SXSW Sydney: Is TikTok the engagement tool all brands need?
From well-known bookshop chain, Dymocks, to energy infrastructure company, APA Group, brands and businesses are, or at least thinking of, jumping on the TikTok train.
Last week, a SXSW Sydney panel consisting of APA Group’s head of digital communications, Alexander Legaree; Brisbane 2032’s executive director for strategic engagement, brand and marketing, Rebecca Masci; Landor general manager Trish Folan, and TikTok’s director of business development for the Asia Pacific region, Vanessa Brown, were asked how their brands are leveraging creativity to resolve problems.
According to Brown, TikTok is engaging with its communities to help them overcome challenges, citing Dymocks as a local brand whose use of the platform has helped it optimise its operations.
The well-known book outlet uses TikTok as a tool for gathering information on readers’ current tastes and wants, with BookTok – a community of bibliophiles that post book-related videos on TikTok – serving as a valuable research source.
“We do a lot of work with Dymocks, one of the oldest booksellers in Australia,” Brown said.
“We have a phenomenal community on TikTok around BookTok… so we’re seeing books that were previously out of print come back into print because the BookTok community are reviewing them. They’re talking about them, they’re creating content about them.
“So looking at something like Dymocks, who is really embracing the platform, they’re reaching different audiences, they’re reaching different demographics, they’re learning what the BookTok community is telling them on TikTok, and they’re then matching the marketing and their promotional activity against those different themes and interests.”
Brown’s insights came over a month after what was a tumultuous time for the Australian book retail sector.
In July, digital book retailer Booktopia made headlines for entering voluntary administration after it was unable to acquire funding that would prevent it from collapsing. It wasn’t until late August when things leveled out for the online shop, after it was acquired by digiDirect – an electronic store – and was able to resume trading.
But overall, Brown said TikTok is able to help others, namely its users and communities, creatively solve problems by listening to them and providing them with the necessary tools.
(L_R): Trisha Folan, Alexander Legaree, Rebecca Masci, Vanessa Brown
“It’s very much listening to our communities,” Brown explained to the audience.
“How do we hear what our communities are asking for? How do we build the tools to provide the ability for you guys to do those kind of things?
“One thing that we’ve launched in Southeast Asia and the US and the UK is an e-commerce platform. So we have TikTok Shop live in those markets… because we saw, we heard our community speak to us about that.
“In Malaysia, we have a million sellers on the platform and 98 percent of those sellers are small businesses. So we’re seeing small businesses who really want to be able to leverage the platform to reach audiences they couldn’t reach previously and sell more of their products.”
The idea of listening to relevant parties and engaging with them was echoed by Legaree. According to the former senior manager, digital communications at AGL Energy, APA is using creativity as an awareness driving solution at a time when “the energy transition is really being challenged”.
“The way we’re using creativity is really to drive awareness, bring our communities that we operate in along for the journey,” Legaree said.
“It’s about talking to people in a way they understand, in a way they want to be spoken to. But speaking with them, not speaking at them.
“Engaging with them on a human level, which is really, really important for that. It ends up being quite a lot of work but the rewards are absolutely phenomenal. We’re seeing some great turnaround in community sentiment. We’re seeing some really, really great engagement on projects we’ve never seen before.”
He continued: “So building… a large scale solar farm in the Pilbara, or upgrading an interconnector between Victoria and Tasmania. As exciting as that sounds, for those communities it is really important. We’re taking the time to get to know them, we’re talking to them the way they want to be spoken with, and engaging with them two way.”
According to Legaree, APA is also looking at TikTok as a possible engagement avenue as tools like the multi-billion dollar platform are going to drive discourse around energy transitions.
“We’re looking at TikTok as well, for, as an energy utility company. And how do we engage with the community to get the best and the freshest thinking and the brightest minds on board with the energy transitions,” Legaree said.
“Because it’s going to take everybody in this room in one way, shape, or form to transition from where we are to where we absolutely need to be.
“And it’s, it’s platforms like TikTok that are going to enable that conversation, that two way, really dynamic conversation.”
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Matthew is the editorial assistant at Mumbrella. He joined the company at the end of September 2023.
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topics
Alexander Legaree
APA Group
Brisbane 2032
Bytedance
Landor
Rebecca Masci
TikTok
Trish Folan
Vanessa brown
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