2021 TikTok Trends to Guide Your Social Media Strategy

Ever since its launch in 2016, TikTok has taken on the social media world by storm with more than two-billion app downloads. It has become one of the fastest to earn success than any other social media app thus even surpassed Facebook. Other than just teenagers, TikTok continues making its way into everyone’s heart while winning millions of consumers’ worldwide and it’s just the beginning. For businesses and brands to tap into the global market, TikTok is the absolute goldmine and a perfect marketing platform. Now that we’ve entered 2021 with social media adapting to newer trends and prepared for future-focused marketing strategies, here’s how to lead the way with TikTok and take the winning.

Favoured by Influencers & Brands

Instagram, YouTube and Facebook have been influencer’s most active social media platforms to market brands, businesses and their services but TikTok seems to have surpassed all three. Day by day, more influencers began to realise the potential of TikTok when tapping into both local and international markets thus gaining popularity. Some of the best digital marketing agencies in Dubai along with a few selected worldwide have now introduced corporate branding and marketing strategies based on TikTok along with many others. That said, nearly 40 percent influencers have expressed their interest in TikTok with many of them even using the social media app.

Emphasis on Social Commerce

Given to the success of the social media app, TikTok, in 2020, officially announced association with a leading ecommerce platform named Shopify. Market research also concluded that the strategic collaboration is to facilitate Shopify merchants’ for using TikTok while boosting sales to a significant extent. The initiative has been taken to let sellers on Shopify increase their success ratio using TikTok. Besides creation and distribution of the content, businesses can also track and manage TikTok campaigns and metrics relevant to marketing. Business analysts say the purchase process will then be streamlined on TikTok enabling consumers to perform in-app shopping. As an additional means to incentivise business, Shopify sellers are offered $300 for their very first campaign on TikTok. Indeed, with so much to gain and nothing to lose, TikTok is a must have to proceed with social commerce in 2021.

Exclusive Hashtag & Challenges

The popularity of hashtag started with TikTok whereas hashtag challenge refers to a particular task or activity on this particular social media app and posted it on various other social channels with close variation of hashtags. Businesses of all nature and sizes are benefiting from its potential to get viral while boosting brand awareness. In-fact, Universal Pictures also hooked on the TikTok trend while launching a campaign for one of its films using #FindYourMagic hashtag back in 2020. Given to the current coronavirus pandemic condition and massive economic slump, the movie campaign came as a fresh start to bag more or less 1.5 million likes with nearly 20,000 participants plus winning 11,000 new followers.

Taking Video Ads to a New Level

A survey in 2019 revealed that consumers spent more or less seven hours per week in watching an online videos which is approximately 59-percent greater as compared to the years’ post-launch of the app that is between 2016 and 2019. Given the increased demand of the app, businesses engaged in video marketing also accelerated from 61-percent as of 2016 to 85-percent in 2020. In-fact, during the Q2 of 2020, TikTok for Business platform was launched that’s surely expected to gain further momentum in 2021 as more and more businesses are now adopting to the social platform. As a means to facilitate solo users and corporates that are new to TikTok, a new e-learning centre is to be launched which will host useful guides, video tutorials, downloadable resources and ad strategies.

#Memes to Rule 2021

To say memes are only part of the broader social media culture would be an understatement as users today live, breathe and eat memes with TikTok being no exception. This is because of the user-friendly content which taps into real life scenarios and promotes them as part of marketing with consumable, fun, engaging and share-worthy memes further associated with relevant hashtags. In 2020, TikTok hashtag memes were recorded as 35-billion. A world of its own; the fame of TikTok memes have been compiled and can be easily found across the World Wide Web including Facebook and YouTube. That said, regular TikTok meme publishing accounts have been created on Instagram taking marketing to the next level.

User-Generated Content Remix, Renew, Repost

User-Generated Content (UGC) with TikTok is a new way to jazz-up existing content which is termed as ‘remixing’. Recreating, creatively changing or moulding the pre-existing templates, formats and ideas to your own is remixing whereas it has become a highly popular TikTok trend in recent months. For extra convenience, TikTok now comes with built-in editing tools and features allowing users to get more creative with their content production strategies. While adding music or special-effects is just the basics, TikTok also allows professionals to incorporate AR (Augmented Reality)-based effects for maximum engagement, interaction and sharing of the videos. In-fact the trend of remixing skyrocketed during the lockdown and global economic slump of COVID-19 because the platform gives creative freedom; something most needed at the time of physical restrictions and limitation in activities.

Celebrities Sailing on TikTok

The popularity, extent and massive reach of TikTok resulted in an increased number of celebrities jumping onto the social app’s bandwagon. Politicians, reality stars, actors and singers; some of the biggest names are on TikTok namely Justin Bieber, Will Smith, Kate Perry, Reese Witherspoon and many more. Because the social media app is highly popular amongst the Generation Z, these celebrities are now more involved with the younger fans to create a bigger change for good.

Music Promotion

Perhaps one of the hottest TikTok trends in 2021 is promoting new music as in September 2020; the social media app launched a new feature known as Stitch. Users can select segments of more or less five-seconds as content to be reused as well as can incorporate the video snippets to their own content. The trend also fuelled a new alliance between musicians and TikTok content creators due to which we’re likely to see some great stuff this year with more followers likely to join the existing user-base.

A New Name to the Television

Although the short-form content mightn’t be as similar as conventional television, the success and potential of the app is likely to open new doors for TikTok’s very own television series. Since hashtags allow the app’s content to be found easily, users can conveniently access published content, remix and reuse it as their own, it’s likely to take the winning further. Corporate analysts claim that the approach can surely work wonders for brands to spear ahead in 2021 and beyond.

Build a Stronger Brand Identity

Much like everything, TikTok pride itself on hosting content that’s purely real, genuine and non-copyrighted. The app’s owners and marketing experts also agree with the fact that authenticity is the only way to ensure long-term and everlasting success. The same strategy is likely to dominate in 2021 for brands and businesses, crucial for establishing uniqueness and authenticity. So there you have it; the top ten TikTok trends that will rule in 2021 and perhaps even beyond. With nearly 900-million users and rising, it’s worth taking on the roller-coaster ride and beef-up content marketing, social media and brand strategy.