Home Tours Go Viral
Dancing, lip-syncing and selling apartments.
It can only be Tik Tok.
The astonishingly popular video sharing social network has kick-started many trends – singing Fleetwood Mac’s Dreams while drinking cranberry juice, dancing to The Weeknd and singing sea shanties – to the point that influencers have been earning millions from their contributions to the app.
Gradually, the phenomenon has transcended marketing, with brands understandably eager to capitalise on its reach of 800 million active users.
But can something that seems to be primarily used for fast-boarding to viral fame succeed with more earnest motivations?
London-based developer Avanton certainly thinks so, having teamed up with property agent Corban Group to share tours of their apartments on Tik Tok, set to catchy pop songs!
While some developers may be a bit wary of deviating from tried and tested marketing avenues for a very youth-centric trend, the strategy seems to be working, with the partnership’s account reaching over five million people and having received multiple genuine enquiries about their Coda development as a result.
The genius of the risk is perhaps built upon the fact that is a rare opportunity to tread new ground. Facebook, Instagram and Twitter are all busy marketplaces for developers. Tik Tok is very much today’s social media, appealing to the sensibilities of a younger audience, giving Avanton the opportunity to sell to an untapped market of young first-time buyers in the city.
Avanton has essentially got on at the ground floor of the fastest growing social media network of all time, with a quarter of users aged between 20 and 29 years old.
The 60 second limit on videos is perfect for young professionals on the go, who do not want to take the time reading or writing lengthy posts on Facebook or even Twitter.
Avanton previously cashed in on the influence held by social media celebrities over millennials, by running a ‘celebrity test drive’ of Coda, signalling a new era of property marketing.
Toby Albert-Corban, founder of Corban Group, began posting property tours on Tik Tok during the first lockdown, basing the idea off his experience with US-style marketing gained from living and working stateside for ten years.
The idea is clearly paying off for Avanton Group, who have gained significant mainstream press for the innovation. David Ronson, Sales and Marketing Director at Avanton, stressed that social media content wouldn’t replace traditional marketing but “it is important for the property industry to react to new platforms.”
It will be interesting to see how many other developers follow Avanton’s lead and use platforms such as Tik Tok to appeal to a particular profile of buyer, not to mention who will be the first CEO to lip-sync Madness’s Our House while showing followers around their latest development!
