Image by Alexander Shatov on Unsplash
By Virginia Amy Scripps
No other social platform has the audience engagement of TikTok. With over 1 billion active users spending hours per day there, it’s no wonder brands are itching to market on this booming platform. Whether it’s Influencer marketing, original content, or paid advertising, brands are jumping into the TikTok fray with mixed results.
TikTok is not an easy platform on which to develop a successful strategy because the most successful shorts often feel very spontaneous and not overly polished. TikTok audiences generally shun traditional ads, so brands need to tap into unconventional thinking in order to capture this fickle viewership’s attention. Anything that can clearly be identified as ‘trying to sell something’ is likely to be rejected in the fast-paced and unpredictable world of TikTok. All challenges aside, the brands who ‘get it’ on this short video platform reap tremendous marketing rewards. Here are a few examples:
Chipotle
(2.2 Million Followers)
Chipotle has gotten creative with how the platform is used for a variety of marketing goals. They have used TikTok for recruitment, garnered hacks for their menu, and even created new menu items drawing from TikTok. In the brand’s own words, “In late 2022, TikTok creator Alexis Frost reviewed a Chipotle STEAK QUESADILLA WITH FAJITA VEGGIES, dubbing it a perfect “10” for her 2.4 million followers. Fellow food critic Keith Lee stitched Alexis’ TikTok with a video of himself sampling the Quesadilla with a DIY vinaigrette hack made by combining Chipotle-Honey Vinaigrette dressing and sour cream. Keith’s coveted 10/10 rating of the “hack” flooded the feeds of his more than 10.7 million followers and the entire platform took notice. In the week following Alexis and Keith’s videos going live, Chipotle saw more than 30.6 million views, 3.7 million likes, 47,200 comments, and 69,500 shares of viral TikTok content about the Steak Quesadilla with Fajita Veggies.”
Steering TikTok users to get involved with the brand and its menu — gaining tremendous amounts of attention and audience appeal — proved a very successful recipe for Chipotle. It’ll be interesting to see what they come up with next on the platform.
WWE
(24.4 Million Followers)
Plenty of viewers tune in each week to WWE’s TV programming. But even more have been drawn to the franchise and its personalities via TikTok marketing that frequently goes viral.
The platform has proved a great place for WWE, even while the brand uses other social media platforms to create matches and start feuds. Tiktok techniques especially successful for WWE are digital exclusives which tell stories and build anticipation for matches on upcoming episodes of WWE shows. For instance, exclusive footage such as well-known players attacking each other after a show has frequently gone viral.
Netflix
(35.5 Million Followers)
Netflix has done a masterful job of using TikTok to revitalize interest in a series and tap into entirely new audiences for past shows. For instance, the series ‘Maid’ exploded in popularity over a year and a half after its initial run on Netflix. The streamer’s tactics promoting the show on TikTok earned Maid its first placement on the Netflix Top 10 long after its first run, all with creative short video content — often featuring series star Margaret Qualley— designed to pique the interest of various distinct audiences whom the show had not originally attracted in its first run. Millions of views on TokTok have clearly driven millions of new viewers on Netflix, which continues to use the platform to this end, breathing new life into not-so-new properties and highlighting compelling stars.
With multiple success stories now in the marketplace, brands can develop promising programs to ‘get it’ on TikTok and achieve engaging, scalable and creative strategy, and — if they are very lucky — go viral on the regular.