The power of communities on TikTok

TikTok serves audiences the content they love, but it also facilitates discovery of new interests, brands and products. Brands that listen and participate in communities on TikTok are able to spot unique, organic moments of opportunity to add to the conversation themselves.

What are Stay and Play communities?

For brands, it's helpful to think about communities as one of two types: "Stay" communities, or expected communities for your brand, such as #techtok for a tech company; and "Play" communities, or unexpected communities, such as #gamertok for a QSR brand.

For both your Stay and Play communities, you should explore broad macro-communities and niche micro-communities. In doing so, you'll cast a wide net of communities to engage with—allowing you to drive trust and brand performance in both the short and long-term.

How to get started

Lead with a community-first approach on TikTok with these three steps:

1. Find your communities: Identify the communities where your brand fits most naturally into current post and conversation trends. Don't be afraid to go niche. These are your Stay communities.

2. Develop your content strategy: Brainstorm communities that inspire or excite you with their content, or think of communities you'd never expect to see alongside your brand. These will be your Play communities.

3. Create content: Experiment with creating content inspired by trends in your Stay or Play communities.

Step 1: Find the communities where you'll Stay

Embrace the depth of TikTok's many communities and their subcultures—that’s where true inspiration lives. 76% of users say they like it when brands are a part of interest groups on TikTok.¹

When your brand is deciding where to Stay on TikTok, the answer may be obvious for some brands, but not others. A beauty brand like Laura Mercier, for example, may find bountiful inspiration from #Beautytok, but an insurance company like State Farm may find themselves in need of inspiration beyond the borders of basic financial planning posts.

Tip: Don't be afraid if your community is a niche space, or small in size. You need to be close to the community's passions more than you need a particular size or scope to be successful.

Unsure how to find your community at all? Try the Keyword Insights tool to discover the top keywords that resonate with your audience and industry. Start by looking up a hashtag that is relevant to your intended audience — for example, try #makeup or #skincare if you're looking to reach the beauty community on TikTok. From there, the tool will show you related interests and hashtags you can use to further explore beauty-adjacent subcultures and communities. You can find TikTok's communities happening in the posts themselves, by jumping into the comments, clicking on some related hashtags, exploring Stitches and Duets of popular content, and, well, using TikTok!

A Stay case study: Laura Mercier lowered their new customer costs by 15% by harnessing the power of communities on TikTok.

When posts start trending among our makeup mavens, the products they feature rarely stay a #beautytok secret for long. Recently, Laura Mercier harnessed a passionate response within the beauty community to drive mass discovery of its Real Flawless Weightless Perfecting Foundation among all-new customers.

When veteran beauty creator @Glamzilla posted an earnest, glowing, and unsolicited review that racked up over 4.5 million views, the brand acted quickly to connect with her and her fans. Laura Mercier used TikTok's Spark Ads format to boost the original post, retargeting viewers of the original video.

By retargeting those who engaged with the organic video with a sales campaign for the product, Laura Mercier was able to lower their cost per acquisition (CPA) for new customers by an impressive 15%.

Step 2: Decide where you'll go to Play and develop your content strategy

Consider common shared passion points of your audiences as a starting place — from #gaming to #parenting to #mukbang — to experiment with communities that may be outside your brand’s usual domain.

Community crossovers are powerful both as new customer forays and as sources of creative inspiration for content, so don't feel constrained to stick to what's most comfortable. In other words, don't be afraid to experiment.

Your goal is to inspire exciting TikTok videos, and there's no wrong combination to try out. Creators can also be a great resource for learning about a new space.

Tip: Explore the Creative Center if you need help navigating the numerous trends and communities on TikTok.

TikTok users even enjoy spotting a brand in the act of experimenting with a new community -- 69% of TikTok users say brands should experiment with different types of trends rather than those that relate to their brand image.²

A Play case study: State Farm harnesses our passion for rising stars in new TikTok communities.

Jake from State Farm knows a thing or two about creating value for TikTok communities. When he needed to run an attention-grabbing promotion during the Big Game, State Farm created a unique prize to attract TikTok users: a chance to appear in a video with TikTok's favorite silent comedian, Khaby Lame:

More recently, Jake decided to get in on the WNBA action with a similar power move, tapping star Caitlin Clark to surprise her fans in an instantly viral experience:

These partnerships allowed the brand to enter two passionate TikTok communities with a splash, and then harness the results to create attractive, rewarding content that any TikTok users might love to watch.

Step 3: Start creating

Finding your stay-and-play communities is a great start. While your full content strategy will depend on your marketing goals, here are some things to keep in mind when planning creative:

1. Follow the Creative Codes: Building a content strategy on TikTok means creating specifically for the platform. Check out TikTok's Creative Codes that offer data-backed creative guidance to help you make high-performing videos.

2. Capture seasonal moments: You can also seize the moment by aligning your product messaging with high points of interest during seasonal and major moments.

3. Try something new: Experiment with new content formats that TikTok users embrace and are familiar with, like Photo Mode or street interviews. Some communities favor certain content formats: K-pop stans are familiar with the fan edit, while #beautytok loves "get ready with me" (#grwm) vlogs and storytimes.

4. Leverage AI tools: To get started, you can use Symphony Assistant, found on Creative Center, to quickly generate scripts and generate ideas around what to create. From there, you can use our Symphony Creative Studio to generate videos from scratch or get started with awesome features like dubbing or remixing video assets.

5. Tap into the creator community: Use the Creator Marketplace on TikTok One to find creators to talk about your message and product! There, you'll be able to find a creator with the community that best fits your marketing goal. Or, you can use Image Ads to generate compelling stories with just a few images.

6. Lean into trends: To check out what's trending and get inspiration, check out Creative Center to get tools and data to inspire your next creative idea. You can browse trending hashtags, songs, creators, and more all on Creative Center.

Sources

1. TikTok Marketing Science Global Community and Self-Expression Study 2021 conducted by Flamingo

2. TikTok Marketing Science Global Trends Survey via AYTM, September 2023. Base: TikTok Monthly Users 18+ [Q9] (n=2,500)