3 Advanced TikTok Strategies for 2023

How to Build Brand Awareness, Equity, and Community

TikTok has grown & evolved faster than any social platform in history, and many beginners are finally mastering TikTok 101 (like hashtag challenges and influencer marketing). Now brands are riding the waves of trends, inspiring deeper community participation, and becoming TikTok’s "it" brands. 

Today, we’ll share three of our favorite new approaches for upper-funnel brand building on TikTok: participatory entertainment, culture-fueled responsive campaigns, and the reinvention of traditional formats.

Participatory Entertainment

Participatory entertainment is the next evolution of marketing campaigns. Back in the day, marketing was a lot of brands just talking at people. Then, we all agreed it should be entertaining. Now the evolution of marketing is participatory, where people are actually getting engaged in the campaigns. Participatory entertainment invites a back-and-forth conversation, where fans can actually participate in the marketing with you rather than it being one-sided.

For TikTok, this campaign format invites fans to become an active user, co-creating the entertaining content for the brand. If done right, all participants have a real sense of excitement–and if there’s a contest involved–winners get to become an ambassador, increase their social presence, and have a deeper connection with a brand they love.

Here is an example of how we implemented participatory entertainment. We partnered with e.l.f. Cosmetics to create the first-ever TikTok-native reality show,  “Eyes. Lips. Famous.” e.l.f. is always looking for ways to empower its community, so we developed the show to help aspiring TikTok influencers reach their dreams faster. Winners of the contest got to participate in a “Beauty Camp,” where they were mentored by three of the biggest names in TikTok beauty. The show ran for a month on e.l.f’s TikTok channel, @elfyeah. It amassed millions of views, and energized the TikTok community as they cheered on the winners.

Another example is when we ran a contest with Nerf to find a “trend-obsessed and highly creative Nerf fan” to become a Chief TikTok Officer. The winner, Sophie Jamison, beat out over 1,000 applicants for the position and got to become a face of the channel. The campaign was a hit, making the channel’s following skyrocket from 0 to 42,000 in just one week, and that was just the beginning.

Campaigns that center around participatory entertainment can be very successful, especially due to the volume of content created by the community. They offer numerous opportunities for people to engage, whether as a viewer, an entrant, or a winner. By offering incentives through these campaigns, you can engage with and reward those who already support the brand and even invite a whole new audience to participate.

Culture-Fueled Responsive Campaigns

The TikTok app is home to some of the most culturally relevant conversations. Brands can take advantage of the chatter by turning it into responsive marketing campaigns. If your brand sees something trending that relates to you or your product, create a campaign that reacts directly to that conversation.

When content creators go out of their way to speak about specific brands and products, that in and of itself is a win for the brand. And then, when a brand shows that they’re listening by amplifying a creator or participating in a trend or cultural conversation on their channel, brand love, new audiences, and press headlines follow. 

One killer example of this is when creator Carly Joy went viral for sharing an authentic and honest review of eos’ shave cream on TikTok. This video caused eos to see 25x their typical order growth and 450x growth in website visits for their shave cream. In her honor, eos had a genius comeback campaign and launched a limited-edition product called “'Bless Your F#@%ing Cooch,” verbatim what Carly said in her review… and the internet loved it.

When brands listen to what their audiences are saying and create culture-fueled campaigns in response, the community will celebrate the brand for listening and engaging authentically.

Traditional Formats Reinvented

TikTok is a host for creativity and thinking outside the box. This third successful TikTok strategy takes traditional formats and reinvents them to align with the platform and its audiences.

Brands that reinvent traditional entertainment formats in ways that are even more accessible to the TikTok audience get a lot of eyeballs and press attention. Brands can optimize a new approach for various existing formats, from creating film festivals to reinventing the movie trailer, like our TikTok campaign with Netflix’s Red Notice. The options are limitless!

Ahead of the release of Red Notice, Netflix turned to Movers+Shakers for a new way to generate global conversation and drive views for their new film. Our solution was to create the first-ever TikTok-native Trailer, a brand-new format designed to remix traditional movie trailers by having the film's talent co-create TikToks alongside platform influencers. The response was HUGE and so was Red Notice as it climbed to Netflix’s #1 most watched movie of all time!

By remixing traditional formats, you can find new creative ways to better align with the platform’s ethos of authenticity, creativity, and individuality.

TikTok Takeaways

Consider these three advanced strategies as you think about new ways to engage with consumers and build brand awareness, equity, and community. This is the future of where TikTok is going and the campaigns you want to consider next year. 

If you’re curious about how brands have applied each of these strategies, register for our upcoming webinar!