With a global community exceeding 1 billion individuals, TikTok is a critical channel for fashion and beauty brands to reach new and established audiences, and tap into the ever-evolving zeitgeist, which today is shaped by the entertainment platform’s idiosyncratic content trends and forms of creative expression, along with the new form of influence its creators typify.
To understand how brands can elevate their presence and impact on TikTok, Farah Maloof, head of fashion and luxury partnerships at TikTok, and Jordan Mitchell, the co-founder and co-CEO of Good Culture Inc., a cultural marketing agency that works with brands like Marc Jacobs, Good American, Barbour, Speedo, Alo Yoga and Creed, shared their insights with BoF’s Sophie Soar, author of the white paper: Commercialising the Zeitgeist: Crafting a Successful TikTok Strategy.
The conversation covered: how to engage with the zeitgeist; working with content creators; and optimising operations and empowering teams within businesses to most effectively navigate TikTok. Now, BoF shares key insights from the discussion.
Experiment with different, easy-lift formats and build on what resonates
FM: The key is to come with a test-and-learn mindset. Be open to experimenting — TikTok is a great place because there’s no pressure to be super polished. There’s no pressure to be perfect on-platform. Talking about Jools LeBron [the creator of the “very demure, very mindful” trend], this isn’t perfect, polished content — this is someone creating a piece of content in their car on their way to work. It doesn’t have to be a full studio production or a polished institutional asset to try what works.
This is an environment where you’re rewarded for experimentation and creative bravery. There’s so many different ways to engage and tell your story. So think of what’s right for your brand: you could do it on your own; you could work with creators. Think about what storytelling is right and then be consistent in making content and be consistent [in] engaging with the audience. Then, in your account, you have organic analytics tools that will tell you what’s working and what’s not so you can continue to build on that strategy.
JM: For me, being too prescriptive, being too rigid with your plans is not setting yourself up for success, because the whole point of TikTok is the agility and the ability to respond and switch up in real time.
Prioritise authentic, value-led content over timely, trend-led content
JM: Focus on culture alignment rather than exploiting trends. […] It’s about showing up in spaces that are genuinely authentic to you. You don’t have to be on every trend. You just need to be authentic and value-led.
[…] If you’re The White Company, having a Brat Girl Summer is not going to land. It doesn’t make sense. It’s a jarring juxtaposition. So I think it’s just about being authentic to your audience and actually spending your time and resources getting to know and understand [them], listening to them and then engaging in conversation with what’s already happening within your community — and then anything else is a bonus.
If you’re The White Company, having a Brat Girl Summer is not going to land. It doesn’t make sense. It’s a jarring juxtaposition.
[Alternatively, Marc Jacobs] are jumping on different trends, but actually, at the centre of it, […] it really aligns with the personality of the brand versus them just doing something that feels random and out of the blue.
Consider TikTok communities and content creators your brand ambassadors
FM: People in these communities aren’t just bystanders and aren’t just consuming the content — they’re really active participants. They’re part of the conversation, whether it’s commenting on a brand they like or creating their own content about brands that they love, products that they love, creators that they align with.
JM: Content creators are almost this personality archetype and the visual manifestation of your brand, particularly for brands that don’t have a face. […] If you’re a brand that doesn’t have a main protagonist, your content creators almost become that extension of your brand values and what you stand for and the personality and how they show up. […]. By aligning with different individuals, you get to extend what your own values are and access new conversations.
Opens in new windowWe try to educate our brands about the idea of shifting this mindset from advertising spend to cultural investment. If you are being additive to a cultural narrative and if you’re being additive to your community, that is investment that might not necessarily yield immediate results, but actually what you are doing is driving a longer-term strategy.
Nurture long-term relationships with brand-relevant creators
FM: You have to bring creators in early and then build relationships with them. […] You have to trust creators to do what they do best and work to co-create with them. Think of them as your creative director. Think of them as your subject matter expert. Think of them as the most talented storyteller you’ve ever met. Think of them as these huge authorities within their communities, and then give them permission to show up in new contexts in really unexpected ways for your brand within those communities.
JM: It’s [about] being really intentional about who you’re going after and making sure that what you’re asking them to do aligns with the content they’re already doing. So if it’s quite lo-fi, scrappier and that’s the energy you want to go for, lean into that.
We work with clients across a range of different budgets and actually, when we engage with the creatives that have a smaller reach or smaller following, you actually get a higher level of engagement anyway because that community is really hyper-engaged in what they’ve got to say and the story that they have to tell.
FM: There are creators that are not as cost prohibitive to some of these big well-known names that you can go find that align with your brand to work with. One of my favourite tools […] is the Creator Marketplace, which is part of TikTok One and it’s really helped brands optimise how they find creators and how they do their campaigns. And you can do it at scale — you can work with up to 30 creators at a time. So you can discover creators and invite creators, negotiate your pricing, fully customise campaigns and find ways to amplify the partnerships. This gives you that scaled, quality creative that you need.
Show up in spaces that matter to your community
JM: [Have] that dialogue with your audience, [show] up in the spaces that matter to them as well, and really [understand] the needs of your audience. When we’re working with our brands, we’re listening to the community first and then we’re mirroring back to them.
For instance, we work with Barbour — and NatureTok is a big deal for those guys because the jacket thrives in those kinds of environments. So we think about telling stories that really sit well with that audience. […] So I think it’s centring in on your audience and then laddering back from there.
For all of those brands, the red thread is that they’re playing to their community. It’s almost like the in-joke — […] it’s like a visual manifestation of what’s going on in [the brand’s] mind […]. So I think it’s bringing everyone into that world, but also being part of their actual community.
You have to trust creators to do what they do best and work to co-create with them. Think of them as your creative director. Think of them as your subject matter expert. Think of them as the most talented storyteller you’ve ever met.
FM: It’s really: how do you not just tap into culture, but how do you contribute to the culture? What does it mean to participate? What is the right value for your brand and how does your brand add value to that community? I think that relevancy and authenticity to the brand is what’s really going to drive loyalty from the community on TikTok.
For example, I love how Coach has come to life on the platform. I think my favourite aspect of how they engage in the zeitgeist is, they’re in the comments section and as one of those girlies who’s always in the comments section first. […] I find it very charming and funny the way they engage in the comments section. It really gives the brand Coach a personality.
Tap into TikTok’s cross-generational audience receptive to higher price points
FM: There’s a little myth-busting to do — [people think] that TikTok is just a Gen-Z audience. The audience has obviously aged up and they have a tonne of buying power and it’s an exciting place, I think, to position higher-price-point items to, say, Millennial and Gen-X audiences, because they are on the platform and they are definitely looking for trends.
So I think, get out there, use that test-and-learn approach and do that targeting so you’re reaching your target audience that has the buying power for your higher-priced products.
For example, one of the trends we’re seeing [on TikTok] is “Buy It for Life”. It’s been a really popular trend where creators, communities, are coming out with these curated shopping lists of what things they want to splurge on, […] for items they want to have forever. So I think that’s a great opportunity, if you have a price point for a lifetime, special splurge product, to partner with creators to hop on this trend — if that’s your brand.
Brief teams and equip them with the right tools for success
JM: You have to set parameters upfront, so before you’re even thinking about a campaign or getting into responding to a viral trend, it’s about briefing your team so they know what the parameters are.
Each brand will have a different point of view, a different tone of voice, different comfort levels. […] It’s getting your lens [on] who are your customers? What’s your audience? What’s the aesthetic? What’s the tone of voice? Getting the parameters — what are your non-negotiables? What comments and what conversations are you comfortable participating in? What are you not? Once you understand and have got your tool kit in place, the territory and the comfort level and the appetite for risk with your clients, it becomes a lot easier to know what you can and can’t respond to.
In a very practical way, we have WhatsApp groups dedicated to quick sign-off [with] all of the key decision makers. […] We reduce the amount of people that are in that sign-off process, so typically, it will only be working from a client side. There’ll be two people that would be in that decision-making process and that’s it.
FM: I love the TikTok Creative Center — it’s free, it’s accessible to anyone and it really helps brands see what’s emerging on the platform, so you can see all of the relevant trends and have access to the commercial music library. It’ll give you examples of content hashtags, other ads that are in that same category, and it really helps you elevate your content in a way that is so fast and so easy.
A lot of innovations have come in [through] the AI space and tools like TikTok Symphony can help you elevate your content and think about different ways to drive efficiency with AI, whether it’s making your ad creatives more beautiful, more easily or more quickly. We have a scripting creative assistant that can help you write a script for TikTok and help get your creative teams started on different ideas or copywriting teams started on different ideas. I think it makes these things that are normally complex, simple.
Diversify teams and their reference points for wider strategic vantage
JM: There’s no shortcut to being able to track or understand what’s happening in culture if you don’t have a team that’s culturally engaged. […] We strategically hire and work with individuals within the business who are active on the platform, who are using it, and when we have our weekly catch-up with the team and we’re talking about what’s happening in culture, they’re telling us what’s on their For You Page.
Because TikTok as a platform is so nuanced and skewed to your own interests and your own algorithm, the more diverse teams that you have with different points of view, with different voices, allows you to capture the embers of trends that are coming up in different pockets and spaces […]. So I think investing in having teams who are culturally switched on and engaged is central to all of that. You can’t fake it.
This interview is edited and condensed for clarity.
This is a sponsored feature paid for by TikTok as part of a BoF partnership.
