”TikTok is just for dancing kids” – or is it? This is why you should start treating it as an incubator for your business rather than just another social media!

How is it possible that a long forgotten rock song from 1977 ends up on the 21st place of the US Billboard Hot 100 in 2020? Or that everybody suddenly starts cooking feta pasta with cherry tomatoes? The answer is TikTok. 

When the pandemic started a year ago and we were all forced to spend more time at home, TikTok soon became a close friend to many of us. With its rapid and entertaining format, TikTok quickly went from a kids app to a place where people from all age groups gathered. Today, the app has close to 1 billions users all over the world.

As a result, TikTok also went from an app mainly used for dancing and lip-syncing to a platform with an array of different videos – with everything from cute videos of kittens to instructions on how to cook the best apple pie or visuals on what kind of exercises you should do at the gym. 

And above all, trends started spreading like wildfire and some videos went viral. Here is just a small selection of the TikTok trends and viral videos that we remember:

1. Cranberry juice and Fleetwood Mac
A man on a skateboard with a jug of cranberry juice in his hand and Dreams by Fleetwood Mac playing in the background. That was it. That was the video that made an old rock song from 1977 go viral 43 years later and end up on the US billboard Hot 100 2020. 

2. The feta cheese and tomato pasta
It’s a really simple dish and yes pasta is really tasty but is it really worth the hype? The TikTok users apparently think it is. On March 1st 2021 #fetapasta had close to 700 million views on the app. And on Instacart feta cheese was the top trending search on the website and the block feta sales had gone up by 117%. 

3. The Amazon tights
Social media has always been very focused on your looks and TikTok is no exception. Especially not when you can go viral by just buying really cheap leggings and record yourself while trying them on. Of course we’re talking about the Amazon tights, a pair of squat proof and bum shaping gym tights from Amazon whose sales skyrocketed after going viral on TikTok.

4. L’oréal Sky High mascara
When we talk about looks and TikTok we can’t forget about the viral L’oréal Sky High mascara. The cheap drug store mascara that promises “big, bombshell eyelashes” and for a price of just 10 dollars. It did not take long before it was sold out everywhere and it can still be difficult to find it.

5. Baby Shark
And last but lot least, the amazing Baby Shark song. The song that blew up in TikTok in 2018 trough the baby shark dance challenge. It’s originally a kids song but that did not stop any of us from humming it to our selfs or listing to it with our friends. The video “Baby Shark Dance” has about 8 billions views on YouTube right now. And all thanks to TikTok. 

So how does this affect you as a business?
Well, notice how many of these viral TikTok trends have managed to spur sales and increase brand awareness by a manyfold in matter of just weeks. In conclusion, don’t dismiss TikTok as ”just another social media for kids and adolescents”. Stay updated on the trends on the app, be quick on your feet and do your own versions of the videos that are going viral, and use TikTok influencers to spred the word about your brand!

That is how you use TikTok as an incubator to grow your business.