MARKETING
Why You Should Hire a Full-Time TikTok Manager
My screen time is up to 8 hours some days. Admittedly, a lot of that is my own personal scrolling addiction, but at least 2 of those per day are spent doing work-related research on TikTok.
“Research on TikTok? You mean…watching TikToks?” Yes. Exactly. And I get paid to do it. Getting familiar with the trends, the lingo, the songs, what goes viral (and what doesn’t) is an essential part of establishing your brand on TikTok.
Research, strategy, execution, and community management are foundational tasks to every social media platform — but TikTok operates much differently than Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, or Instagram. It has a unique culture, its own rules, and niche best practices and cadence. With that in mind, here’s why you should hire a full-time TikTok Manager, whose sole focus is that platform, and that platform only.
Research and Strategy
As I just mentioned, TikTok is its own beast. Yes, Instagram made Reels and Youtube made Shorts, but each platform has its own culture. TikTok is more youthful and far less curated, and its influence transcends the app — elements of our real world like language, fashion, beauty, music, and more have all been heavily impacted by what’s popular on TikTok.
Think of your full-time TikTok Manager as an Anthropologist, immersing themselves in the culture of the platform until they become experts on it. You must understand its values, rules, social norms, structure, and more, and then adopt them seamlessly in order to become part of the community.
For all of the reasons above, your TikTok strategy and voice may be vastly different from what you do on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter. Check out the huge difference in brand voice between Duolingo’s website, their instagram, and their TikToks. While their Instagram and website are more polished, Duoloingos full-time TikTok manager went completely rogue – doing what fed the TikTok algorithm and matched the trends, and because of it, has built one of the most successful brand TikTok accounts ever.
Execution
One of the tough things about TikTok is that it moves incredibly fast. This is vastly different from classical social media platforms where trends are subtle and move much, much slower. Trends are the core of TikTok, and come and go in mere days—blink and you’ll miss the next big viral sound or dance.
A downside to keeping up with the platform’s unprecedentedly fast pace means content has to churn out just as quickly. There is urgency in recognizing a trend, planning the spin on it, and executing the video. Depending on your brand, you may need props, a unique setting, or even actors (read: your coworkers). Having a sole visionary plan and direct streamlines the process and prevents too many cooks in the kitchen.
While some TikToks can be made in minutes, others can take hours, and the time-sensitive nature of the platform can require the need to to stop, drop, and Tok. How can one effectively balance those demands while managing a bunch of other tasks within an 8-hour day?
Community Management
Culture extends to community management. Traditional marketers would reel at the idea of “roasting” someone in their social media comment section, using curse words, or even innuendo. And yet, the TikTok audience eats that up. Pushing the envelope moves the needle on TikTok, for better or for worse.
Keeping brand voice consistent on TikTok from the videos themselves to the dialogue in comments is another reason why one person should be in charge of all facets of the app. Let’s go back to duolingo for examples of this.
On top of engaging in your own comment sections, brand presence can grow through commenting on other creators’ TikToks (as seen below from Chipotle). Especially when you’re just starting out, devoting time to being witty, helpful, or even controversial in other creators’ comment sections will help grow brand awareness.
There are only 8 hours in a workday to accomplish all of this. It is not realistic to expect virality and success by making “TikTok management” a bullet point in a long list of other job duties. We’ve had over a decade to establish, fine tune, and optimize efficiency on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Youtube, and Linkedin. TikTok is still in its infancy, and requires devoted attention and nurturing.
So, if you’re still wondering if hiring a TikTok manager is the right decision for your brand, the answer is “yes”.
MARKETING
Trends in Content Localization – Moz
Multinational fast food chains are one of the best-known examples of recognizing that product menus may sometimes have to change significantly to serve distinct audiences. The above video is just a short run-through of the same business selling smokehouse burgers, kofta, paneer, and rice bowls in an effort to appeal to people in a variety of places. I can’t personally judge the validity of these representations, but what I can see is that, in such cases, you don’t merely localize your content but the products on which your content is founded.
Sometimes, even the branding of businesses is different around the world; what we call Burger King in America is Hungry Jack’s in Australia, Lays potato chips here are Sabritas in Mexico, and DiGiorno frozen pizza is familiar in the US, but Canada knows it as Delissio.
Tales of product tailoring failures often become famous, likely because some of them may seem humorous from a distance, but cultural sensitivity should always be taken seriously. If a brand you are marketing is on its way to becoming a large global seller, the best insurance against reputation damage and revenue loss as a result of cultural insensitivity is to employ regional and cultural experts whose first-hand and lived experiences can steward the organization in acting with awareness and respect.
MARKETING
How AI Is Redefining Startup GTM Strategy
MARKETING
More promotions and more layoffs
For martech professionals salaries are good and promotions are coming faster, unfortunately, layoffs are coming faster, too. That’s according to the just-released 2024 Martech Salary and Career Survey. Another very unfortunate finding: The median salary of women below the C-suite level is 35% less than what men earn.
The last year saw many different economic trends, some at odds with each other. Although unemployment remained very low overall and the economy grew, some businesses — especially those in technology and media — cut both jobs and spending. Reasons cited for the cuts include during the early years of the pandemic, higher interest rates and corporate greed.
Dig deeper: How to overcome marketing budget cuts and hiring freezes
Be that as it may, for the employed it remains a good time to be a martech professional. Salaries remain lucrative compared to many other professions, with an overall median salary of $128,643.
Here are the median salaries by role:
- Senior management $199,653
- Director $157,776
- Manager $99,510
- Staff $89,126
Senior managers make more than twice what staff make. Directors and up had a $163,395 median salary compared to manager/staff roles, where the median was $94,818.
One-third of those surveyed said they were promoted in the last 12 months, a finding that was nearly equal among director+ (32%) and managers and staff (30%).
Extend the time frame to two years, and nearly three-quarters of director+ respondents say they received a promotion, while the same can be said for two-thirds of manager and staff respondents.
Dig deeper: Skills-based hiring for modern marketing teams
Employee turnover
In 2023, we asked survey respondents if they noticed an increase in employee churn and whether they would classify that churn as a “moderate” or “significant” increase. For 2024, given the attention on cost reductions and layoffs, we asked if the churn they witnessed was “voluntary” (e.g., people leaving for another role) or “involuntary” (e.g., a layoff or dismissal). More than half of the marketing technology professionals said churn increased in the last year. Nearly one-third classified most of the churn as “involuntary.”
Men and Women
This year, instead of using average salary figures, we used the median figures to lessen the impact of outliers in the salary data. As a result, the gap between salaries for men and women is even more glaring than it was previously.
In last year’s report, men earned an average of 24% more than women. This year the median salary of men is 35% more than the median salary of women. That is until you get to the upper echelons. Women at director and up earned 5% more than men.
Methodology
The 2024 MarTech Salary and Career Survey is a joint project of MarTech.org and chiefmartec.com. We surveyed 305 marketers between December 2023 and February 2024; 297 of those provided salary information. Nearly 63% (191) of respondents live in North America; 16% (50) live in Western Europe. The conclusions in this report are limited to responses from those individuals only. Other regions were excluded due to the limited number of respondents.
Download your copy of the 2024 MarTech Salary and Career Survey here. No registration is required.
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