A guide to finding and working with TikTok Creators & influencers

TikTok. Whilst no longer the new kid on the block, it is still the social media platform that continues to surprise marketers – especially when it comes to its influence on consumers.

TikTok will soon top the table for the total daily minutes users spend scrolling, searching and engaging. There are over 1.3 billion users — and 80% of these users brand themselves as TikTok Creators (or ‘influencers’, to use the non-TikTok official term).

So, if your influencer marketing strategy doesn’t include TikTok, it’s time that it did. In this guide, we’ll cover how to successfully collaborate with TikTok Creators, walking you through six easy steps.

Objectives when working with TikTok Creators

Like any campaign, the first place you should start is by outlining your objectives. How will your Creator partnerships support your strategy? What is their purpose? Whether you’re looking for long-term ambassadors or short-term collaborations, you should have a clear vision of where these individuals fit in.

• Awareness: Are you a new brand launching for the first time? Do you have a new product or service coming out? Is there a new audience segment you want to be in front of? Do you want to appear for certain hashtags or search queries in TikTok?

• Community building: Are you just launching onto TikTok and need to build your community? Do you want to reach a new audience? Do you want to drive more engagements on your content?

• Sales: Do you sell online and you want to drive more sales? Are you launching a new product? Do you want to tap into the potentially-lucrative world of TikTok Shop? Do you want to drive more customers to a physical location?

These objectives aren’t mutually exclusive, of course. But once you have a clearer idea where your Creators fit into your strategy, you can move onto defining who you want to collaborate with.

How to find TikTok Creators

When you first start thinking about working with Creators on TikTok, there may be individuals that spring to mind immediately – but that perfect fit usually takes a little research. Your customers, TikTok Search, the Creator Marketplace and Instagram are some fantastic ways to discover new Creators that align with your brand and objectives.

1. Your existing customers

The first place to start is by finding your customers. Is there anyone who is already creating content about your brand that you could collaborate with? Naturally, given they’re likely to have purchased your products, this is sure to be a truly authentic partnership.

Use TikTok Search and enter keywords relating to your brand or products and see who appears – not only will they already be affiliated with your brand, but they’re also appearing high in the rankings for those searches.

Just on a side note, are you happy with what you’re seeing when you enter your brand’s terms into TikTok Search? If not, check out our guide to TikTok SEO and improving your in-app search visibility!

If we were Lidl, then someone we would look to work with is @megsays, who posts weekly about the new Flavour of the Week, breaking down content into recipes, taste tests, upcoming weeks, packaging reviews.

2. TikTok Creator Marketplace

Exhausted your customer list? The next place to find Creators is through TikTok Creator Marketplace. You can use this platform as a tool to simply search for Creators and then contact them directly, or set up a campaign where you can shortlist, set a brief, review content, see insights and process payment.

3. Instagram

Another place to look to find Creators is Instagram. Many now have a presence on both platforms, but still have separate content strategies for both as their audiences engage with them in slightly different ways.

So, if you find an influencer on Instagram, check out their TikTok presence to see what they’re up to on that channel as well .

Take @emilycanham, for example. Her Instagram is focused on her lifestyle, with a luxurious vibe but on TikTok, one of the things she is well known for is her Ninja Creami recipe series. It started off as a paid partnership with Ninja, but additional, non-sponsored content soon followed.

What to look for in a TikTok Creator

With so many Creators out there, it can be hard to whittle it down or know if they are the right fit for your campaign.

Traditionally in influencer marketing, it was all about numbers. But we know quantity is not the be all and end all – ‘nano influencers’ can be just as powerful for helping you to cut through. Classified as creators with between 1,000 and 10,000 followers, these have the highest engagement rate – 11.97%. Not only are their followings more engaged, but theyy’re typically cheaper to work with, too.

To get started with curating your Creators, these are the questions you should be asking:

• What type of content do they create? Is it different to yours or is it the same? Are they using in-app features like replying to comments to create content?

• Who is engaging with them? Look at who is leaving comments, stitching their videos, are they the people you want to reach?

• How active are they? What else do they post about? Who else are they affiliated with?

• Are they creating content for TikTok SEO? Are they appearing for keywords that are important to your social strategy? What search phrases are they appearing for?

How to brief TikTok Creators

This is often where the relationship between Creators and brands can break down. Whilst it’s beneficial for both parties to have a clear understanding of content requirements, the creative output should sit with the Creator.

The Creator’s audience already have an admiration and an expectation of the content they produce, so if you try to have too much input into the direction, it will seem inauthentic and can have the adverse effect of working with a Creator.

So, if the content the Creator(s) you work with isn’t aligned with your brand identity or tone of voice, then that Creator isn’t for you.

There are, however, some key things you should include in your brief to Creators to ensure they have a clear understanding. This will minimise any amends and keep the working relationship smooth and symbiotic:

• A summary of the brand

• A summary of the campaign and what you’re setting out to achieve

• Who your target audience is

• What key messages to include

• Things you don’t want them to mention

• Any brand or campaign hashtags to use

• The call to action

• The timeline

TikTok Creators and payments

Building a good working relationship with Creators avoids souring relations and any potential brand damage. Clear payment terms sit at the heart of this.

Expectations are there to be met on both sides of the story, so you’ll want to be certain that from the moment you’re ending the brief, you’re also sharing how and when the Creator will be paid – as well as what’s included or excluded from this. Prompt, on-time payment shows respect to the Creator for their time and work.

How much should I pay a TikTok Creator?

This completely depends on the individual and your brief. If you’re requiring multiple videos across a long-period of time, you’d obviously expect to pay more than a single piece of content.

Or if you’re a luxury brand who wants to work with Creators who are loved for their high-quality content, you’d again expect to pay more than a brand who aligns closer to a Creator who is adored for their low-fi style.

How to pay a Creator will depend on your objectives and campaign structure. If you use TikTok’s Creator Marketplace to manage your campaign, you’ll pay them through there once you’ve confirmed completion.

If you’re working directly with a Creator outside of Marketplace, you’ll also make payments directly to them at an agreed point in the campaign. This may be in instalments, or a one-off sum.

Whilst most campaigns will be based on a flat fee, some brands will also follow the path of affiliate performance payments. What this means: Creators will earn commission based on sales of your product or services.

Measuring the performance of TikTok Creators

As with all your marketing activity, you should be tracking, monitoring and measuring your partnership results. Keep a close eye on what you set out to achieve. Examples of what to measure based on your objectives include:

• Awareness: Views, search queries, new followers, profile views.

• Community building: New followers, specific follower location growth, likes, comments, saves, shares, profile views

• Sales: Website sales, TikTok Shop sales, video CTR, TikTok product clicks, bookings, discount Code Usage

You can, of course, report on a whole range of metrics, but if you aimed to raise awareness and build a community, then looking at sales in your campaign period shouldn’t be a measure of the success of that Creator partnership.

Ready to triumph on TikTok?

Our award-winning team offers social media marketing consultancy, strategy and management. We have helped to turn around the TikTok fortunes of brands across many sectors – take a look at our work for Alcotraz and Inspired Health!

To talk through your TikTok ambitions, don’t hesitate to get in touch.