How Publishers Like MTV and ESPN Are Navigating TikTok as the Platform Grows

While TikTok is still in its early stages of popularity, it’s already shown massive growth. As such, some publishers and brands are scrambling to ascertain potential strategies to grow their audience, and hopefully sales, on the platform. With quick-hitting videos that only last 15 seconds (longer if you string multiple videos together), the platform offers a unique opportunity for brands. TikTok as we know it was born from the merger with social app Musical.ly in 2018. Since then, the application has grown significantly: TikTok is expected to have 89.7 million users in the U.S. by 2023, according to eMarketer. Compared to other social media platforms, TikTok offers a much quicker path to audience growth. TikTok averages 118% organic reach for brands, according to Brendan Gahan, partner and chief social officer of Mekanism. Facebook and Instagram, on the other hand, average in the low single digits for organic reach, even though they have much larger user bases. Massive organic reach The organic reach has been off the charts for the TikTok accounts of MTV and ESPN. “You will pick up thousands of followers, if not tens of thousands of followers, from having one TikTok amass millions of views and in some cases tens of millions of views,” said Tyler Hissey, MTV Entertainment Group senior vice president of franchise social. “That, to me, is really interesting compared to a platform like Twitter. We love Twitter, we have an active presence there. You can have a tweet get 100,000 likes and you might pick up 50 followers.” ESPN has grown its following on the platform to 16 million just two years out from its first post. It took the company more than eight years to reach that number of followers on Twitter. You're going to put things out there that aren't going to take off, and then something ... explodes for a million views.Kaitee Daley, ESPN Naturally, there is trial and error involved in figuring out how to best use TikTok. "In the beginning, it's a lot of testing and learning, because all social platform algorithms are unique,” Kaitee Daley, vice president of social media at ESPN, told Adweek. "For us, we wanted to figure out what we could do for fans to engage them, keep them coming back, keep them double-tapping. You're going to put things out there that aren't going to take off right away, and then something that you maybe aren't sure about, you post and it explodes for a million views.” UGC, news-related and throwbacks The MTV Entertainment Group has 38 million followers across all of its TikTok platforms. The main MTV TikTok account has 5.8 million followers. The brand has leaned heavily into its wide swath of television content. The company has individual accounts for shows on its network including Wild 'N Out, Jersey Shore and Siesta Key. Hissey says that MTV uses a two-fold strategy, keeping track of where their audiences spend their time and introducing their intellectual property to newer audiences. Engaging with a younger audience is a major priority and audio is a crucial factor in that equation. Engagement is extremely important in building an audience. “We have seen several of our TikToks across our franchises generate thousands of user-submitted videos leveraging their audio,” says Hissey. “That, in turn, causes the original TikTok with that audio to cause further engagement. We’re leaning into those iconic moments that have iconic audio sound bites.” ESPN focuses on three forms of content with TikTok, including user-generated content, news-related content and throwback posts. ESPN has also been able to connect to its audience through talent like Omar Raja, who drives the daily strategy of the main account, and Stephen A. Smith, who has asked fans to submit questions or comments that make their way into his ESPN+ show. A bright future on the horizon Events have become a great way to connect with fans for brands. As live events return post-pandemic, there’s still more to explore. “We partnered with TikTok on [annual extreme sports event] X Games mode," says Daley. "The hashtag was super organic to what fans were already doing on the platform." The livestream had more than 1.7 million viewers in one day, while the X Games account went from about 83,000 followers to more than 400,000 followers. "That one campaign in partnership with TikTok really exploded the awareness and growth of the X Games brands on the platform," Daley added. There’s hope for even more progress in monetization and strategy for the future of the platform. “The big unlock that's about to happen is social commerce,” Gahan says. “[TikTok is] experimenting quite a bit with social commerce functionality. When they roll that out, that's going to be huge for brands, both in feed, as well as livestreaming.” How TikTok Is Working With Partners To Up Its Brand Safety Efforts