Douyin, the original version of TikTok, was launched in 2016 by ByteDance in China. With more than 600 million active users, Douyin is the most successful app yet and is expected to grow further. The platform was initially used for making 15-second lip-syncing videos to bring out one’s creative side. Today, it’s used by premium brands to reach affluent Chinese consumers – the demographic that uses Douyin. Luxury brands such as Prada, Tiffany & Co., Gucci, and Michael Kors have already been very successful in using Douyin as part of their marketing strategy.
Douyin marketing is an exciting opportunity for brands to expand their reach and leverage visibility in the world’s largest market. In fact, Douyin launched its first online store in March 2021 that offers brand and product recommendations.
Who Are Douyin Users?
The primary users of Douyin are young. Predominantly female with high incomes and academic backgrounds, about 85% of Douyin users belong to major cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Tian jin. This is what essentially makes Douyin an excellent marketing platform for businesses whose target audience are affluent consumers with high spending power.
Why Do Brands Need Douyin Marketing?
Social media is the most rewarding way to engage with a market base – for both existing and potential customers. Douyin offers an avenue to premium brands whose brand personas do not match with the casual content nor the consumer audience on short-video apps like TikTok. Douyin has been a game-changer in this respect.
So let’s delve into how brands can leverage Douyin marketing and why they need to.
1. Impressive consumer base
The majority of Douyin users are between the ages of 24 to 45, come from well-educated backgrounds, and are curious and well-informed. They are open to international brands and worthy products without hesitating over price. This is why premium and luxury clothing, makeup and accessory brands like Gucci, Estee Lauder, and Michael Koers have included Douyin marketing in their brand strategies.
2. Leverage viral advertising
With its highly engaging and entertaining user-generated video content, Douyin can make any brand go viral. Douyin marketing helps brands increase their web traffic, consumer engagement, and brand awareness. To this effect, Douyin has embarked on a marketing roadmap for business advertising in the pipeline. Several certified digital agencies are already collaborating with companies for advertising campaigns on the platform.
3. Douyin e-commerce
Douyin introduced Douyin Pay in January 2021 to compete with other giants like WeChat Pay and Alipay. With its new e-commerce policies, brands have to use Douyin’s own digital marketing matching service to determine key opinion leaders (KOLs).
4. Affluent Chinese population
About 5.3 million millionaires reside in China. Brands want to take advantage of this population with growing spending income and therefore are developing marketing strategies around Douyin to leverage exposure. Michael Kors, Gucci, Pizza Hut – just to name a few.
5. Douyin’s openness to new brands
Douyin consumers are open to exploring new brands and purchasing from them. They welcome product ad placements in videos for new brands. Douyin also offers various marketing campaigns such as hashtag challenges, ad banners, and many more to this end. With this openness to new brands, businesses can leverage sentiment analysis and find the exact consumer demography they need to reach for product promotion and better sales conversions.
Types Of Douyin Ad Campaigns That Brands Can Look Forward To
The success of any marketing campaign depends on the type of campaign that you choose for your target audience for a particular platform. The same goes for Douyin. Below are ad campaign types that you can choose from based on your strategy.
Open screen advertising
Open-screen ads appear whenever the app is opened. These ads can be static or video. Static ads are displayed for 3 seconds, and video ads are displayed between 4-5 secs (full screen or split-screen). The advantage of using this campaign-type is a solid visual impact and lack of interference. There is also no limit to the number of times the ad can be displayed since they are charged by Cost Per Mille (CPM)/ Cost Per Thousand (CPT) impressions.
Feed video advertising
These ads are seamlessly integrated into the Douyin feed for promotions. They are 5-60 second short video ads that have no interference and can be displayed in a full-screen format like open-screen ads. This gives them a great visual experience for vertical mobile screens. Feed ads allow users to share ads within their network so it helps in spreading brand awareness across multiple platforms.
Music advertising
This advertising is entirely new among platforms and is trending. You can add your brand’s copyright music in the Douyin music library. Users can create content using that music and promote it. Since the music has copyright, no other brand or company can claim it. However, Douyin does not support third-party monitoring, so the final call to upload your music to their library is based on Douyin’s advertisement protocol.
KOL advertising
Key opinion leaders (KOLs) are Chinese influences who work towards creating content for brand promotion on Douyin. KOLs can create a video to promote a product or invite users to participate in different hashtag challenges.
How Social Media Sentiment Analysis Solutions Help Compete With Your Competitors in Douyin Marketing
1. Trend sentiment mining
When sentiment mining and social media insights are combined, it works wonders for marketing and sales forecasting. From understanding the latest consumer trends to connecting with the people, sentiment analysis in Douyin marketing can help you analyze emerging marketing patterns and what your consumers are looking for while keeping you abreast of your competitors.
2. Accurate Chinese data insights
It is vital for brands to get the most accurate Chinese language insights to develop their Douyin marketing strategy. With a sentiment analysis platform that provides native language comprehension, coupled with a robust named entity recognition (NER) capability, brands can explore new market opportunities seamlessly
3. Find the right KOLs for your brand
Sentiment analysis and video AI can help identify the right key opinion leaders on Douyin for your brand. From finding authentic influencers through social media profile analytics to finding out their allegiances to various causes and associations, AI-driven algorithms help boost your brand awareness while keeping you safe from cancel-culture.
4. Know your customers
The first step to building a good branding strategy is to understand your audience in a more defined way wherein you know what they expect from your brand. With social media sentiment analysis, you get a thorough understanding of your followers’ purchase habits, likes, dislikes, and preferences. This way, you can market your brand better.
5. Video analysis for logo & brand identification
Video content analytics in social media sentiment analysis plays a crucial part in identifying logos and brands in video content. This helps you assess brand mentions and respond in a timely manner. You can know whether your logo is used according to brand guidelines and with your permission, and how other brands are being used in conjunction with yours. This allows you to monitor brand associations, and you also get details about your target audience so that you can invest in influencer programs, discounts, and loyalty programs that benefit you.
Conclusion
Douyin is the platform with the most extensive user base of affluent consumers in China. Brands that want to expand beyond their current market base and reach out to this untapped consumer share with high spending power need to include Douyin in their brand strategy. Coupled with AI-driven machine learning algorithms that can generate insights into what exactly can drive up sales and brand awareness, Douyin can be a true harbinger for a more impressive return on investment for businesses.
