What's the best way to recruit more brand ambassadors to your ambassador marketing program? It turns out, it depends on the platform. Swedish fashion and lifestyle brand IDEAL OF SWEDEN set out to find a more effective way of activating their customers, followers, and fans through the short-form video platform TikTok - and they landed on a rather unique solution.
Recently, IDEAL OF SWEDEN has been working to grow their TikTok account and increase the amount of content they have on the platform. They wanted to reach a wider audience, catching consumers who they may not have been able to connect with on Instagram.
Maximise your TikTok marketing results with our free, on-demand masterclass: Understanding TikTok.
As a part of this process, IDEAL OF SWEDEN had the innovative idea to collaborate with one of their brand ambassadors, Alexandra Stenring, bringing her to their head office to film a TikTok video that then went live on their account to incite more sign-ups to their brand ambassador program.
Using TikTok to Grow Your Ambassador Marketing Program
TikTok: The New Ambassador Playground
With most people using multiple forms of social media, why don't the same recruitment posts work for every platform?
Like many of us, IDEAL OF SWEDEN sees that TikTok requires a very different style of content to Instagram - where the majority of their ambassador marketing efforts have gone so far.
TikTok users are looking for entertainment, so the brand finds that product-focused videos don't perform as well. As a result, they've had to adjust their ambassador and influencer marketing strategy when it comes to creating marketing tasks for TikTok.
IDEAL OF SWEDEN gives their ambassadors more creative freedom, finding it produces the best results. Ambassadors are asked to create their own content featuring their IDEAL products, rather than create videos centred around those products. Some examples include outfit inspiration videos or daily vlogs.
With the introduction of TikTok stories, they now ask ambassadors to share their discount codes in their stories to drive sales.
IDEAL OF SWEDEN also notes that it's harder to convert to sales on TikTok. With Instagram, you can create links directly in stories. This feature is unavailable in TikTok, meaning users have to take an extra step and visit the brand's profile. However, once there, they have the opportunity to view more content.
As a bonus, the fashion brand notes that TikTok's algorithm works more favourably for brands than Instagram's.
%201.svg)
Recruiting Brand Ambassadors Through Collaboration
"I came in contact with IDEAL OF SWEDEN through [the platform] in the early stages of my Instagram journey. Since then I have collaborated with them countless times and I’ve even been to their headquarters to film this video. 🤩 The people at IDEAL are all so kind, supportive, and encouraging, and because of that, I’m so happy that I get the opportunity to be an ambassador for them. ❤️" - Alexandra Stenring, Brand Ambassador for IDEAL OF SWEDEN
When IDEAL OF SWEDEN was looking for a way to recruit more TikTok users to their ambassador marketing program, they knew that they needed to try something new to be effective.
IDEAL reached out to one of their long-standing brand ambassadors, Alexandra Stenring, about collaborating on a video to promote their ambassador marketing program.
Q&A
Could you tell us a bit about what the collaborative process looked like for this TikTok?
We reached out to Alexandra and presented our idea for the TikTok. She liked it right away and was happy to be included. We invited her to our office in Norrköping and spent half a day together shooting and also got to have lunch together.
We had a clear vision of what we wanted the video to look like and we prepared ideas for each scene which Alexandra helped to refine while we were filming.
What are the biggest benefits of collaborating with ambassadors in this way?
It was so nice for us to finally meet Alexandra - who has been our ambassador for many years - and get to work with her in person. We also think it feels more genuine for one of our actual ambassadors to promote our ambassador program.
What results have you seen from the campaign?
It was hard to estimate the results since we haven’t done anything like this on TikTok before, but we are happy with the results as we got more TikTok users to sign up.
You also boost some of your ambassador’s TikToks. What results have you and your ambassadors seen from boosting?
We have seen great results from boosting with high amounts of views and engagement. It's just important to boost high-quality content that you know will get likes and comments.
What advice would you give to other eCommerce brands who are trying to leverage their ambassador communities to increase their reach on TikTok?
Focus on creative and entertaining content with less product focus for better reach. Try to inspire your ambassadors and show the type of content you would like without steering them too much. If you publish your own content on TikTok, use these as examples.
When picking creators, it's also more important to look at views rather than following. Try to pick creators who have good views overall, rather than a few viral ones. To reach a wider audience, it can also be good to focus on different segments - even if they don’t fit your main target group. Try out sports accounts, moms, tech profiles, and so on to see what works best.
Use your current ambassadors to grow your TikTok community! Ask them to invite friends to the platform as they most likely have friends who are also creators.
