The battle of trends: How TikTok helps small businesses grow

The COVID-19 pandemic managed to bring down the economy of corporate giants like Debenhams and Topshop alike, while the small business community; now a TikTok trend, has been thriving.

According to BusinessofApps, TikTok, a short-form video application, was named the fastest growing social media platform of all time and since 2017 had around six billion lifetime downloads.

Owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, the application currently has around 800 million global active users ranging from teens to grandparents and a revenue of $1 billion. The app’s popularity and ability to “blow up” any video in just a few hours is what drives so many small business owners to use it as an advertisement technique.

Orlagh Tracey is the founder of @_xetherealrose. She launched her small handmade jewellery businesses in the middle of February and has reached over 35,000 TikTok followers by April. Orlagh says that she initially planned to market her products on Instagram, like most small businesses do, but changed her mind soon after her first video went viral.

“As the views started increasing - so did the following and I realised that TikTok was much better for my business than Instagram, because it met my target demographic,” she says, adding that the majority of her sales come through the application.

Besides a forum where small businesses can reach their target audience at maximum speed and easily communicate with it, TikTok is built like a community.

The #supportsmallbusinesses reached 1.7 billion views and started an online trend where small business owners and potential buyers purchase from other small businesses and post their reviews on the platform.

A video following this trend brought Orlagh’s business recognition and helped her earn 22 sales in just 24 hours.

Hashtags such as #smallbusiness (23.7 billion views) and #smallbusinesscheck (8.5 billion) share stories of success and support.

“I was amazed to see all the young entrepreneurs who have started their own business on the app,” @frogleuk owner Amaya MacDonald says.

At just 13, Amaya owns an online bubble tea kits store which she also launched in February and has already noticed more progress than she initially expected it would receive.

When hearing such stories, it is difficult to imagine that a decade ago teens were opening lemon stands and organising garage sales to earn some pocket money. With over 16,000 followers, Amaya’s business targets a niche of bubble tea fans who have been craving for the beverage during lockdown.

“As a teen, I really like using Tiktok,” Amaya explains, “and I knew there was potential.”

At the start of the 21st century when social media sites like Facebook and LinkedIn started to gain popularity, many businesses also created profiles to market their products. By 2006 Facebook had already introduced monetized ad services and soon Twitter, Instagram, and even TikTok were following in its footsteps.

Small business owner and marketing specialist Alexandra Linares compares why TikTok is now replacing what Instagram used to be for many small businesses: “Instagram’s algorithm is weak. When you post something, your family and friends will see it but your options are limited. On TikTok you have a bigger chance.”

Business and brand consultant Keenya Kelly explains that TikTok marketing is so appealing to small business owners because of its ability to reach an “organic audience” (people who see your post without paid distribution).

In fact, TikTok’s algorithm is so good it is “beyond what all other social media platforms allow at this point” Keenya adds.

So, with that in mind, how does TikTok marketing actually work?

According to Keenya, it is closely related to influencer marketing where people join a platform and “through creativity market [their] product using the culture of TikTok” which at the moment evolves around trends.

Both Amaya and Alexandra, for example, noticed their accounts blow up after they posted a video following the packaging trend showing how they package their orders before shipping them out.

“I had a video that got around one million views … that got me over 2,000 visitors in just 24 hours onto my website. I got 20 orders with the average value of £33, which is quite high for me,” Alexandra explains who launched her pink vegan clay mask business @vebaut in November last year.

“In the first five minutes since my video went viral, I got around 10 orders which was mind blowing,” Amaya adds.

Orlagh, however, mentions that her sales heavily depend on her account’s activity on the platform.

“It's not really the viral videos for me that increase my sales – it’s when I go live on the app,” she says adding that in TikTok marketing there is a fine line between your business and you as an individual.

“It's gone from business to personal … and that's not really what I signed up for, but I guess people are being nice, so I go with it.”

“The community has been growing intensively, no only in the UK, but worldwide too,” Alexandra gushes, “Small businesses are already getting a lot of support from TikTok, like the feature I spoke about previously.”

Alexandra explains that TikTok UK selected 10 small businesses in the country to trial a new “shop now” feature which will allow potential customers to purchase products from small businesses without having to leave the application itself.

“TikTok doesn't think about money the way Instagram does - they think of the community, which is so hard to maintain on other apps,” she adds.

According to the TikTok For Business website, the application itself provides small businesses with resources and tips on how to gain the audience they would need to in order to thrive.

As more people get the confidence to launch their own business, could the business to consumer ratio become unbalanced?

Keenya mentions that if the small business boom on TikTok will keep growing, the social media application could potentially become similar to Instagram.

“We do not want to have TikTok turn into the second Instagram and fill it all up with ads. It will make the platform overrated,” Alexandra says adding that TikTok has native advertisements meaning people usually do not know they are being advertised to, unlike on Instagram where posts most of the time are sponsored.

“But this time right now, is the sweetest spot for people to join,” she adds, “the market has been booming with many new small businesses during the pandemic, but the problem is how you maintain your business after.”