Influencer marketing on TikTok: D2C skate brand Flaneurz explains how it's done

[Dimaeiya333]

D2C detachable skate brand Flaneurz launched a TikTok account for its sister brand Slades in 2020. Since then, @sladesofficial on TikTok has amassed over 200,000 followers and over a dozen videos that have garnered over 1 million views. Some Slades TikTok videos have been viewed over 6 million times, while an influencer video for Slades garnered a whopping 30 million views and 8 million likes. In this interview with Kolsquare, Flaneurz’s Head of Communications Tracy Pakoua discusses the company’s approach to affiliate marketing on TikTok, and why the platform is their top priority for 2023.


What is your approach to TikTok?
We have an account for Slades. The goal is to create one for Flaneurz as well. There are 1.5 billion recurring users on TikTok, it is less and less of a platform to neglect, especially with the launch of TikTok Shop [which facilitates sales directly in the app]. On TikTok, people often act on impulse. It can feed desire very quickly, especially for a young clientele that has a need to fit in.

TikTok is very important for Slades , which is our affordable entry-level product. We see that our videos – even we are surprised because the algorithm is not always easy to understand – get millions of views within 24 hours, which is not possible at all on the other platforms. It has happened to us a few times with Flaneurz, but never with Slades on Instagram. On T vice president software email database ikTok, it’s not that we do much more […] but] we have become influencers and it happens quite regularly.

What quality do those millions of views have?
We've seen spikes on our site overnight, where we've had 600 views during the day and we come back the next morning and there's been 9,000 views thanks to a TikTok video that had a million views. It was instant without it really being driven by a link or specified in the description. People did some research and went straight to the site. The influencer who made this video saw her engagement increase. The video was retweeted by many other big sneaker accounts.

Is it essential to have a brand account before partnering with KOLs for TikTok campaigns?
Our account includes a link to our page in case they need more information. We also create parallel content that is a bit more product-focused [than KOL content], so if they need more information, it’s all there and we’re 100% sure it’s on our page. It’s like we’ve become our own influencer. So it’s cool that we’re the ones going viral. Our [content] has to be fun while also putting the product front and center . It’s a line that has to be balanced. We make sure we’re regularly active on our account.

In the contract we stipulate that we have the right to reuse their content. Usually it is only for a short period of four to six months. We also make internal content where we collaborate with influencers who have longer contracts. Our influencers have to be skaters, we can't go through a modeling agency because they can't skate. It's a limitation, but it's also what gives strength to the project .