I don’t know about you, but until lockdown, I did not use TikTok at all! Then, like the rest of the world, I took to TikTok to cure my (many) episodes of boredom. However, back in 2020, TikTok consisted mainly of dances and funny role plays to entertain ourselves and those watching.
The COVID-19 pandemic allowed TikTok to expand until it officially set its own record of the most downloads for a social media app in a quarter, with a solid 315 million, according to Insider. Since then, TikTok has continued to snowball with its viral trends and sounds, and many people have taken a new career path as TikTok influencers since lockdown.
For example, Addison Rae, an American TikTok star, first joined the app in 2019, where she began posting dances and since then has released her own make-up brand, appeared on an episode of ‘Keeping Up With The Kardashians’, and even starred in a remake of the movie “She’s All That” which appeared on Netflix in 2021.
Fast Forward to 2023, and TikTok has expanded to not only a social media platform which allows you to show off the goofier side to yourself but to a place to look for advice, shop, and market your brand.
Approximately 49% of users have admitted to purchasing a branded product after seeing it appear on their ‘For You’ page on TikTok, according to SproutSocial. TikTok shop is a new innovative shopping feature on the app which allows brands and influencers to showcase and sell products straight from their TikTok feed. It offers discounted prices on everything from make-up to appliances for your household. It even offers users time-limited coupons to add to their baskets!
So, is TikTok becoming the new best platform for marketing brands? Well, according to SproutSocial, the social media platform is looking to gain 9.6 million buyers if it stays on track this year, which will place TikTok just below Facebook and Instagram in the ‘Top Social Commerce Platforms (2023)’.
If you’re looking for a new way to market your brand, TikTok is definitely the way forward, with its higher chances of going viral and influencer marketing. Contrary to Instagram, the TikTok algorithm allows users to discover new and unique content as opposed to just content from those that they follow.
TikTok has the luxury of both with their two separate fields, ‘following’ and ‘for you’. As a result, it allows brands to reach more people than just their target audiences, which will in turn increase their chances of making a sale.
If I was starting my own brand now, I would definitely focus a lot of my marketing efforts on TikTok!
Jess Jones
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