🏆 Community Question: TikTok Challenges

Adapting our fairly traditional brand voice to a more casual setting is a big challenge, plus our review/approval process is too cumbersome.

So many challenges, so little time! I am a one-person social team, and I oversee both organic and paid content. What’s more, I’m working at an international law firm. While I have quite a bit of autonomy, I admittedly am not convinced of how our firm’s voice would fit on the platform -- let alone how I would keep up with content creation.

All that said, it pains me to not be on TikTok, because it is an incredible platform that has so much to offer for both creators and consumers.

TikTok is definitely a more time-consuming/intensive platform. So it requires a lot more prep and creation work than X/Twitter might

Our social media team does not currently have the time required to create and publish video-heavy content. We also face scheduling software limitations. We find it effective, so far, to remain on Meta and publish occasional Reels for clients using trending audio. To keep on pace with TikTok, its strategies and post frequency, is also time-consuming. Not to mention, our paid team would need to devote additional time to master this platform.

Unfortunately, in my industry, early childhood care and education (ages 6wks to 12 years old), our customers will either be our biggest supporters or our biggest “haters.” Because we have many locations who offer different quality of care, it is hard to post content that can all our customers can relate to since the care we provide can vary so much from location to location. Overall, we try to keep the content as universal as possible, but acknowledge the one-off events that a specific will host just in case a perspective customer who wants to attend a particular center wants to see content about that center (so basically keeping the content varied).

I think the biggest challenge for us is that I’m afraid of certain trends because we are a municipal government agency. While our brand is promoting events and hospitality and we do already create humorous videos, I sometimes fear trying to join in on trends. Certain trends are tied to songs that would not be deemed appropriate, but I love the trend itself. So I have been trying to come up with a way to still engage in a trend without following certain aspects that could be flagged as inappropriate for a government agency to post. 

Definitely echo the subject of trending audio and copyright limitations but from an agency perspective, not having a “face” for a brand means we have to get more creative when creating content for a brand that feels authentic, meets brand guidelines and is engaging. 

Creating a consistent rotating content calendar. We have audiences from every demographic, so it some times feels like we are leaving certain people out to appeal to another group. And having content when you aren’t based in the location you are promoting is hard to stay consistent.

Getting video content is a big hurdle for us and the fact that we have 12k followers but our videos are getting 200 views, so we don’t think we are getting on our follower’s feeds either. 

I work for a brand that has been around for over 120 years, and our marketing approach focuses on legacy, heritage, and authenticity. Due to the nature of our products (cutlery/pocket knives), we’re severely limited on paid promotion and rely almost entirely on organic.

Creating and posting content that abides by the community guidelines, fits our traditional voice, and appeals to younger audiences (18-35) has been an interesting challenge. 🤔

@alyssar One thing we found super helpful was creating “how-tos” for video and tapping in folks from around the organization. Have you thought of a similar approach? That way you don’t need to be on camera always!

Leveraging how to respond to potential comments without using TikTok as another customer service line!