Remember the storm TikTok created globally? People from all walks of life started posting short videos and gaining popularity. With millions of users globally engaging on TikTok, it became the talk of the town. In fact, TikTok can be called as one of the prominent apps that paved the way for content creation.
However, in the last 2 years, the TikTok wave seems to be fading into oblivion. This has given an opportunity to other alternative apps like TikTok to carve their own niche, especially in countries like India.
If you’re thinking to launch an app like TikTok, this is the best time to do so. Explore our TikTok Clone App Development Service and kick-start your TikTok alternative app!
If you’ve already launched an app like TikTok and are looking for ways to popularise it, you’ve come to the right spot! In today’s blog, we’ll discuss top practical ways to market a short video streaming app.
Read on to know more!
1. Target a Niche
Your short video streaming platform can either be the jack of all trades or a master of one. What does this mean?
Simply put, you can create a niche-specific Tik Tok alternative for fashion/fitness enthusiasts, corporate, or even educationists. Furthermore, you can also create a one-stop destination for people to create lip-syncing, dancing, DIY, arts and craft, motivation, career goals, baking/cooking videos, etc.
In short, niche-specific short video platforms can help you ensure quality over quantity. Furthermore, the engagement of users in the platform would be considerably high.
So, choose a niche wisely!
2. Get a Few Star Content Creators On-board
Video marketing is a competitive space. Veterans like YouTube and Instagram have already dominated this space for a long time.
So, how do you stand apart in this competitive space?
To succeed in this space, quality content can do the trick and set you apart. Any piece of content that educates or entertains the users has the potential to go viral. Hence, collaborating with well-renowned content creators can be the key to your success. By getting a bunch of star content creators on your platform, you can attract your potential users and gain credibility.
For instance, MX TakaTak collaborated with several popular personalities such as cricketer Virat Kohli, Rapper Baadshah, and TikTok fame Jannat Zubair to market and post exclusive videos on its platform. Today, the platform has become the go-to spot for various social media personalities to interact with and entertain their audiences.
In a different context (music streaming app), same strategy was used by Spotify when it signed Joe Rogan for $100 million to exclusively release podcasts on it’s platform. The idea was to drive Joe Rogan’s followers as new subscribers on the Spotify platform.
3. Run Impressive Social Media Campaigns!
As a TikTok alternative app, your target audience will be millennials and the Gen Z generation. Where do you think you can find these people? Nowhere other than social media! As per Statista, there were 448 million social media users in India in 2021.
Today, social media is a cost-effective marketing technique for brands to engage with their audience, create an impact, build credibility, and attract new customers. To accomplish your social media goals, you can use a combination of organic and paid marketing.
To market your TikTok alternative app on social media, you can post user-generated videos, conduct contests and giveaways, and host live sessions in collaboration with other content creators. Instagram stories have dominated the market. In these short stories, you can embed your app links and also tag relevant brands and content creators. To ace the story format, you can even report the stories in which your brand is tagged and further increase engagement.
Social media is a playful way to boost your brand awareness and engagement. All these activities are a great way to optimize your top-of-the-funnel marketing.
You can even do paid ads on Facebook, and Instagram to increase followers and app downloads.
Don’t know where to start on social media? Check out our top notch Social Media Management service.
4. Referral Marketing is a Boon like None!
Even in this era of high CPC’s and branding costs, referral marketing continues to be one of the most trusted forms of advertising. It is highly effective.
Interestingly, even most of the TikTok alternative platforms have referral programs as their go-to and cost-effective marketing strategy. These apps offer referral rewards in form of coins, points, badges, etc.
You can also create a feature where content creators can invite their friends or family to create videos on your app. If their referral creates a video and it goes live on your platform, give handsome rewards to both the referrer and the referee.
In this way, referral programs can help you expand your user base and lower the customer acquisition cost.
5. Instant Video Sharing
Easy video sharing is the most distinguishing characteristic of an amazing short video platform. Why? Because it promotes the ease of use, distribution of content and boosts the visibility of your platform.
Whenever a user publishes a video on your platform, provide a sharing option through which he/she can share their videos across different social media platforms. While sharing, there can be some automatic brand hashtags and watermarks added to the video to boost the brand’s visibility.
TikTok leveraged this strategy to its advantage in its early years as its funny videos were widely forwarded in Whatsapp groups. This led to brand awareness and a spike in the number of new registrations.
6. Monetize Content Creation
To attract content creators to your platform, you can offer rewards in the form of cash prizes, free subscriptions, points, and more.
For instance, TikTok offers a creator’s fund to support its users. Moreover, creators can earn by selling merchandise, collaborating with brands, doing live streams, brand promotions, accepting virtual gifts, and more on TikTok.
You can even set a specific milestone for creators to achieve and make your platform more competitive. For example – If a creator publishes 10 videos, he/she gets 1000 reward points or whenever a creator reaches a milestone of 10000+ followers, they get a gift card. Such rewards motivate the creators to remain consistent and competitive.
7. Influencer Marketing is The Way Forward!
How many times have you bought something because your favourite star advertised it? Uncountable times, isn’t it?
In today’s digital era, influencer marketing has emerged as the most profitable marketing technique. How? As per some reports, businesses earn $18 on every $1 spent on influencer marketing.
If you want to succeed in the short video segment, don’t underestimate the power of influencer marketing! In fact, influencer marketing should be on top of your list – even before performance marketing. By taking influencer marketers onboard, you can get some quick rewards. Since influencers already have a good reach, they can join your platform and get their followers to sign up as well.
In a month, you can collaborate with multiple influencers across industries to get the ball rolling. You can even provide some rewards to users who sign up on your platform using the influencer marketer’s code. These rewards can be something like a 1-month free trial or a discount on a subscription.
8. Leverage the Power of Email Marketing
Email Marketing can be a good channel to increase your brand awareness and boost conversions. Emails can be targeted to new users as well as existing users.
You can send emails to new users educating them about how your short video platform lets them express themselves and empowers them to carve a niche of their own. Include action-oriented CTA’s in the emails to get the right results! Email can be a great channel to boost conversions – i.e to increase your app downloads.
Emails can also be used to engage with customers and build relationships.
You can use email marketing to keep your creators updated about recent contests, events, streams, challenges, etc. In emails, you can even share success stories of existing users and how your app gave them the liberty to make it big. Similarly, you can create drip emails to target the user at different phases.
In emails, you can even share success stories of existing users and how your app gave them the liberty to make it big. Similarly, you can create drip emails to target the user at different phases.
You can use some of the best email marketing tools to optimize your email campaigns.
9. Original Content
As a content-based platform, the key to success lies in creating fresh content. You should always encourage content creators to develop unique videos that have not been made before. with fresh and lively content. In fact, the approval process should be such that you reject the plagiarised content and warn the content creator.
Authentic content will boost your brand credibility and authority. In the long run, it will serve as a core USP of your app and easily help you attract an audience.
10. Sponsor Events
Nowadays, with restrictions on public gatherings, virtual events are gaining prominence.
You can sponsor several virtual events such as comedy shows, open mics, debates or discussions on trending topics, and so much more.
Furthermore, you can also sponsor events related to social or environmental issues to create an impact on your users.
11. Live Streaming
Live streaming is extremely popular these days. You can host live sessions in collaboration with popular artists, celebrities, and content creators. You can create a pre-buzz around these live sessions to gather talking points from your followers. Even during the session, keep a 5-10 minute slot reserved for questions and answers.
You can even live stream events like a comedy show, open mic and other events to boost engagement.
12. Organize Challenges & Giveaways
Virtual games, contests, and polls are a massive crowd puller! These activities keep the audience glued to your platform or social media account.
You can host giveaways and contests on your social media channels. On the app, you infuse real-time games for quick engagement. Even challenges to upload videos on a particular theme or meme can generate massive engagement. These challenges can also be shared across social media platforms with particular hashtags that can go viral.
For instance: TikTok alternatives such as Josh and MX TakaTak regularly conduct games and contests to engage with their users on platforms and attract new ones.
Even giveaways can help you gain traction on social media. These giveaways can last from 2-7 days encouraging people to perform a particular action.
13. App Store Optimization
With more than 2.65 million apps available on the Playstore, making your app visible to your target audience has become a hard nut to crack. This is why learning about App Store Optimization (ASO) is the need of the hour!
In simple words, app store optimization is a technique used to optimize the download page of your app for enhancing its visibility and app store ranking.
So, how would you do the app store optimization for your TikTok alternative app?
Here are a few strategies to employ for enhancing your short video app’s visibility:
- Keep your short video app’s name simple to spell and pronounce. Furthermore, always include a relevant keyword in the title of your app. For instance, ‘Josh: Short Videos App’. This way your app becomes easy to identify.
- Write a crisp and onto-the-point description. Make sure to write about the key features of your short video app and include your target keywords (without stuffing them).
- Design a vibrant and classy download page with eye-catching visuals.
- Improve the ratings and reviews of your app by understanding the common issues users are facing and solving them.
14. Newspaper Ads are the Cherry on the Cake!
Even in this internet-obsessed age, newspapers still make for an indispensable part of households. More than 2.5 billion people in the world read newspapers daily. Thus, if you want to attract a lot of new users to your platform, your app platform should be the highlight of the newspaper.
Your quirky app advertisement should be visible on the front page or last page of a national newspaper. Include QR codes in the advertisement to increase downloads. If the national newspaper rates seem to be expensive, you can kickstart your ATL campaigns by partnering with local and regional newspapers.
Make sure to keep your ad visually enticing, simple to understand (without any jargon), and grammatically correct. Also, don’t forget to add a clear CTA in your advertisement.
15. Bulk SMS Campaigns
Whilst Email Marketing can help boost conversions, SMS cannot be ignored especially if you are targeting an audience based in tier-2 and tier-3 cities.
There is a character limit in SMS campaigns. Hence, your SMS should be crisp, succinct, and have a well-defined action. You can even use SMS to alert users about your upcoming streams, app features, referral programs, and more.
You can even send SMS in vernacular languages to connect with the audience at a deeper level.
Encourage Feedback on Social Media
If you just use social media platforms to promote your brand and its content, over time it will get unimpressive.
To give a human touch to your brand page, it is crucial to also engage with the audience. So, what are the other ways to engage with the audience besides creating content? Reply to direct messages, reply to comments in the posts and keep on asking questions to your followers.
Social media comments and direct messages can also provide crucial insights into your business. Sometimes, these reviews and messages could help in improving your user journey and the overall product (app).
Bottom Line
After the Tiktok ban, all the alternative TikTok apps in India are poised for high growth. Today, this space fairly remains untouched and less competitive. With increasing applications of content creation, the market is huge.
To mark your place in this segment, a perfect blend of marketing strategies is deemed necessary. All these strategies when executed well will set your short streaming app up for high growth and success.
Eiosys is a leading Android and iOS development company in Mumbai. We have been around since 2010 and have had immense success with the design and development of bespoke apps and websites for companies. If you are looking to build an app like TikTok, you can fill in our inquiry form or drop an email to sales@eiosys.com
