Local Memo: TikTok’s Guide to Selling on TikTok Shop

In this week’s update, learn more about TikTok’s playbook for selling on TikTok Shop; Instagram’s addition of comments to Instagram stories; and an update to images in Google’s Knowledge Panel. 

TikTok’s Guide to Selling on TikTok Shop

The News 

TikTok users spent about $3.8 billion in the app in 2023, up 15% from 2022. This increase in spending highlights the rising potential for brands to leverage TikTok Shop. To help, TikTok released a 94-page guide on how to set up and use TikTok Shop. 

While reading through a 94-page can seem daunting, TikTok covers three main sections. 

1. Initial Prep: This dives into what your business must do on the app before getting its TikTok Shop set up. 
2. Get Started: This section explains the different ways your brand can sell on TikTok Shop and reviews the tools available to leverage it. 
3. Learn: Finally, TikTok shares best practices for using TikTok Shop, how to grow your sales, and how to participate in campaigns. 

Courtesy: TikTok

The guide is very well organized, so depending on your brand’s relationship with TikTok and TikTok Shop, you can jump to the most useful part of the guide. You can find the full presentation from TikTok here. 

Why It Matters 

This guide is essential for marketers looking to tap into the app’s growing in-app shopping potential. While in-app shopping hasn’t fully gained traction with Western consumers, TikTok’s rising sales and success in China highlight its future potential. 

The guide offers a comprehensive overview of everything from account setup and selling processes to analytics and affiliate programs. It is a must-read for marketers aiming to capitalize on emerging trends, especially with the holiday season approaching. In today’s fast-paced digital landscape, staying up-to-date with the latest social trends is crucial for marketers to remain competitive and meet evolving consumer behaviors head-on.

Instagram Adds Comments to Instagram Stories 

The News 

Instagram has rolled out a new feature that allows users to leave comments on Stories, providing a more public way to interact with posts that were previously only replyable via direct messages (DMs). This update offers users more flexibility, as user comments on Stories will not be sent privately to DMs but will remain on the Story itself. According to Meta, these comments will live only on the Story, making the interaction more visible for others to see. As with regular Story posts, the comments will disappear after 24 hours.

Courtesy: Instagram

Users have the option to toggle comments on or off for any Story. Only mutual followers can leave comments, although anyone following the account can view them. Commenters’ profile pictures will appear at the bottom of the Story icon, letting users know there are comments before viewing the Story. Additionally, users can still respond privately to a Story via DM if the account accepts messages, or they can send a DM in response to a Story comment by swiping left on the text.

Why It Matters 

This new feature opens up an opportunity for marketers to boost engagement and interaction through Stories. Story comments make user interactions more visible, encouraging others to participate and increasing the chances of viral content. By enabling comments, brands can create a more interactive experience, sparking conversations directly within Stories. 

This added layer of engagement helps build community. It allows marketers to receive immediate feedback on their content, making Stories a valuable tool for driving brand awareness and fostering customer relationships.

Update to Images on Google’s’ Knowledge Panel

The News

We’ll keep this update short and sweet! On LinkedIn, Mike Blumenthal noted that the Google Search team recently sent a note to those who uploaded an image to their Knowledge Panel on Google. The note indicates that  “beginning September 9th, you may see changes in the position where your featured image appears.” 

For those who are unfamiliar, the Google Knowledge Panel is a box that appears in Google search results and provides a summary of information about a person, place, or thing that has been searched for. 

Why It Matters 

As a multi-location brand, it’s important to stay up to date with Google’s latest updates. Historically, businesses have been concerned about their lack of control over which images are featured by Google in business profiles. Though businesses can indicate a featured photo, Google sometimes features other photos uploaded by users. 

It’s unclear why Google would be calling out a new round of changes, but the messaging indicates that businesses may soon have even less control than before on the positioning of their photo content. This comes at a time when Google frequently features photo content in dynamic search results for specific key terms, which may have something to do with the announcement.

While there isn’t anything you can do to impact it directly, it’s still worth being aware of.