TikTok and the boom of small businesses
What is tik-tok?
Tik tok is a social networking app that focuses on the upload of small videos ranging from 15 seconds to 3 minutes. These short videos can be anything — from daily vlogs to painting videos to dance routine videos. However, my main interest was how tik tok enabled small businesses to continue operating and simultaneously become successful during the covid-19 pandemic. By launching the ‘Creators’ fund’, it allowed people to market their selves but their products too and gain monetary compensation for their videos. It launched an initiative aiming to support small businesses called ‘small wins’ — an educational series of videos featuring different small businesses in various parts of the world.
Types of small businesses
From spending hours scrolling through tik tok — something a lot of gen-z ers did during lockdown, it is obvious that small businesses fit into 1 of 2 categories. Either they are a small business that was established and existed before the pandemic and was struggling to survive with all the lockdown closures or it was a hobby during lockdown that turned into a small successful business purely through free self promotion and marketing.
Effect of covid-19 on small businesses
According to Statista, by January 2021, around 3.8% of small businesses temporarily closed at one or more locations due to the pandemic in the United States. This meant that these small companies — by no means large corporations who could swallow the cost of closing down — were left with little to no income due to all the uncertainty surrounding the virus and the unforeseen closures that came along with it. Since the majority only owned 1 or 2 stores, the pandemic affected their whole life trajectory hence why a lot of small businesses turned to social media for help.
Viewership increases proportionately to certain types of video content
Tik tok has a specific algorithm. When you first sign up, you are asked to pick different topics you are interested in such as dance, animals, art, documentary type videos etc. These form as the basis of your own personal curated page whereby tik tok chooses what videos you might be interested in and displays them on a never ending #foryou page.
This meant that people who for example like baking, received different videos related to bakeries, confectionary etc and were therefore bound to come across a small bakery business promoting their goods on tik tok. An example is Dubai based Uncle Fluffy who started with 3,000 followers and ended up with 2 million people watching them bake goods every day. An example of a hobby-turned business are Josh and Matt Design from Sydney, Australia who started creating art for their home during the pandemic and shared it on tik tok, gaining a cult following.
Why this works — niche market
It is important to establish a niche — find something that is valuable, engaging, interesting and is filling a void. For example, homemade candle making or handmade hair masks. A small business can be anything! As long as it is something that is new, exciting and somewhat different — non stereotypical — it has the potential be successful .
This is because, as mentioned in Theodore’s post, we live in an era of digital advertising. Small businesses are the CEOs, operation managers and marketing strategists of their own company.
From part time hobby to business
It can be difficult to start a business from a hobby. There is the worry that it might not last — if it started off as a trend or that it might not be financially viable. Funds and investors are an essential element to this for it to be a smooth transition. The focal point however, is communication. Communication between clients and businesses is key to creating stability and consumer loyalty in the long run. This will ensure a long standing clientele which will help grow the small business. So, this is where tik tok is most helpful, by spreading the word through hashtagged videos.
Going viral — what it means
Now, you might be wondering… but how does it work? Why do some videos gain popularity and others don’t. Well, there’s no concrete scientific explanation other than blaming it on the algorithm. But there is somewhat of a general set of rules that can help in making someone viral. Firtly, since we are talking about businesses, it is vital to have a tik tok business account. This enables creators to have access to more marketing and analytics tools to see how well they’re engaging with their followers as well as access to a commercial music library.
Second, content… content… and content… It is very important to understand your audience and what they are looking for. Is it a fun video showing how shortcakes are made or a day in the life from opening the store to closing time? Engaging with different types of videos, ideas and techniques such as voice overs, smooth transitions etc enables the creator to understand what followers most engage with and thus increase his following.
Frequent uploads
One word: consistency. I was curious to see how often these small businesses post. Frankly, i noticed a pattern. The more they post, the more new followers they gain, the more they show up on people’s #foryou pages which increases social engagement leading to a boost in sales.
However, in line with Alberto’s argument, this means that creators’ are forced to be constantly available, creating content to as not to lose out on followers or become forgotten so the line between work and personal life may become blurred.
Screen culture
As mentioned in our topic discussing The Internet, we live in a world of interconnectedness. You can find almost anything on the internet, good or bad. In a way, it has replaced modern day social interactions — especially during the pandemic. With social distancing and isolation on the high it became the main form of communication between families, friends and even co-workers. We are so used to looking at a screen — it is almost an addiction. We can spend hours scrolling through social media — the endless supply of information is concerning — it never stops; with advertising being the main benefactor in the words of Kish. This of course is a huge plus for tik tokers. The engagement is constant — from day to night, Shanghai to New York in terms of time zones.
Effects of digitalisation
We live in a digital society. Day by day everything seems to become more virtual, remote, accessible. This is dangerous but groundbreaking at the same time. It means you can market something to anyone at any time because of technological innovation. A recent example in a paper by Sheridan et al. ‘COVID-19: The creative fight back’ mentions how brands were empathetic and supportive to their customers during the pandemic with 23% of 18–65 years saying that the primary role of advertising for them was to make them feel safe. Nike, for example offered daily workout videos on tik tok to their chinese customer base.
At the end of the day, people support small businesses because they enjoy to and perhaps it makes them feel better by distracting them — something that was vital during a period of global confinement and tik tok facilitated that.
