Despite TikTok’s increasing importance to marketers, the majority of brands are not getting it right, and their videos on the social media platform are under-performing.

According to new research, 84% of the video content released by brands on TikTok fails to generate strong positive emotions, capture attention, or enhance brand recall.

The mini-study conducted by DAIVID, which aids advertisers in assessing and enhancing the impact of their content on a large scale, also found that 24% of TikTok videos were triggering strong negative emotions, potentially damaging to brand reputations.

Their study evaluates the effectiveness of video content being shared on the social platform using a variety of metrics, including the positive and negative emotions elicited by each video, the attention they generated, and the impact the content had on various brand metrics, such as brand recall.

The study’s findings include:

• Only 16% of the branded TikTok videos scored higher than the average Creative Effectiveness Score (CES) of 5.8 out of 10 – a composite metric created by DAIVID that combines the three main drivers of effectiveness: attention, emotions, and memory.
• 60% of branded TikTok videos were simply forgettable, with below-average positive emotional responses and below-average brand recall. They also ranked above the global average for causing confusion and boredom.
• 24% of branded TikTok videos triggered strong, extreme, negative emotions like anxiety, fear, discomfort, disgust, and shame.
• Overall, branded TikTok content was 9% less likely to generate intense positive emotions than the global average and attracted 2.5% less attention.

In a press release, Ian Forrester, the CEO and founder of DAIVID, said:

“This research reveals that the vast majority of content being released on TikTok simply isn’t up to scratch. Sixty per cent of the creative is simply forgettable, under-indexing for positive emotions and over-indexing for negative emotions such as confusion and boredom. In one ear and out of the other for the viewer.”

He added:

“Yet, even more concerning for brands are the 24% of videos that evoked intense, extreme, negative emotions such as disgust, anxiety and shame. If these emotions are attached to the brand, they’re likely to do the brand damage, negatively impacting future sales potential.

This should be a wake-up call to brands and underlines the importance of analyzing the effectiveness of your social creative beyond just the basic reach, impressions and engagement rate data provided by the platforms to understand the real impact that it’s having.”

What Marketers Can Do To Avoid Negative Reactions

I realize that many marketers working at other big brands will ask, what should I do next?

For starters, read “39 Emotions Digital Marketers Can Use In Advertising.”

You’ll discover the latest research conducted at the University of California, Berkeley; Stanford University; and the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Science at the University of South Australia has uncovered: “Generally, it’s advisable for … brands to leave us with a positive emotion.”

Next, read “TikTok Trends 2024: The Most Important Trends To Watch.” Among other things, you’ll learn that TikTok launched its Creative Center earlier this year.

This can help you find inspiration by giving you insights into what type of content is trending in your country, broken down into hashtags, whether lip-syncing audio, popular creators, or specific video formats.

Finally, read the “10 Most Emotionally Engaging Olympics Ads (For Paris 2024 & For All Time).”

Yes, these video ads were uploaded to YouTube, not TikTok. But Procter & Gamble (P&G) dominates DAIVID’s all-time chart, with five of the top most emotionally engaging Olympics ads – including the top three tear-jerking positions.

So, you’ll want to figure out what they know that you don’t.

Spoiler alert: Brands should focus on creating more TikTok videos that generate intense positive emotions, including hope, admiration, amusement, and trust, as well as making fewer TikTok videos that evoke intense negative emotions, such as anger, disgust, fear, and anxiety.

We shouldn’t need new research to reinforce this important lesson. But, if 84% of TikTok videos by brands are underperforming and 24% generate a strong negative reaction, then I guess it’s time to ask some hard questions.

What SEO Pros Should Do To Seize This Opportunity

Some SEO professionals might mistakenly assume that they should “move along – nothing to see here” because they don’t optimize TikTok videos. But they should reconsider.

TikTok videos have been appearing in Google’s search results for a couple of years. If you need to verify this, then Google “most viewed TikTok videos in 24 hours.”

So, what should you do about this?

If you are a savvy SEO, then you’re already incorporating relevant keywords in your video title, caption, and hashtags, leveraging trending topics, engaging with your audience, and collaborating with other creators to increase visibility.

But if another group within your company or client is cranking out TikTok content without optimizing it first, then reach out and suggest that you get together and maybe suggest a “lunch and learn” session, where training can occur in an informal setting.

If you want to do a little homework to make suggestions on optimizing TikTok content, try reading the following.

For starters, read Video SEO: 10 Steps to Optimizing Videos for Search and Discovery.” It focuses on video SEO best practices for YouTube.

But if you plan to optimize videos for TikTok.com, which gets 2.7 billion visits a month worldwide, then you should also optimize videos for YouTube.com, which gets 73.0 billion visits a month worldwide, according to Semrush.

Next, read The Future of SEO Lies in the “Messy Middle” of the Purchase Journey.”

Among other things, you’ll learn that people look for information about products and brands in a looping process across a huge array of online sources, including search engines, social video platforms, and review websites, in two mental modes: exploration and evaluation.

Finally, check out “Customer Personas Can Transform SEO, PPC, and Content Marketing,” which was published in March 2021.

It says:

“… decision-making is not a rational process, but one driven mainly by how people feel. The rational brain layers on reasons for our choices only after they’re made.” This explains why video should be a critical component of any future SEO strategy.

It’s Time To Pay Attention To Video SEO

Many SEO professionals have been busy preparing for the threat of a “searchquake” that was supposed to be triggered by Search Generative Experiences (SGE), so they may have overlooked the opportunity of video SEO.

But TikTok does present an opportunity for many brands with huge potential if you are one of the brands getting it right.

It’s time for SEO professionals, as well as marketers, to pay attention to video marketing and to do their homework to understand why some brands are generating negative emotions. And to learn how they can be the ones that get the positive reactions.

The data from above was taken from a study conducted by DAIVID, a global creative effectiveness platform.

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