Experiences refined for people
In 2024, trends like handing Gen Z your marketing script and being very demure blew up, shaking up industries from fashion to publishing and racking up billions of interactions along the way. TikTok is creating popular culture.
With the highest audience engagement across all social platforms, TikTok’s value goes beyond the numbers. Whether you’re a franchise or a digital marketing agency, it offers unparalleled potential to turn followers into clients.
Our guide covers the latest TikTok trends and advanced strategies and helps you decide if TikTok is right for your brand. You’ll learn how to use the platform’s features and algorithm to build a lasting presence and stand out.
TikTok marketing involves using TikTok to promote your brand, products, or services. It’s about tapping into viral trends strategically—not for the sake of trending, but to reach the right audience and build authentic relationships.
Gen Z uses TikTok to discover products, trends, and recommendations, changing how brands might need to think about their organic and paid search content strategy.
TikTok built its user interface around this search behavior, and even Google is following suit by adding more video responses to search results.
Google merged video content with listed results, a shift from how search engine pages looked a decade ago.
What is Gen Z shopping for on TikTok? Gen Z looks for ideas and inspiration, particularly around lifestyle, self-care, and trends. Brands can benefit from creating authentic, content-rich posts—like tutorials, product demos, or influencer partnerships—focusing on hair, makeup, wellness, and fashion.
While 60% of TikTok’s users are Gen Z, it isn’t just for the young. Even users 55-64 are expected to increase their time on the app by 6.3% by 2025.
Brands can create tailored content that resonates with multiple age groups, expanding reach and increasing the potential for conversions across different demographics.
TikTok’s power to drive sales is already evident—one in five US marketplace buyers made a purchase from TikTok Shop within the first seven months of its launch.
The secret behind TikTok’s success comes down to its highly personalized algorithm. It tailors content based on users’ previous content interactions and personal tastes, giving brands a direct line to a relevant audience likely to purchase.
Women are 9% more likely than men to make a purchase after watching a TikTok video, signaling that brands should consider this when determining their marketing strategy and ad spending.Â
What sets TikTok apart is its raw, unfiltered vibe. People crave authentic, in-the-moment content that feels real—not overly polished or staged. Brands that embrace this spontaneity come across as more genuine, like a friend recommending a product rather than a corporate ad.
TikTok’s discovery-driven model captures attention fast for top-of-funnel awareness. Its trend-focused, real-time nature lets brands engage users during the consideration stage by reacting to cultural moments.Â
At the bottom of the funnel, TikTok’s personalized algorithm drives conversions by delivering content based on user behavior and preferences, turning interest into action.
With engagement rates four to 15 times higher than other platforms, TikTok offers brands a unique opportunity to join real-time cultural conversations, respond to trends, and connect with audiences in the moment.
How can marketers keep up with TikTok’s unique user behavior?
“TikTok marketing offers a refreshing departure from the traditional customer journey, where users are guided through a linear path from awareness to purchase. On TikTok, users enjoy a more fluid and spontaneous experience, engaging with content in various ways. This non-linear journey requires you to be more agile and responsive.Â
To succeed, you need to create content that captures attention, sparks interest, and inspires action within a few seconds. By staying on top of trends and participating in popular challenges, you can stay connected with TikTok’s dynamic audience and continue building positive engagement.”
Before you can have your Gen Z employee edit your next video, you’ll need to open up your TikTok for Business account. Business Accounts unlock features designed for marketers, including TikTok’s Commercial Music Library, the Business Center, and advertising features.
Here’s how to do it:
TikTok offers additional instructions for those wishing to switch to a TikTok Business Account from the web.
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With competitors vying for a piece of the short viral video market pie and new features constantly rolling out, TikTok is where trends are born, and brands can flourish.
Your TikTok profile is your brand’s first impression, a chance to show off your personality and pull in new followers.
Here are simple tips to optimize it to stand out and drive engagement:
@socialmediadelsa Replying to @rashidaschmidt @socialmediadelsa 🔎 Writing the perfect bio is not going to make or break whether someone follows you or not, however, it plays a really big role whether or not people are going to binge watch your content. With optimizing your TikTok profile there are several things that matter, that are all a part of your content strategy (if you do not have a Content strategy send me a message!) let me help you optimize your profile! #thingstoputinyourbio#optimizeyourbio#tiktokpagesetup#howtowriteabio#brandstrategyadvice#creatortipsandtricks#tiktokstrategist#brandingtips#tiktoktipsforsuccess#tiktokgrowthtips
Success comes down to knowing your audience’s preferences. Your content needs to reflect what they want to see—not just what’s trending.
“Earlier this year, we knew as a brand we needed to be on TikTok, not because TikTok is the trending platform, but because we knew our consumers are there.”
The key is developing audience personas—data-driven profiles of your ideal customers and where they hang out. This helps you pinpoint:
Let’s say you’re after Midwest craft beer lovers. Instead of rolling out boring ads that exclaim, “Try our new beer—refreshing and delicious!” you’re creating content that spotlights local breweries, quirky flavors, and the community vibe this audience cares about.
To nail down those personas, though, you need good data. Here’s how to find it:
TikTok includes a host of advanced insight features:
You can also refine your audience with more specific filters like interests and behaviors. Narrow down by video interactions (watched till the end, liked, commented), specific creators, or hashtag engagement (e.g., #craftbeer).
Combine your insights with intelligence reports like KORTX Intelligence or data from Nielsen or Gartner specific to your target audience.
These resources help you dig deep into behavior patterns (platforms, their shopping habits, etc), cross-channel engagement (how users engage across your entire brand), and lookalike audiences (audience segments that resemble your TikTok followers but haven’t yet engaged).
For the Midwest craft brew persona, KORTX Intelligence research might reveal they attend beer festivals, follow beer blogs, or prefer certain brands—broadening your insights beyond TikTok.
Google Analytics allows you to use TikTok’s Pixel to track how users interact with your website, revealing behaviors beyond TikTok and showing how they move through your sales funnel.
Platforms like Sprout Social or Brandwatch can track broader social media conversations around craft beer, providing insights into platform trends and sentiments.
Go straight to the source to get firsthand insights:
For a Midwest craft brew persona, run a TikTok poll asking followers if they prefer brewery tours, beer reviews, or brewer interviews. Adjust your content strategy based on their preferences.
After gathering data, synthesize it into detailed personas. Let’s see this in practice using an example of how TikTok Analytics and KORTX Intelligence can be combined to provide a detailed, data-driven persona of Midwest craft beer lovers.
🌎 Demographic Overview
đź’ˇ What this means: Emphasize regional pride and local connections in your TikTok content to resonate with the Midwest craft beer audience.
đź“ş Behavioral Characteristics
đź’ˇ What this means: Use TikTok challenges and UGC to encourage festival-goers and beer enthusiasts to share their experiences and engage with your brand.
🍺 Motivations & Preferences
💡 What this means: Highlight the artisanal and innovative aspects of your brewing process in TikTok videos to appeal to craft beer lovers’ preference for quality and local craftsmanship.
🙅🏽‍♂️ Challenges & Turn-Offs
đź’ˇ What this means: Focus on authentic, transparent content that showcases your brewing process and values, avoiding overtly sales-driven messaging on TikTok.
KORTX Intelligence goes beyond TikTok’s basic analytics for smarter targeting and authentic engagement so you can outperform your competition.
Quality content is necessary to capture your audience and keep them engaged on TikTok. But what makes content “quality” on a platform driven by trends and short videos?Â
Being strategic, relevant, and authentic in your content.
You must understand how the platform’s algorithm works to succeed on TikTok because it determines the visibility and reach of your content. While there’s no foolproof way to “hack” it, the best approach is to immerse yourself in the TikTok community.
Meander to the For You page, which curates content based on your interactions, followed accounts, hashtags, and location. By interacting with content (liking, commenting, following), you can train TikTok’s algorithm to push relevant trends, keeping you agile and in tune with what’s performing well.
Finally, check out the search bar. Here, you’ll discover users related to your search, trending videos, sounds, Live videos, and hashtags. Just type in a search term and press Search. TikTok will feed you content related to the search.
For example, if you’re a digital marketer, you might want to follow other digital marketers and agencies to see what content they create.
As you can see, TikTok feeds you with all of the trending digital marketing content so you can stay on top of what’s hot and not and what others are searching for.
The more you engage with industry-specific videos and popular creators, the better insights you’ll gain on which content types and formats resonate with your target audience.
đź’ˇ KORTX Quick Tip: Use a research-only account.
By using a research-only TikTok account, you can monitor trends, study competitors, and gather insights without affecting your personal or brand algorithm.
TikTok is about variety. Some viewers may love quick tips, while others prefer behind-the-scenes glimpses of your brand.Â
Experiment with different types of videos to see what resonates best with your viewers like educational and entertaining content.
TikTok’s Ads Symphony Assistant helps you stay aware of trends, generate content ideas, and write scripts. It helps you align with what’s performing well.
This is why audience research is invaluable. By knowing who your viewers are, what they care about, and how they engage with content, you can craft videos that speak directly to their interests and capture their attention.
Like ChatGPT but for TikTok, Symphony Assistant delivers applicable recommendations to boost your organic and paid content strategies.
đź’ˇ KORTX Quick Tip: Incorporate live video into your strategy.
Live video is a vital part of a strong TikTok strategy. It’s perfect for showcasing product launches, exclusive offers, or behind-the-scenes happenings to boost interaction and conversions.
Successful TikTok videos follow a clear, concise structure:
TikTok recommends keeping videos between 21-34 seconds for maximum engagement. Short-form content performs best when it’s concise, providing quick value while maintaining the viewer’s attention.Â
Avoid lengthy introductions—get straight to the point to hold attention from start to finish.
TikTok users love content that conveys a sense of urgency, especially when tied to time-sensitive offers or limited product releases. Quick cuts, trending audio, and time-based offers can drive fast-paced engagement.Â
This strategy works great for car dealership ads or countdowns. Even if you’re not running a promotion, you can use urgency to create excitement around your brand, similar to fast-paced car dealership ads or countdowns.
@williamsautogroup We’re just rolling with these crazy trends… 🤷‍♀️ #Stretcher #RollingOffStretcher #RollingIntoSavings #RollingIntoSpring #SpringSavings #Dealership #DealershipTikTok #CarDealership #CarSalesman #HesOkay #RollIntoANewCar
đź’ˇ KORTX Quick Tip: Quality is greater than quantity, always.
Quality content on TikTok uses trends not because they’re trendy but because they align with what your audience wants to see.
To hit your target audience, choose an ad format most relevant to your TikTok marketing goals.
Each format serves a unique purpose, helping brands engage users in creative ways:
đź’ˇ KORTX Quick Tip: Always include a strong CTA.
Regardless of your chosen format, always include a clear call to action (CTA) that directs users to their next step—whether it’s to visit your website, make a purchase, or engage with your content.
Use TikTok’s Custom Audiences to retarget users who’ve interacted with your brand through video views, ad clicks, or website visits. Tailored content boosts the chances of conversion.
Split test different formats, creatives, copy, and CTAs to see what works best. This helps you fine-tune campaigns for higher engagement and conversions.
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TikTok’s Creator Rewards Program now incentivizes content that aligns with search trends. By understanding how users search and optimizing your content accordingly, you can improve both organic reach and paid performance.
Even though TikTok isn’t a traditional search engine, SEO principles still apply. If specific keywords or video formats perform well on Google or YouTube, they’ll often perform well on TikTok.Â
“Google has already done billions of dollars of research on customer intent. Leverage that data to inform your TikTok strategy.”
Since TikTok is becoming a popular search tool, here’s how you can make the most of it:
Cross-platform SEO insights can also refine your TikTok ads. Using these insights helps you tailor tried-and-true content to TikTok and reach the best audience for your brand with minimal risk.
💡 KORTX Quick Tip: Use Google’s Vision API.
Add tags in Google image searches to your TikTok thumbnails and ad creatives to improve visibility.
Authenticity breeds trust, and users are more likely to engage with and trust recommendations when the content feels real. This translates directly into purchase behavior, with 87% of US consumers open to brand-sponsored influencer content, particularly when it feels genuine.
Partnering with influencers lets your brand connect with engaged audiences through personal content like product placements or viral challenges. The key is finding influencers whose voices and values align with your brand for authentic collaborations.
Micro-influencers (2,000 to 100,000 followers) are becoming more popular due to their high engagement rates with niche audiences at a more affordable price. With smaller, loyal followings, they achieve a 157.1% affiliate view rate on TikTok, surpassing Instagram’s 66.9%.
A report by Influence.co reveals that micro-influencers with 2,000 to 100,000 followers charge approximately $137 to $258 per Instagram post. Prices rise to $1,000 or more for influencer posts with over 100,000 followers.
Example: Tom’s of Maine
@thegarbagequeen #Ad #TomsOfMainePartner Do Good. For Real. With @TomsOfMaine ✨ Doing good isn’t a trend for Tom’s of Maine. They’ve been doing it since they were founded in 1970, and it’s one of the many reasons why they are a Certified B-Corp. Every year Tom’s of Maine donates 10% of their annual profits through their Giving For Goodness Program to organizations working on addressing social and environmental issues, and that has inspired me to show you a few ways I help do the same in my own community. Let me know in the comments how you’re giving back this season, and don’t forget to support Tom’s of Maine! Link to their 2022 Goodness Report in my bio as well! #TomsOfMaine #SeasonOfGiving #GivingForGoodness
In a bid to enhance social media engagement, Tom’s of Maine launched an influencer campaign featuring everyday people with 500 to 5,000 followers who truly connected with their audiences. The result was a 600% increase in consumer interactions, with over 6,000 engagements for every 1,000 micro-influencers involved.
Chase Dimond, owner of Structured, an ecommerce email marketing agency, created this chart to outline the differences between the two.
What is the difference between influencer marketing and affiliate marketing?
“From a business perspective, influencer marketing is more about building brand awareness by paying for endorsements from popular creators, with fewer formal guidelines, while affiliate marketing focuses on driving sales through commission-based promotions, operating within a more defined, platform-sanctioned framework.”
TikTok offers three different affiliate marketing options:
To boost your reach, consider combining both influencer marketing and affiliate marketing. Micro-influencers can provide deep engagement in niche markets, while affiliate marketing provides a direct path to sales by incentivizing creators with commissions.
As TikTok cements its role as a major discovery platform, marketing teams are under growing pressure to prove ROI for every dollar spent, making it crucial to track metrics from awareness to conversions.
At Advertising Week New York 2024, the primary focus was on measurement, stressing the need for marketing teams to present results clearly to financial stakeholders, even for upper-funnel strategies like brand awareness.
“Whenever we onboard clients, always the first question is about measurement and how do we really track if TikTok is a channel that’s giving us success. We always recommend people have a post-purchase survey. It’s always important to have first- and third-party attribution measuring so you can get a whole real clear picture about your brand and really understand your MER (Marketing Efficiency Ratio), from a really digestible piece. Believe it or not, TikTok is a conversion-based platform and we’ve seen success across countless clients on this platform.”
On TikTok, user behavior is shaped by immersive video content, not direct clicks. As a result, traditional click-based attribution models miss the mark. In fact, 79% of purchases driven by TikTok aren’t captured by last-click attribution models.
Key challenges on TikTok are due to:
Metrics like impressions, reach, engagement, and follower growth are important, but you must pair them with deeper insights like conversions and return on ad spend (ROAS). For retail advertisers, TikTok’s ROAS is 2X higher than other media channels, making it a key metric for demonstrating campaign success to financial stakeholders.
Adopting Multi-Touch Attribution (MTA) and Media Mix Modeling (MMM) gives a clearer view of how TikTok ads contribute to conversions and ROI. MTA credits multiple touchpoints, revealing effective channels, while MMM shows how TikTok interacts with other media.
Incrementality testing measures the uplift in conversions from your ads, revealing TikTok’s true influence on customer behavior.
TikTok’s Unified Lift tool helps evaluate this by comparing exposed and control groups to determine if the media spending caused the desired outcomes.
When you hire a specialist who understands the platform’s audience and content style, you’ll have a better chance at success. To find the right partner:
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With TikTok’s immense reach and creative potential, now is the time to build a presence that sets your brand apart. Whether you’re looking to drive awareness, increase engagement, or convert followers into customers, TikTok offers the tools you need to succeed.
If TikTok’s frenetic, revolving trends have felt overwhelming, don’t let that hold you back—jump in, test, and refine your strategy. TikTok’s unique ability to deliver strong results means it’s a channel you can’t afford to ignore.
Don’t have the time or expertise to master TikTok marketing? We’ll handle everything from strategy to execution.
Josh Pheneger is an Account Manager at KORTX. He likes to play golf, explore the city, and spend time in coffee shops.
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