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ASSIGNMENT 1 | CLIENT PROFILE; GETTING STARTED

Note: Start this assignment AFTER your group has selected your client (see separate
document for your choices).
Congratulations! You have been hired as the new PR team for your client. Start by becoming
familiar with your client, its operations, strategy and stakeholders. This worksheet should be
completed in your client teams. Keep adding to it even after turning in the assignment – fully
developing this information will help you be successful in your final project deliverables.
1. Company Profile
● Full, official name of organization :
o Tik Tok
● Ownership: public or private, investors, owners, nonprofit or commercial, state
or country of corporate registration.
o Private
● Market or niche: in what industry does your client operate?
o Entertainment market
● Mission and business: purpose of company (what do they do, make, sell and
offer)
o They are an application/website for people to create short videos
● Leadership:
o CEO = Kevin A Mayer and Zhang Yiming
o CFO – Julie Gao
o COO -Vanessa Pappas
o CMO – Nick Tran
o Head of HR- Nicky Raghavan
● Use your judgment: any additional facts your team might need
o TikTok has become one of the most widely used social media platforms
across the world
o It has become so popular due to its For You Page which circles people’s
videos based on an algorithm that the application believes best suits the
poster and viewer.
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ASSIGNMENT 1 | CLIENT PROFILE; GETTING STARTED

1. Stakeholders, Audiences, and Publics
● Internal (employees, vendors, Board of Directors)
o Employees
o Managers
o Sponsors
External (customers, donors, legislators, influencers, media)
o Customers – users
o Influencers
o Media

2. Business Strategy
● Operating Regions: Where specifically does your client perform its services, sell its
products or otherwise engage with stakeholders?
o Tik Tok is a global media platform. They reach they entire world via their
online application.
● List of products, services, other that your client provides
o Tik tok provides their users with a personal experience that allows them to
create, share, and discover short videos. They are able to express themselves
through singing, dancing, comedy, lip-syncing, and so much more.
● Populations served:
o Ages 13-60
● Financial goals:
o Utilize sponsorships to help generate revenue
o Ad revenue and in app gift purchases
● Corporate organization (list of business divisions and key functional departments)
o The six business units- TikTok, Douyin- the Chinese version of TikTok, video
game publishing studio Nuverse, work collaboration tool Lark, business
services division BytePlus and education app Dali Education.
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ASSIGNMENT 1 | CLIENT PROFILE; GETTING STARTED

4. Influencers
● News Media
o Daily newspapers
o The Washington Post, New York Time, LA Times, The Dallas
Morning News, Newsday
o Broadcast news stations
o The Daily Mail, Some Good News, USA Today, MSNBC, Fox
o Business news
o Bloomberg, Business Insider, Forbes, Wall Street Journal, CNN
Business
o Trade or specialty publications covering your sector
o Social Media Today
o Community newspapers/blogs
o USA Today, New York Post, New York Time, LA Times, Star
Tribune, Huffpost
o Bloggers, social media influencers, digital communities
o Charli D’Amelio, Emily Mariko, Reyha Mete, Addison Rae, Remi
Bader
● Political Influencers
o Rachel Maddow, Dana White, Sean Hannity, Amelie Zibler
● Identify political figures who might be instrumental in affecting your client
through local support or legislation (find at least three of the below).
o Regulators- Oracle, ByteDance, President (can impose fines or ban)

Items 5 and 6 can wait until class next week if you would like help in class. Please note if you
are waiting for that help.

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ASSIGNMENT 1 | CLIENT PROFILE; GETTING STARTED

5. Define your client’s major publics (10 key publics with whom your client might
have/develop a relationship that might require PR activities).
● For each public, what do you want to achieve as a result of public relations
efforts?
o User: Engaging with content that they relate to/enjoy, from creating
videos to watching videos
o Sponsors/Advertisers: Each advertisement reaches the audience that it
should be reaching
o Influencers: Want to reach the intended audience of who is interested in
what you are influencing (also possible promotions)
o Creators: Create videos that they enjoy and to find inspiration for their
creations from their following/for you pages
o Oracle (parent company): To make more money and exposure
o Byte Dance (parent company): To make more money and exposure
o Viewers : Watch videos that they would enjoy and can relate to
o Teenagers: Entertainment and promotion of the app
o Adults: A higher number of adults engaging with TikTok for entertainment
purposes
o Children: Make sure that TikTok can be a safe and educational space for
younger children
● Why would your client want to conduct a campaign with this group?
o My client would want to conduct a campaign with
▪ The user: To get more people to want to use the app and publicize it
▪ Sponsors/Advertisers: To make money
▪ Influencers: Will bring attention to Tik Tok
▪ Creators: To create more engagement and bring attention to TikTok
▪ Oracle (parent company): Want employers to be aware of what is
happening in the company
▪ Byte Dance (parent company): Want employers to be aware of what
is happening in the company

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▪ Viewers: Try to encourage them to make content and continue to
use Tik Tok
▪ Teenagers: To spread the word and gain more users, influencers,
creators and viewers
▪ Adults: To encourage adults to use the app and encoruage their kids
to use it too
▪ Children: To become users, creators and viewers
● Which type of media would be effective in reaching this public?
o Using other social media platforms to post news updates
o Reaching out to magazine outlets, blogs, etc. within demographic group to
cover features on TikTok

6. Identify five ways that you believe you could effectively reach each public
● Specify the names of any publications/stations and the section/programming
unit
o BuzzFeed
o TMZ
o Vogue
o Mashable
o Seventeen Magazine
o Cosmopolitan
o People
o US Weekly
● Specify any social media platforms/groups
o Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Snapchat
● Specify other channels
o Newspapers, Blogs, Magazines, Vlogs, Word of Mouth

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ASSIGNMENT 1 | CLIENT PROFILE; GETTING STARTED

7. List your company’s three top competitors
1. YouTube
2. Instagram - Reels
3. Snapchat - Spotlight