Seeing famous TikTok marketing examples is one of the effective ways to inspire your TikTok marketing strategy. With the app recently surpassing one billion users, you have a one-in-eight chance of being a member. TikTok only had 55 million users in January 2018, so this is some impressive growth.
With a $140 billion valuation, its parent company, ByteDance, has become the world’s second-largest “unicorn” company as of April 2021. So it’s obviously a big deal.
Despite this, brands are only now realizing the power of TikTok marketing. Think TikTok is all weird dance moves and teenagers waxing lyrical about “classic rock bands” like Oasis and My Chemical Romance? Think again.
It’s much more complicated than that. So sit back and allow us to show you four fantastic TikTok marketing examples.
Jaw-Dropping TikTok Marketing: The 4 Best Examples
TikTok Marketing Examples #1: Duolingo
What should you do if your company’s mascot develops a reputation for evil?
Most companies would quietly dismiss it. Like when McDonald’s fired Ronald after a string of creepy clown sightings in 2016. Duolingo took a different route.
Due to his somewhat persistent approach, Duo the Owl, the language learning platform’s avian mascot, became a meme. The idea was simple: if you don’t keep up with your lessons, this owl will murder you.
While that may not appear to be a recipe for marketing success, Duolingo decided to go for it—and TikTok was the ideal platform.
TikTok users enjoy funny, irreverent content, and videos of a giant green owl twerking to Adele, chasing people who use Google Translate, and calling Dua Lipa “mommy” fit the bill:
Given the thousands of articles and explainers written in recent weeks about Duolingo’s TikTok marketing strategy, you’d think the company had been doing it for years.
In reality, Duo the Owl only recently began appearing regularly in TikTok marketing.
Previously, its content was much more educational, focusing on interesting factoids and useful information about various languages. Very worthy, but nowhere near as entertaining as an anthropomorphic owl’s antics.
Duolingo social media manager Zaria Parvez explained to NBC News the thinking behind the brand’s strategic shift:
Our mascot is sitting right next to the marketing team, and we thought, ‘Maybe there’s something here.’ The meme of Duo has been known to be persistent and pushy … and we asked ourselves, ‘How could we make it relatable to ordinary people but also make it super funny?
That is a critical point.
Duo’s TikTok persona isn’t a bloodthirsty killer out to force you to learn Spanish; he chases people but never uses a knife or physically harms anyone.
He’s just plain entertaining—and funny.
Clearly, the new strategy is working. On TikTok, the hashtag #duolingo has nearly 280 million views, while #duolingobird has six million.
TikTok Marketing Example #2: Fenty Beauty
We’ve already mentioned how challenges have long been a popular trend on TikTok. However, they are not the only type of content on the platform with enormous viral potential.
The humble video tutorial, in which brands and influencers show us how to do something, is another format that consistently delivers results.
Naturally, some brands (and industries) respond better to this type of content than others.
It definitely works in the makeup industry, as evidenced by the popularity of TikTok hashtags like #makeuptips and #beautyhacks, which have 2.6 billion and 10.7 billion views, respectively.
Fenty Beauty has prioritized tutorial content in its TikTok marketing strategy, providing practical walkthroughs on topics such as how to fix winged eyeliner and contour a round face:
However, the tutorial trend can be applied to other industries as well. Hardware stores can demonstrate how to paint a wall or construct a shelving unit, while fashion brands can demonstrate how to put together an on-trend outfit.
Perhaps Sleeknote will begin using TikTok to demonstrate how to create high-performing popups.
But they’re not doing any dancing.
Example #3: The NBA
Sport can take itself a little too seriously at times.
Sure, we all enjoy watching people kick or throw a ball around, but it’s not a life or death situation.
If you’ve ever spent any time scouring Reddit or Twitter during a big game, you’d think it was the most important thing that had ever happened.
And the stats… oh, the endless the stats.
Fortunately, the NBA has recognized that sports can be enjoyable. That’s a big part of its TikTok marketing, which is light on statistics and heavy on exciting—and frequently hilarious—videos.
This is a good example, with the bench reacting to some incredible skill from Golden State Warriors star Andrew Wiggins:
On TikTok, the basketball league has 13.8 million followers and over 330 million likes.
The NBA, like Chipotle, was one of the few brands that placed large bets on TikTok prior to its recent growth surge. It actually began using Musical.ly, the platform’s predecessor, in 2016.
As a result, it hasn’t had much of a roadmap to follow, so its TikTok content strategy has been trial and error. That is not, however, the same as guesswork.
The NBA has become obsessed with data, crunching numbers to determine which posts are most popular with its audience (and why).
According to Sports Illustrated’s Bob Carney, the league’s senior vice president of digital and social content:
Any content that involved music or dancing, or any sort of fun moment surrounding our game, we sort of used that content for two years to gain success. We have a data strategy team that we work with every minute of every day, obsessing over every post on every platform.
Example #4: Converse
If you listen to popular music as much as I do, you’ll notice that an increasing number of hit songs are collaborations between two or more acts.
According to Economist data, from 1960 to the mid-1990s, collaborations accounted for less than 10% of songs on the US Billboard Hot 100. By 2017, this figure had risen to around 35%.
What’s the point of telling you this?
Because the same thing is happening in the marketing world.
Today, brands enjoy collaborating with influencers (and even other brands) in order to broaden their reach and raise awareness.
This brings us neatly to Converse, which almost exclusively uses TikTok to showcase influencer partnerships.
When you visit the brand’s TikTok page, the bio reads: “Here to collab.”
Because it is highly visual, TikTok is an excellent platform for hosting these collaborations. After all, if you’re going to pay an influencer to show off how amazing your products are, your audience should be able to see them using them.
Conclusion
To summarize, TikTok is not a place to recycle content you’ve already shared on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. There’s no reason you shouldn’t see results if you have the resources to create content that’s tailored to the platform.
Want to know how to find the best hashtags for Tiktok? Find out more here.