7 Successful Brands on TikTok to Get Inspired From

With more than one billion users and a presence in over 150 countries, TikTok has taken the world by storm. The creative platform has over 800 million monthly active users and was the most downloaded app in the world in 2020. If your brand hasn’t jumped on the biggest trend yet, it’s not too late. There’s no better time to start building a presence on TikTok. Even though the platform looks like a pure waste of time, it turns out to be a powerful tool for brands.

In this article, we’ll show you 7 brands that have made it on TikTok and know exactly how to convince with their content. Get inspired!

1. Netflix 

The streaming service already has more than 15.6 million followers on TikTok. Using diverse content, the brand offers users a constant source of inspiration and encourages likes with skillful videos. There is a good reason why the profile currently registers a total of 244 million likes. The brand presents a mix of entertaining highlights, user-specific content, and funny guest appearances and thus hits the nerve of the platform. As a result, videos like this one become hits and achieve over 44.7 million views. 

2. Gymshark 

Gymshark is another example of a brand that completely figured out TikTok. Through its content strategy, the company has already gathered 3.2 million followers and more than 47 million likes in total. The brand knows the importance of regularity and makes sure to post at least once a day. The content is engaging and motivating at the same time. Gymshark understands very well what is popular on TikTok, what trends excite users, and aligns its brand presence accordingly.

3. Chipotle

Chipotle appears on several TikTok marketing lists, and for good reason. The brand focuses on engagement, especially through their own challenges that are easily accessible. In July, they launched the #GuacDance challenge, which generated over 250,000 video submissions and 430 million views in just six days. The campaign was successful beyond the Internet. Chipotle reported over 800,000 guacs sold on National Guacamole Day. They followed up with a similar promotion on Halloween 2019. The #Boorito campaign offered a $4 burrito to anyone who came to Chipotle in costume on Oct. 31, with influencers @zachking and @dreaknowsbest involved.

If you want to give your target audience a real challenge, do it like Chipotle and make sure it’s easy to deliver, so people really get into it.

4. Washington Post

This newspaper knows how to entertain its nearly one million followers by posting amusing and educational sketches that are usually related to current events. This way, the Washington Post has made it clear on TikTok that print is not dead. It is one of the platform’s most successful brands and already has nearly one million followers and over 40 million likes.

Dave Jorgenson gives the company a face, has quickly gained awareness on social media, and is often named as one of the people to follow in this industry. The newspaper thus creates recognition for their audience and brand continuity in their content.

5. Guess

While it took most brands some time and practice to figure out how to best create content and drive engagement on TikTok, Guess got it right from the start. Their first post promoted their #InMyDenim campaign, where the actors’ outfits quickly transformed from old, raggedy clothes to stylish Guess outfits. Supported by influencers like @ourfire and @madison_willow, the videos with the hashtag were viewed over 42 million times.

6. Crocs

Crocs uses TikTok mainly to showcase their products and announce new releases. The brand has understood how to enter into strategic partnerships and present their products in a different light this way.

The biggest campaign so far was the #ThousandDollarCrocs challenge, which challenged users to make their Crocs as chic as possible. In collaboration with singer Post Malone or YouTuber Adam W, the campaign generated over 2.9 billion video views. Since TikTok is such an outlet for fun and creativity, it can also be a huge benefit for brands not to take themselves too seriously.

7. NBA

Early on, the NBA discovered TikTok for themselves, as evidenced by their more than 12 million followers and nearly 300 million likes. Unlike what you usually see on the league’s Instagram and YouTube channels, the NBA keeps things light on TikTok. They share amusing and motivational content of players on the court and even, for example, a Chihuahua throwing a basketball into the basket during halftime.

Conclusion

As you can see from the wide range of brands, there are few limits to what a brand can do on TikTok. Some brands focus on humor and memes, others try to encourage and motivate users, and still others just want to have fun and dance. Challenges especially are an attractive way to draw attention to a company in a playful, creative way to increase reach and interactions. Considering how much TikTok encourages creativity, it’s up to brands to be creative themselves and give consumers a good reason to engage with them.