Four Tips to Tap Into Millennials and Gen Z with TikTok!

Our Director of Marketing Lindsey Hefta says this newer social media platform offers unlimited opportunities for credit unions to connect with members and potential members. 

by Lindsey Hefta, Director of Marketing 

With over 1 billion active users, did you know that 49 percent of users utilize TikTok to discover or learn something new? And that nearly half of all Gen Z is using TikTok and Instagram for searching instead of Google?

For several years now, we have heard about, and maybe even dabbled in TikTok. But are you using it as a source to reach existing or new credit union members? While the app may be best known for dance videos or trendy clips, this new(er) social media platform offers unlimited opportunities for credit unions to connect with anyone from the age of 13 to 60!

Your credit union doesn’t have to have a master videographer on staff to do this well and to do it right. (NOTE: IT DOESN’T HAVE TO BE PERFECT!) You just need a smartphone to create shortform video, the downloaded app, and a willing participant(s) to help tap into this market for financial education tricks and financial well-being tips.

If you have been wondering how do to this or where to start, here are four tips:
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Niche down.
What does that mean? Start by talking about one topic. Which? I think you may already know! Why? Being specific helps train TikTok’s algorithm to help spread your content to the correct viewers. It will also help you to become a leader in this specific niche. Otherwise, users won’t know what to follow your account for. If you try to appeal to everybody, you will appeal to nobody.

Post high-quality content consistently.
Your content needs to do AT LEAST one of these things: educate, entertain, or inspire. Find what works and make more of that. “But, how do I make high-quality content?” Script it ahead of time. Cut out or edit mistakes and dead space. Add text on top – not only does that help for those watching without sound, but it also helps create interest!
Focus on quality over quantity. Posting once a week or every other week is plenty enough if it is high quality content! It doesn’t have to be a commitment of posting once a day; just posting consistently helps train the TikTok algorithm as well as your followers to know what to expect and when to watch.

Find relevant topics.
What do your current members ask? What do new members ask? Create pieces of content surrounding those questions. If you don’t get many common, or in-depth questions, research trending topics. Check Google, and even TikTok, to see what topics come up through hashtags and search engines.

Solve problems.
What value can you provide? What is your audience struggling with? What value can a user get from watching your video?

The best part is you can take all the hard work you put into these TikTok videos and repurpose these videos on all your other social channels like Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc!

Because of the way the TikTok algorithm works, it doesn’t matter if you have a small or large following, it can spread far simply based on how quality your content is! Growth may start slow but if you are constant, it can take off.
“Zoomers” use TikTok as a source for financial information. Will they find your credit union there?

For additional resources, let’s see what CUNA’s blog and CUInsight have to say about the TikTok trend.
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*Disclaimer: As with all social media platforms, there is a risk of sharing content and the platform collecting data. Two current security concerns of TikTok include: ByteDance’s (the Chinese technology company that owns TikTok) ability to access personal user data and information stored on the user’s device; and the ability to influence the content-delivery algorithm.

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