Win clients pitch-free and recruit faster: How agencies are using TikTok

The Works TikTok

Advertising agencies are taking to social media platform TikTok to advertise themselves, win clients pitch-free and recruit faster than ever, all at low stakes.

TikTok has overtaken Facebook as the world’s top social media ‘brand’ and brands have moved spend away from Twitter and Meta to TikTok by up to 60%.

While agencies will never spend as many resources advertising themselves as clients, young creatives are actively putting their hands up to make TikTok content. 

Plus, it only takes a creative (who makes client TikToks all day and can sniff out a viral trend miles away) with an iPhone and 10 minutes to produce a playful video and reach hundreds of thousands of eyes.

Compared to other platforms this quick output for high virality is TikTok’s treasure, as Chelsea Morley, founder and creative director at Melbourne independent agency Tiny Disco, discovered when she took to the platform with a recruitment experiment.

Chelsea Morley's recruitment experiment. WATCH HERE.

The video, now at 625,000 views, shows Morley asking her TikTok viewers "if you're interested in being an art director, no matter what location, hit me up".

While Morely admitted uploading the video was probably through laziness, the video went viral and she was able to interact with candidates who don’t typically interact with traditional recruitment platforms.

“I opened the opportunity to the whole world which may have been a mistake because in about an hour I had 200 messages, then 12 hours later my business TikTok, the business Instagram and my LinkedIn could not accept any more messages because they were so full,” Morley told AdNews.

And it didn't stop there. Over the next month Morley continued to receive about 20 messages an hour and got cupcakes from one applicant who wanted to get noticed. 

“I have a hard time recruiting good art directors and creatives because they're not looking on LinkedIn or SEEK, but now I’ve found that to attract the right talent for our business TikTok makes absolute sense.”

As a result, Morley has shortlisted three people through TikTok and is permanently using the platform for casting calls.

“We've done Instagram and street casting calls but if you want something fast TikTok is it - within 24 hours of posting a casting call for babies on TikTok I've got 30 babies that I want to cast ready to go,” Morley said.

“It’s a fun, engaging and clever tool to fill gaps within a business.”

Moving forward Morley has already made the TikTok recruitment process more automated by setting up auto applications and a database.

As well as being a fruitful recruitment tool, agencies are winning new work and establishing better existing client relationships by showcasing the personality of their agency culture on TikTok.

We Are Social’s TikTok showcases the creative agency’s culture with a mixture of

“TikTok is the perfect place to showcase our agency all while mastering the secret to capturing attention in a few precious seconds,” Suzie Shaw, CEO at We Are Social Australia, told AdNews.

“Clients get a sneak peek into our understanding of trends and quick reactiveness, our team bonds over the fun of going viral, and we attract top talent through our behind-the-scenes glimpses.

“But beyond the fun and connection, TikTok has become our playground for honing our creative skills, especially when it comes to crafting content for our clients.”

After seeing their clients gain success from TikTok, The Works, part of Capgemini, took their agency account more seriously as its main external marketing channel and treat it like a client Emelie Jessika Lundberg, head of social at creative agency The Works, part of Capgemini, told AdNews.

“Personality is the big thing on TikTok and what makes The Works unique is our culture so showing the reality of our agency on the platform has benefited us,” Lundberg said.

With a minimum of two posts per week the creative agency has received dozens of new leads from brands and interest from existing clients to do more social media work.

“People love to know the faces behind a company, TikTok is such a good way to show the general public the reality of our industry and debunk agency myths,” Lundberg said.

“We also love having general back and forth banter with businesses on the platform, like the comments we’ve received from Google, Salesforce, LinkedIn and more.”

While initially the aim of production and talent business Amplify starting on TikTok was to experiment with different types of content, today creating company TikTok’s is a fun way to bring the team together Michelle Melky, creative director at Amplify, told AdNews.

“Everyone loves to poke fun at each other and pitch ideas for TikToks. I'd say it's more beneficial for innovation than it is for direct client business,” Melky said.

“I'm maybe less likely to send a client a video of me lip syncing to a trending audio, but it is useful for the team to be trying out new sounds and learning to use the app themselves.” 

For example, this video of everyone trying to guess who would have the heaviest suitcase is a classic, easy TikTok idea that gives a lot of insight into how well we know each other.

“Well, how well we think we know each other,” Melky said.

Whereas this TikTok is an example of the experimentation Amplify get to do.

“This one is a fake scandal we made up to promote a podcast we were producing at the time. It's pure click bait, and it worked a treat,” Melky said.

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