As young travellers continue leading the tourism recovery wave, it is more important now than ever for businesses to pivot to digital marketing channels that can directly reach this specific demographic. Namely,
TikTok is one of such social media platforms that can allow travel trade players to tap into this market segment.
NTUC LearningHub (NTUC LHUB), one of Singapore's largest course provider, and TikTok have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to collaborate on training and upskilling 1,500 micro-businesses and freelancers across all sectors in Singapore over the next three years.
Under this new partnership, NTUC LHUB and TikTok seeks to help SMEs and self-employed persons connect with audiences through programmes that focuses on creating engaging social media content creation and trends via TikTok to further drive business.
From left to right: Director of Infocomm Technology at NTUC LearningHub, Anthony Chew (signatory), CEO at NTUC LearningHub, Jeremy Ong (witness), and Head of Brand Partnerships for SEA at TikTok, David Jay Gomez (signatory). Photo Credit: NTUC LearningHub/ TikTok
New age platforms like TikTok, which has exceeded 240 million users in Southeast Asia alone, may become a promising tool for marketing travel experiences to Gen Zs and younger millennials.
It has certainly been a success for Delta Air Lines which launched a marketing campaign last year on TikTok, asking users to post a short video on their most memorable travel experience and tag the post with #FavouriteTripChallengeHashtag. TikTok reported that within the first 36 hours, the campaign garnered over 19.5 million views, effectively skyrocketing its business reach and brand awareness.
There is much marketing potential to be unlocked in the Southeast Asia region with TikTok, according to TikTok’s head of brand partnerships for SEA, David Jay Gomez who is “witnessing an increase in small businesses across Southeast Asia leveraging our platform to drive tangible impact”.
“In Singapore, we have seen businesses on TikTok enjoy success as they fully embrace the creativity and authenticity of our platform to engage new audiences,” he says, “and we are deeply committed to using our platform to educate and equip our community with the relevant skills and training as they navigate the ever-evolving business landscape.”
As part of the initiative, NTUC LHUB will work alongside TikTok on developing a suite of courses that empower content creators to grow their brand presence on social media platforms.
For a start, NTUC LHUB will begin running the TikTok-endorsed ‘Design Thinking for Social Media’ course in March 2022, which has already received strong interest from content creators. The two-day course leverages design thinking concepts for social media content creation.