Using TikTok for Blood Donor Recruitment: Client Story

With over 2.5 billion downloads, TikTok is the newest trend for marketers to pursue. The app allows people to create fun and unique videos to share with the general public using trending music and hashtags. But for us at Incept, we see it as an opportunity to engage a younger donor demographic, encouraging a new audience to donate blood. Continue reading to learn about our client’s story using TikTok, the advantages and disadvantages of the app, and how it can benefit you!

Benefits Of TikTok Advertising

TikTok is a fairly new platform (compared to Facebook and Instagram), so using the platform to recruit and advertise to a large population of people can help increase awareness when creating content consistently. Here are some benefits of advertising on TikTok that have helped our clients succeed on the app (read additional statistics here):

• USERS AND DEMOGRAPHICS

  • There are over 80 million active TikTok users in the United States, with 41% being between the ages of 16 and 24 which is the prime audience to target to recruit younger blood donors. But, that means that 59% of the platform is made up of users from the Millennial, GenX, and even Baby Boomer generations, therefore, your blood donor recruitment strategies can really succeed in reaching a wide range of donors in the area your organization is located.

• INCREASED AWARENESS

  • TikTok is a platform designed to encourage people to engage. Since TikTok has such a large and diverse audience, your blood center is bound to find the niche of people looking to donate blood in their local area. With over one billion monthly active users, your organization can tap into an audience that possibly isn’t being reached through other paid campaigns. Also, it was found that within the past 18 months, the number of U.S. adult TikTok users has grown 5.5 times, receiving more downloads within Q1 2020 than any other app during the same period. Therefore, your blood center is going to be reaching a younger audience, which is beneficial in demonstrating the importance of blood donations and in creating awareness to that demographic on popular apps, such as TikTok.
    

• INFLUENCER MARKETING

  • Did you know that nearly 86% of marketers have used influencer marketing to generate sales or increase brand awareness? Influencer marketing is a powerful tool that your blood center can use for your specific area. Because with this strategy you’re utilizing someone else’s platform and following, influencers can give your ads the highest reach and provide an opportunity for your ads to stand out amongst the competition. Trying to find an influencer that is the perfect fit for your blood center can be overwhelming, but TikTok has a Creator Marketplace that is designed to tackle that issue for your organization. If your blood center is looking for trending dance moves, daily lifestyles, families, etc. then try using TikTok to your organization’s advantage!

    Why is Influencer Marketing Important to Blood Donor Recruitment? Find out here!

Client Success

We launched an awareness campaign on TikTok for one of our clients to help engage a younger demographic and learn about the newer social media platform. Since we know that more than 50% of our successful blood donations come from donors who have been engaged on three or more channels, adding TikTok was the next step in advancing our multichannel approach for this client. 

After just two months of testing TikTok, we’ve increased overall campaign reach by 33% compared to the previous period, many of which are potential donors we’ve never been able to access or engage before.  Engagement for this awareness level campaign remained high, averaging a .95% click-through rate.  As a result, the client’s average daily donations increased by 8% compared to the previous period, helping them save more lives in their community. 

Eighty-seven percent of the people we reached were between ages 18 and 24, with the majority being male. This engagement is very different than what we’ve seen on other platforms, which have higher engagement amongst females.

While TikTok certainly has many quirks and growing pains from a campaign perspective, it’s clear that the addition of this campaign made a significant impact on blood collections for our client and we are excited to expand its impact even more in the coming months. 

Challenges

Success on social media can be a challenge in itself. At Incept, we find that donors need multiple touchpoints before deciding to donate blood. So, the use of a multi-channel approach with platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, TikTok, Phone, Video, and Texting is crucial to the success of our clients’ donor centers. Since TikTok is a newer social media platform, the features on TikTok’s For Business Center and the Advertising Policies are a learning experience that we are still uncovering. But, we want to share some of the disadvantages of TikTok and how to overcome them:

• BUDGET

  • TikTok Advertising is still new, so it is more expensive to start your campaign compared to using Facebook and Instagram. For reference, TikTok ads start at $10 per CPM (cost per 1000 views) and require you to spend a minimum of $500 on a campaign. However, the budget your team sets depends on what type of audience your organization is trying to reach, so you have the opportunity to make your blood center known without breaking the bank!

    
    Looking for more information on the costs of TikTok ads? Check this out.

• ADVERTISING POLICIES

  • TikTok has some challenges when it comes to advertising your business because of its Advertising Policies. For example, if you look up the words “blood donor” on TikTok, a disclaimer pops up that states “distressing content” and “the following content may be distressing to some viewers” before you can look at any of the videos. The platform also has a lengthy list of prohibited products and services, so we have had to be creative to allow blood donation ads to be approved by its Business Manager. But, TikTok is a newer social media platform and continues to improve and make adjustments for business-related advertising as it becomes increasingly popular, however, be sure to review all of the TikTok policies, requirements, and prohibited lists before your team create a campaign.

• LIMITED CONTENT FORMATS

  • Having the creative autonomy to use text, image, video, or a mix of that content allows for creative freedom on social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram. However, TikTok is strictly used for video-based content, but to combat this roadblock your team can create a slideshow of images in video form to test out in a TikTok campaign. Having to spend time and resources to create videos to advertise on the platform can end up being costly, but getting ahead in a new social media space can help your organization stand out amongst the rest!

• ANALYTICS

  • Data is essential to learn from your ad creative and make the necessary changes to help your business grow. But TikTok analytics data only shows for 28 days, so your team has to create their own custom reports and choose when to run the analytics to see how the ads are performing. TikTok is still relatively new in the social media space, and it continues to develop ways to enhance its advertising features and policies. Make sure to stay updated on TikTok’s advancements before your blood center hesitates to use it!

Why You Need to Use TikTok

Did you know that 90% of TikTok users access the app multiple times a day? Although TikTok has some disadvantages that require your team to determine creative solutions, the platform creates a great opportunity to boost engagement and generate awareness to a large audience in a popular space. We selected a few reasons why you need to use TikTok to advertise your business before you get started:

• ENGAGEMENT

  • The average TikTok user spends more than half an hour a day on the platform — which makes it the social media platform users spent the second-most time on, on average. TikTok is new to the social media scene, but it continues to grow each year, making it the perfect place for consumers to engage with your product or service. With such a wide variety of people on the app, your organization can target the perfect niche for your blood center and bring in those critical blood donations.

• USER-GENERATED CONTENT

• According to the Nielsen Consumer Trust Index, 92% of consumers trust organic, user-generated content (USG) more than they trust traditional advertising. TikTok is a fun way to diversify from traditional advertising techniques, but it requires a lot of time, energy, and money to create videos. For example, the manufacturing company, John Deere, does not have an official TikTok account, but the #JohnDeere hashtag on the app has more than 6 billion views. By taking advantage of USG content, your organization feels more trustworthy and credible, and it’s free advertising!

• TYPES OF ADS

  • TikTok has a variety of different ads that your business can use to help generate awareness and engagement with your product or service. First, there are TopView Ads which are up to 60-second videos that appear at the top of a person’s For You Page. TopView Ads can help to grab the audience’s attention because it is the first thing they see when they open the app. Next, there are In-Feed Ads which are similar to Instagram Stories which play on full screen, are skippable, and must be 60 seconds or less (although the ideal length is 15 seconds). 

    There are also brand takeover ads and branded hashtag ads which can get expensive but guarantee high views and engagement. Lastly, there are Spark Ads which lets your team create ads out of personal TikTok posts or by using organic posts made by creators, with their permission. With the availability of a variety of ad types and additional ones in the future, your organization can engage potential donors and create another touchpoint for the audience to potentially donate blood.

About Incept

Incept’s donor-centric, data-driven approach helps deliver the right message, using the right platform, to the right donor, at the right time, helping to improve the outcome of donor interactions and create a consistent and predictable daily inventory that matches our client’s needs.

We help our clients solve their donor experience challenges—no matter how large or small, how complex or unique. We don’t settle for merely reaching business goals. Our leadership, talent, and culture are designed to deliver continuous improvement and business transformation.