Walmart looks for authenticity over follower count when choosing TikTok collaborators

Marketers may think bigger names are better when it comes to making sponsored content, but building an array of TikTok collaborators with their own unique voices and methods of utilizing a product is more important than securing online celebrities.

Why it matters

TikTok is an increasingly essential channel in a diversified brand portfolio, and marketers must learn to adequately leverage the platform’s benefits without wasting resources. Understanding the importance of an engaged following, as well as an individual creator’s unique style and ethos, can help with navigating the video content site.

Takeaways

• To build a following on TikTok, as well as take advantage of the platform’s unique culture, brands must reach out to a multitude of creators along a diverse array of content categories.
• Part of the TikTok recipe dictates that brands place some of creative direction in the hands of individual creators and allow them to “actually bring their personality to the experience”, Anne Balestrieri, director of media strategy and planning at Walmart, explained during a session at CommerceNext 2022 titled “Master Class on TikTok Advertising: A Walmart Case Study.”
• “It can’t be overly produced, it can’t be overly prescriptive,” Balestrieri said. “Really [it’s] just letting their personalities shine and letting them say what they want to say in their own voice and playing to their strengths.”
  
• Walmart gives creators the freedom to choose the products they would like to promote; the result is a more authentic first-person testimony.
• Another important factor in building a diverse array of collaborators on TikTok is to trust their social media savvy, and ability to increase engagement on products, through the use of captions, hashtags, and “interactive elements”.
• Balestrieri encourages experimentation on the platform: for example, Walmart was “the first brand ever to execute a shoppable live stream” in a variety show format which featured 10 TikTok creators.

The big idea

“We’ve doubled down on leveraging creator-made content in lieu of repurposed branded assets on the platform, because that’s what the audience wants on TikTok” – Anne Balestrieri, director/ media strategy and planning at Walmart.