TikTok continues to push the ball forward for SMB marketing. Seeing the long-tail SMB segment as an opportune addressable market for its young and developing business model, it has launched several tools to ease them into viral marketing on the platform. And several early-adopter SMBs are biting.
The latest addition to TikTok’s SMB marketing mix is sound. Specifically, its new Sounds for Business program is a library of audio files that are available to SMBs to ease the process of content creation. This includes a mix of ambient music, sound effects, and voiceovers to add dimension to SMBs’ TikToks.
“This collection of custom sounds is designed as templates for easy content creation,” TikTok wrote in a blog post today. “With a mix of music, voiceover, and other directional sound cues, the sounds are made to help businesses of all sizes create quick, engaging, and creative content for the TikTok community.”
Sounding Off
Stepping back, all of this builds from the fact that sound is a key attribute in the creative standards that have developed on TikTok. That especially goes for the platform’s use as a marketing vehicle: TikTok reports that videos with soundtracks and audio effects boost memorability and user interest 62 percent.
This can be seen from adoptive SMBs that have utilized audio in advance of today’s announcement. For example, A food truck owner used voiceover in her video to spotlight and lean into a food trend. And another set of entrepreneurs used the “Small Biz Glow Up” soundtrack to showcase their growth.
To make this all happen and populate the new sound library, TikTok partnered with Universal Production Music subsidiary Elias audio branding. This alone lowers a production barrier for SMBs in that the sounds are cleared for use, without the need to jump through any legal hoops to license the content.
Speak the Language
That last part is critical, as the name of the game in SMB marketing is to lower barriers. But even that only gets you so far. As shown at past Localogy conferences, TikTok marketing requires a certain degree of production drive and creativity… attributes that run deeper in the DNA of some SMBs than others.
Beyond creative drive, there are also success factors for SMB marketing on TikTok. For example, content that is raw, genuine and even sarcastic – versus overly produced and contrived – resonates most. These factors are both endemic to gen-z audiences in general, and pronounced in the culture of TikTok.
This means, like several other mobile media that have bubbled up as SMB marketing vehicles, native thinking wins. Put another way, porting over an existing TV ad or YouTube video won’t work on TikTok. It’s all about learning to speak the language of TikTok. Now SMBs can do so with more sound effects.
@thehomeboyspodcast Talk about a business glow up ✨ #tiktokbiz #beforeandafter #realestate
