By Brooke Glasford
In the past few months I have started using TikTok, after fighting it down as most millennials did. I first decided I wanted to join the masses in creating content there in the latter part of 2020—it took me eighteen months to actually do it. I didn’t even know where to start, but my friends encouraged me do “ a day in the life” videos because I typically do a lot of things in a day. These videos consist of short clips of your day, compiling them into one video and then narrating what you’re doing, over the compilation. Imagine my shock when on my fourth video I got 2500 views, within the first 4 hours. I was floored. Could you imagine 2500 people passing by your home – or better coming into your store? A dream!
I have now morphed the “ Day in the Life” video into #TheDaysofBrookesLife—because I have an insatiable need to brand everything, and added outfits of the day that I call The Brooke Look. I don’t post nearly as consistently as I ought to, but still I garner followers daily.
What’s important is I’m not the only person doing this. There are dozens of young Guyanese who are building unbelievable followings on TikTok across different industries, makeup, comedy, lifestyle, business. But still for the larger, more established businesses in this eco-system the concept of using the site for business seems far-fetched. One company I was working with downright refused to broaden their reach past Facebook and Instagram simply because they haven’t used it before and can’t see it’s benefitting them.
What some organizations need to come to grips with is the fact that depending on what your goals are, TikTok may be where your target market is dwelling, and by dwelling, I mean spending up to 6 hours a day scrolling. There are quite a few organizations that may be trying to figure out how to reach consumers (whether that be consumers of their product or their information), not recognizing that theres a pool of people between the ages of 16-34 that may not be creating on TikTok but are investing their time. The current culture of influence moves past borders and regions, and it is in human nature to be lead, to be affected, and to want to belong.
This is experience opened my eyes to the incredible growth that is possible on TikTok, a name that in the mouth of certain generations sounds like poison and judgement, but a name that also carries its own weight of access to the masses. TikTok engagement has, in the past three years, proven itself as some sort of organic growth superfood. Brands have popped up with no following and in a matter of weeks grown so substantially that it has grossly impacted its bottom line to the point that brands make it a focus to implement strategy focused on TikTok. While it may not have the attention of the local business community, it is on Googles radar, as its biggest competitor. According to The New York Times, For GenZ TikTok is the new Google — this is huge news because it signifies a turning of a well-established 30+ year old tide that was Google.
Why did I feel it necessary to slip that in to end this article? Simply to ask you where can your customers find you? Gone are the days of behemoths in business eating up local market share. We now live in a time where a cellphone and Wi-Fi connection make a functional business, so what are you doing to make sure you don’t get left behind?
In the upcoming weeks I intend to really spend time looking at social media and how it can be beneficial to focus your time and marketing dollars on a sector, that could just as well prove itself as having the same impact and reach in Guyana as it does in the western world.
