The nearer we get to Christmas, the nearer 2021 gets to closing. As customary in annual performance reports, TikTok has recently shared a ‘look back’ at its growing influence as a social platform and as a commerce and marketing channel. TikTok highlighted some of the key brand-lead trends of the year, providing us all with a sort of guide that shows what’s currently working on the platform, which might just compel us to tweak our own TikTok marketing approaches.
Many would agree in saying that 2021 was the year of TikTok. No doubt more brands will also be looking into TikTok’s approach heading into 2022, especially if you consider the fact that, as per App Annie’s estimates, TikTok will likely reach 1.5 billions users next year. If TikTok manages to hit that number, then it effectively becomes the second largest social media platform in the world, and that’s without India, which also bolsters Facebook’s own user count by an additional 349 million.
Big-Tok
TikTok is increasingly becoming a key app of focus for many, entire markets included – which is why this listing of Hashtags and brand hits throughout the year provide a good amount of marketing insight. Starting things off, TikTok notes the growth and influence of its platform as a driver of brand and product awareness. They go on so state that:
“The impact of #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt, the hashtag with 7B+ views, and the movement clearing shelves across the nation, extends far beyond the platform – to bookstores, coffee shops, TV commercials, and everywhere else. When products became beloved by the community, brands continued to show up to amplify these same #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt moments that had the entire community talking and shopping this year.”
TikTok highlights, in particular, Clinique’s ‘Almost Lipstick’, which saw a hug rise when used on the back of TikTok clips, also included is Bissell’s ‘Little Green Machine’, which is basically a portable carpet cleaner that saw massive exposure due to the Hashtag ‘#CleanTok Community’. The same Hashtag now has around 69 million total views, which has, consequently, also doubled its device sales for the year.
Of course, who could forget the #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt movement? The push underlines the rising opportunities of TikTok in many sectors and has even extended beyond the scope of mere memes and dance trends. TikTok is evolving, both content-wise and in its marketing.
TikTok also highlighted, and released as a separate publication, the top products featured on it’s platform this 2021, which included a wide range of food, clothing, and house items.
Smart brands are also paying attention as to the latest shifts on the platform, working to better align with trends once the opportunity presents itself. With an estimated reach increase of up to 1.5 billion people, it only makes sense why most businesses would create their own monitoring process, so as to glean better insight as to what kind of approach would most likely benefit their respective marketing efforts.
Of course TikTok won’t leave out some participatory brand trends (a.k.a Challenges/Craze), with the likes of the #JifRapChallenge, where Jif partnered with Ludacris, coaxing users to share a clip of themselves rapping, while having their mouths stuffed with a spoonful of peanut butter. The challenge also made use of the ‘Duet’ feature to boost engagement rates, which worked to great effect, with videos using the Hashtag having been viewed more than 7.2 billion times.
The Wrap
Certain brands also jumped onto organic trends, with the platform seeing collaborations go as far as the NFL partnering with none other than Emily Zugay for several creative rebranding projects. Zugay, who has her own highly commendable set of design skills and experience, has also worked with the likes of McDonald’s and even Facebook for its big ‘Meta’ rebrand.
From all these examples, we can see just how extensive the potential of TikTok can be, especially if you analyze it based on how much expanded reach and resonance it offers to such campaigns. This is but the tip of the iceberg, and TikTok’s full overview is sure to have loads more information that might just give you those much-needed insights in order to create your most optimal marketing strategy yet.
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