and self publishing content.⁶Exploring and understanding brand curated advertisements, and influencer-generated content is fascinating. Techniques differ between the two in the sense that a brand curated advertisement is content created by an agency, or in this case, brands who partner with TikTok for Business, while influencer-generated content is content created by influencers that attracts viewers and matches the identity and branding that is created to fulfill the purpose of content creation such as for promotion, learning, entertainment, or providing information. This is possible because influencers have used personal content to grow a mass following to a level that is of interest to marketers.⁷ Walmart and Kroger, two nationally recognized brands take different advertising approaches and understanding this can make it easier to understand these concepts.  Walmart, utilizes TikTok for business and has been much slower to partner with influencers while Kroger has collaborated with influencers to create content.

Walmart on TikTok

Since the opening of its first store in 1962, the grocery retail chain, Walmart, has grown to operating over 10,500 stores in 19 countries and eCommerce websites. The question is, why would a brand with such a massive consumer base need to market on a social media platform such as TikTok? Walmart has continuously lived up to its company mission, branding themselves with their slogan “Save money, live better’. Although simple, the slogan represents Walmart’s mission and values as a business. However, with the constant change of the advertising world, the retail chain realized the way to reach new customers and engage with them has changed. This in turn means the way businesses should strategize media campaigns and where they employ them also has to change. This led to Walmart’s collaboration with TikTok for Business in hopes of driving consumer engagement by fostering discovery and shared experiences. With this collaboration Walmart began to use TikTok’s advertising tools such as in-feed ads, top view ads, and brand mission ads. All three of these tools offer different approaches to users but have the similar goals of maximizing user engagement and brand perception. The first tool, in-feed ads appear algorithmically in users “For You” pages as they scroll, the second tool, top-view ads appear as the first video users see when they open the app, and lastly brand mission ads allow for co-collaboration with content creators that choose to participate in the said challenge.

Initially, Walmart began by utilizing in-feed ads and discovered that by tapping into TikTok’s feed and producing native content alongside their brand equity there was a new opportunity for consumer interaction and user engagement. With it’s initial testing the results proved true, engagement rates were 2x higher and there was a 3.5x increase in profit. Still, Walmart was nowhere near done experimenting with TikTok’s marketing opportunities. In 2022, Walmart launched it’s branded mission TikTok campaign #IYWYK ( If you Walmart, you know) building off a broader TikTok trend #IYKYK ( If you know, you know) with the goal of engaging, entertaining, and educating users about their products while building brand equity. The idea was that users would share how Walmart provides a better life within reach with it’s affordable products and lifestyle.

The campaign was released with TikTok’s top view ad tool, further prompting for the campaign to strategically appear as the first video users saw when opening the app maximizing both audience reach and awareness of the campaign. The branded mission campaign allowed the company to crowdsource creative, on-brand content from TikTok’s community of creators, in total gaining over 700 engaging creator-produced videos. The results were staggering, the campaign received a 20% engagement rate with 30 million impressions and 2 million clicks to the challenge page. Since the success of this campaign, Walmart has continued to utilize TikTok’s advertising tools and carried out multiple branded mission campaigns since.⁸

Kroger On TikTok

Being another of the world’s largest retailers, the Kroger Co. has grown from one store in downtown Cincinnati, Ohio to nearly 2,800 stores in 35 states with yearly sales of more than $132.5 billion. The grocery company has held steadfast in its values since day one- serving customers with the freshest food with the lowest prices while keeping up with the most innovative practices. Similar to Walmart, Kroger recognized that digital marketing is becoming one of the most effective marketing techniques and a direct way to reach younger audiences. Realizing the potential reach of the app, Kroger chose to target Gen Z on TikTok because at the time there weren’t many brands on the platform yet, leaving them the opportunity to take advantage of the full resources TikTok had to offer.

Contrary to Walmart, Kroger decided to pursue using TikTok’s Creator Marketplace, a platform for brands interested in partnering with influencers on the app. The Creator Marketplace allows brands access to millions of creators all over the world, including insights into the data of any creator a brand had interest in partnering with.  If utilized, the Creator Marketplace allows brands to invite creators to collaborate with them on a specific campaign to promote their brand so these campaigns can either be paid or reward-based sponsorship. Kroger quickly recognized the benefits that creators held by providing a familiarity and former relationship with audiences already. If these creators displayed trust by partnering with Kroger and sharing their products online consequently their audience would be more likely to do the same.

With this platform tool, Kroger became the first ever brand to globally run the Hashtag Challenge Plus campaign on TikTok, called #TransformUrDorm. When first introduced the Hashtag Challenge Plus was a new e-commerce feature that allowed users to shop for products in app that were associated with the sponsored hashtag. This made it that much easier for users to shop for products and therefore provided Kroger with the perfect opportunity.

 To kick off the campaign Kroger partnered with four creators who were current college students or who were attending college for the first time. This partnership developed more authenticity for the videos coming from students instead of a brand, and provided a more trustworthy feel for users. The goal of the campaign was to get creators to share their favorite Kroger products they used to transform their dorm ranging from snacks to organizational supplies and school supplies.   Overall, the campaign received over 400 million views and a 16% engagement rate and since then Kroger has continued to partner with influencers even having their own group of designated content creators called “Kroger’s Fresh Squad”.⁹

Although there was no significant difference in the success of both brand-curated ads and user generated content it’s important to highlight how effective both were in engaging users and presenting brands in a new, fun light. There is no denying that by adding personalization and becoming familiar with ongoing trends and new platforms brands can develop relationships with audiences in an entirely new way. All things considered, there’s no doubt that social media marketing will continue to rise in popularity as the technological landscape continues to develop and progress. However, as TikTok is currently being met by some governmental controversy due to the Chinese ownership it’s continued use is under question but will not have an effect on the growing use of social media marketing. Even if TikTok is banned, there are multiple social media platforms that provide the same reach and advertising tools. By becoming familiar with these platforms and their benefits brands now have the ability to personalize their businesses with audiences like never before. By harnessing social media’s benefits such as data insights, advertising tools and platforms, and content creators brands have the opportunity to continuously grow their presence online and consequently in store.