Social Savvy: Lessons from TikTok – February 2025

By Irene Williams

Whiplash. That’s the word that comes to mind as I write this article. When I first put word to page on this topic, a ban on TikTok was looming. My next words came when the ban had taken effect. And now, as I’m buttoning up this content, TikTok has been reinstated. Good thing I compiled my actionable insights to be relevant regardless the outcome of the TikTok back-and-forth-and regardless of whether you use the platform for your business. There is much to be learned and applied from this recent ping-pong match.

BUILD ON “LAND THAT YOU OWN”
Your social media profiles on any of the platforms are like rented rooms; somebody else owns the property. The TikTok on-off switch certainly brought this truth home to countless people who’ve built their empires there. In an instant, all they’d created was gone and could’ve been gone forever, had there not been political jockeying at play.

Let this be your impetus to maintain a “business-owned first” approach to marketing and messaging. Prioritize your website, email list and sales/in-person experiences, as these are the foundations of your marketing for which you hold the keys.

Keep your website fresh and welcoming. Whatever content you and your team generate should be present on your site, even though you’ll likely proliferate that same content across your social profiles. Keep all images, videos and SEO-savvy text on your site up to date. Be sure your legal opt-ins and privacy and terms-of-use statements are current. Review your site’s stats/analytics (via tools such as Google Analytics, Hotjar, etc.) to determine what is and is not driving traffic to your site, and make strategic modifications accordingly.

Make the most of your email list. Rev up your email address collection efforts so you can reach and engage with your audiences directly and regularly. Also, make your email messaging worthwhile for those who opt into your list. Perhaps it’s time to review and refresh the style and type of content you’re sharing via email.

Up the game with in-person and direct sales experiences. Now more than ever in our fractured media landscape, the human touch in business can make all the difference. Consider new training and practice standards for every member of your team, not just those in customer-facing roles. Enhance your sales materials to be more visually appealing and clear, on par with your updated website. Bring renewed aesthetics to physical environments, as well.

TAP INTO WHAT MAKES TIKTOK SO POPULAR
TikTok didn’t gradually grow in popularity; it skyrocketed. In doing so, it set a new standard for social media connections, particularly for a swath of the population (namely Gen Z) representing massive purchasing power that’s pivotal to your long-term business success. Your burgeoning customer groups expect to find and connect with you in key ways.

Hyper-personalization is a major key to TikTok’s popularity. Though you don’t have this behemoth’s cache of algorithmic wizardry, you have plenty of tools at your disposal to identify people’s interests and personalize experiences accordingly. These tools include the aforementioned Google Analytics, site heatmapping tools such as Hotjar, SEO auditing tools like Semrush, and open/click data from your email marketing service. Make it standard practice to use all the stats to customize customer experiences. Your data may reveal the need to parse email subscribers into unique lists for specific kinds of content or show you how to update web pages to generate more action in keeping with your best-performing pages.

Trends and challenges are jet fuel in the TikTok engine. People are drawn to not just follow but participate in these content types. While your business may not have the reach to start a viral trend or challenge, you can certainly catch the waves and ride them. This requires you to stay apprised of what’s in the zeitgeist at any given time and creatively engage in ways that are supportive of your business goals. For example, if there’s a dance challenge that’s getting millions of plays, perhaps you can capture a video of a customer or team member doing the dance on flooring you’re currently promoting.

Entertainment is the crux of TikTok content, even for brands that must inform and educate consumers in order to land sales. Whatever content you create and wherever you post it, incorporate the essence of entertainment. This doesn’t mean everything needs to be funny or highly produced. It simply means your business stands to gain by appealing to people’s innate desire to be entertained. (See additional insights and ideas in the next key point on short-form video.)

DOUBLE DOWN ON SHORT-FORM VIDEO
The proliferation of short-form video across all social platforms is a direct result of TikTok’s undeniable influence on audiences. Today, quick clips are considered the dominant, core content type online; even YouTube established accommodations for the wildly popular format. Your team should be using short videos to enhance relevance and engagement.

Minimal production isn’t just okay; it’s preferable. Across the years in social media marketing, I’ve seen the stats prove that people respond more strongly and warmly to content that’s real. The video clips you capture on the fly with your phone are likely to get more attention and interaction than content that’s highly polished and professionally produced. (And, let’s face it, today’s phones offer topnotch video and image capture, so quality is not really compromised.) Direct your sales and marketing teams to keep the smartphone cameras rolling, because just about everything is potential content.

Incorporate music into your messaging because tunes trend. The music you select as the soundtracks for your social media posts matters. Choose songs that are known to be trending in popularity on any of the social platforms you use for business, as this can amplify the reach and engagement of your content.

Select a video editing tool that operates independently of any social platform. When TikTok went dark, so did its associated video editing app, CapCut. In the hours following the TikTok ban and reinstatement, Meta announced its new video editing app, Edits, to be launched in February 2025 for use in creating content for Instagram and Facebook. In keeping with the first point of this article, to build on land you own, I advise editing your videos with third-party apps/software. I favor InShot for creating videos for social. While this mobile app has an annual subscription fee, I appreciate that it’s available apart from the whims of any one platform.

STAY APPRISED OF THE SOCIAL LANDSCAPE
Where did the TikTokkers log on during the ban? How did stalwart social platforms-namely Meta’s Facebook and Instagram-take action in response? Be keenly aware as existing and burgeoning platforms make moves in the coming months. The strategies of the leading socials and actions of audiences are typically bellwethers that businesses like yours need to heed for consumer engagement and messaging.

Interesting integrations appeared in the hours surrounding the ban. Just before the TikTok outage, for the first time ever I got a prompt from Facebook to “add a TikTok profile link” to one of the business pages I manage. Some colleagues experienced the same suggestion. I found this odd and quite surprising. The fact that the Facebook powers-that-be activated the suggestion just before the ban went into effect surely reveals something of note. In all honesty, I am not yet sure what to glean, but I am actively following sources to ascertain how to interpret this for business purposes going forward.

TikTokkers did not shift to Instagram or Facebook during the outage. Per official reports and my anecdotal observations, during the brief outage TikTok users were downloading alternative apps to replace the loss. (Ironically, the two apps most cited were developed in China, the very issue that led to the TikTok ban.) It seems that core users weren’t compelled to hop over to Instagram, instead preferring apps more akin to the one they’d just lost access to.

At the same time, Instagram got a little bit more “TikToky.” In the time surrounding the ban, leaders with Instagram announced some pivots that were clearly aimed to entice TikTok users to the platform. As I mentioned previously, there’s soon to be a new video editing app in the Meta suite of offerings. In addition, Instagram is rolling out a change from square to rectangle for the profile page grid, specifically to accommodate the proliferation of vertically formatted video Reels.

All this begs the question: Should your business be on TikTok? In my estimation, this is not a basic yes-or-no question. I will always point you back to your business goals as the north star for any marketing decision. Yes, you can gain from being just about anywhere online if you’re willing to invest the time, strategy and creative effort. No, you are not losing out if you’re effectively nurturing your messaging and presence elsewhere. No matter what, your foundation for business and customer connections should be established from within your organization.

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