Social media is a wonderful channel for many small businesses to make their dream come true and TikTok is no exception. TikTok gives you the space to spread your creativity and scale your business into something sustainable.
Lessons learned from other small business TikTok success stories can give you a whole new picture of your business is still in the idea phase or has been just operating. Let’s dig into some interesting stories to find inspiration and spark creativity!
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Why should small brands market on TikTok?
Known as a game changer in the social media marketing space, TikTok is an ideal place for small businesses to show their potential. Regarding the algorithm, TikTok is a recommendation system that determines the videos on your For You Page based on your viewing preferences. It gives you the ability to go viral and gain millions of views even when you were an unrecognized brand. According to the Global Head of SMB for TikTok, “Five million US businesses turn to TikTok to take us inside their world in a fun authentic way, and as a result, they are reaching new customers, hiring more employees, and growing their business.”
Additionally, instead of being just a “trendy dance app”, TikTok has transformed into a platform for creativity that supports e-commerce. It means that you can have a chance to find your target audience and reach future customers by using TikTok shopping features for business. For example, TikTok has recently collaborated with Shopify to create TikTok Shopping which allows Shopify merchants to set up a Shopping tab on their profile.
To raise more brand awareness, you can also take advantage of various TikTok Ads solutions depending on your budget, your customer segments, etc. A lot of small brands harnessed the potential of TikTok to make their business boom.
9 inspiring small business TikTok success stories
Now you’ve known TikTok can make a brand from zero to hero, let’s dive into these seven compelling success stories! We’ll explore how small businesses across various industries achieved success on this platform to see what it takes to thrive on TikTok.
Enchanted Scrunch
When it comes to small business TikTok success stories, Enchanted Scrunch by Dasha Derkach stays in first place. After initially promoting through Instagram, Dasha Derkarch – a young 14-year-old teenage girl decided to choose TikTok as her marketing channel of priority.
Known as a platform that supports e-commerce, TikTok did not disappoint her and helped Dasha Derkarch to achieve her goals. Thanks to TikTok, she has gained approximately 90% of her overall sales compared to 10% coming from Instagram and Pinterest.
Posting regular videos and answering all the user’s questions, Dasha’s scrunchie brand is now so successful with over 170K followers and almost 500 orders a week. Before TikTok, she only got around 2 orders a week. It’s really inspiring to other young boys and girls to start their businesses.
Candeeze co.
Candeeze is a small startup founded by a lovely married American couple. Their very first TikTok video, which showcased their startup story behind the scenes, skyrocketed to fame overnight. They accumulated an impressive 30.3 million views for this debut video, with thousands of comments showing their admiration for the couple and their product! We believe the couple won the hearts of the Internet with their adorable narrative, genuine honesty and unwavering determination.
Interestingly, following the video’s success, the demand for their unique candies exploded, leading the couple to work tirelessly day and night to fulfill the overwhelming influx of orders. For your information, Candeeze now has 651.3K followers, and all of their later videos have impressive engagement, with the most recent one recording 18.9 million views.
Lala Hijabs
The story of Sana and Will Sale is also about a small business that finds success on TikTok. During the pandemic, a lot of people from small to big businesses have found their homes on TikTok, Sana and Will Saled were no exception. They started to share their designs of unique tie-dyed hijabs just for fun and the reaction from their followers surprised them.
After one night with one viral TikTok video, the couple gained 100,000 followers and reached a lot of users who have an interest in their product. They have begun to launch Lala Hijabs relying heavily on TikTok as their primary marketing medium.
To grow their brand awareness, Sana and Will Saleh chose to create behind-the-scenes content, hijab tutorials, and product launches. In the first stage, all of the traffic to their website was organic from TikTok and until now, they received over 144K followers and 4.2 million likes with 60% of sales coming from this platform.
Candy Funhouse
Jamal Hejazi has unlocked the magic of TikTok to foster community and develop his brick-and-mortar store online. TikTok has incredibly boosted brand awareness and driven more organic traffic to the Candy Funhouse website. Since launching and deeply investing in TikTok, the store’s account now receives a huge number of followers: 2.7 million.
Compared to different TikTok content strategies, Jamal Hejazi truly focused on his audience and created videos that any candy lover would enjoy watching until the end instead of skipping. Candy Funhouse went viral for the first time as a company via a fan’s review.
Before that, its first viral video that recapped a customer’s order being packed up for shipping reached 30K followers. Candy Funhouse has undoubtedly become a leader for all things candy on social media and especially on TikTok.
Street Brew Coffee
Caitlin Campbell has successfully built a unique identity for her small business Street Brew Coffee through short coffee videos. Focusing on all things caffeinated, her video was simply shot but showed an amazing experience for all coffee lovers around the world. TikTokers could discover basic and also advanced knowledge – from how to do an iced Kitkat latte or a perfect cup of pour-over coffee to the best budget coffee setup.
Since launching, Street Brew Coffee has now hit more than 900K followers and 20M video likes. In order to effectively build a TikTok account for business, Caitlin’s only tip is to post daily and show up every day. You shouldn’t start one, disappear after a while, and then come back because this could harm your relationship with your audience.
Nice Shirt. Thanks!
A little bit different from Street Brew Coffee, for Nice Shirt. Thanks!, it takes only one moment to make a brand bloom. Hayden Rankin and Mason Manning have been best friends since grade school and wanted to gather money to buy a school bus for road trips.
In November 2020, Hayden Rankin and Mason Manning posted a TikTok about their business idea: making shirts based on short statements that customers want (a phrase, facts about yourself, etc.). This idea met the demand of TikTokers of different ages and got more than 1.5M views with 370.000 likes.
Two years after launching, Nice Shirt. Thanks! has more than 440,000 TikTok followers with 7,7M likes and 400,000 collaborated designers. This small business success story of two young boys is definitely relatable to TikTok – a perfect platform to turn your small business into a TikTok success story.
The Wobbles
One of the winning TikTok success stories comes from The Wobbles, a company that sells beginner-friendly crochet amigurumi kits. After gaining popularity from their appearance on Shark Tank in 2022, they focused on strengthening their presence across various social media platforms, particularly TikTok.
In April 2022, The Wobbles proactively planned for their busiest sales periods during the holidays. The founders took a hands-on approach, appearing on camera to genuinely share their story, and they utilized Spark Ads to amplify their top-performing content. Furthermore, they leverage their ad campaign with multiple solutions from TikTok, from audience targeting (Custom Audiences & Lookalike audiences) to optimization solutions like Campaign Budget Optimization (CBO), Automated Creative Optimization (ACO), and Value-Based Optimization (VBO)
The results? The Woobles succeeded in establishing a powerful full-funnel strategy by using strong creative content as ads, resulting in a 25% decrease in CPM and an 18% decrease in CPA. Even after the holiday season, their TikTok presence continued to engage audiences and positively impact sales, showcasing the effectiveness of combining strong creatives with Value-Based Optimization campaigns.
SeeQ Supply
Another TikTok success story that worth mentioning is SEEQ Supply. They are a protein powder startup that effectively utilizes TikTok’s branded solutions to enhance brand awareness and drive website conversions. While SeeQ has already cultivated a strong organic community on TikTok, they still decided to leverage TikTok’s branded solutions to further enhance brand awareness and drive website conversions.
SEEQ’s winning creative strategy on TikTok includes product demos, behind-the-scenes content, and highlighting their product’s value compared to competitors. They employed Spark Ads to boost their organic content, effectively transforming it into ads to increase awareness and drive traffic to their website. Utilizing the Shopify Pixel, SEEQ activated Value-Based Optimization to target high-value customers most likely to make substantial purchases.
Needless to mention, thanks to their strategic integration of different TikTok ad solutions, their campaign delivered impressive results. They managed to achieve a 3.6x return on ad spend (ROAS) and a significant 46.4% decrease in cost per click (CPC). With clear call-to-actions in their videos, SEEQ generated over 600 conversions within a month and received more than 2.5 million impressions.
Slate & Tell
Last but not least, take a look at Slate & Tell – a truly small business TikTok success story. It’s a personalized jewelry brand that creates rings, charms, necklaces, and bracelets based on your own story.
With the aim of reaching peak selling moments during the holiday season, the independent jewelry brand intended to increase consumers’ awareness and consideration of their product with the ultimate goal of achieving a 2X return on ad budget within six months.
By launching a holiday season campaign with a series of In-Feed Ads, Slate & Tell has totally achieved its goal with 4M followers and 1,000 single session add-to-carts. Thanks to TikTok Ad, Slate & Tell had a chance to improve its business scale and increase sales revenue.
What can brands get from TikTok success stories?
The examples above all give us amazing lessons to improve and reiterate our TikTok marketing strategy. To cut the time for you, we’ve got six tips to ensure that your business can gain traction on this platform.
Authentic storytelling is key
Most of the small businesses that manage to attract mass attention on TikTok have one thing in common: They are very good storytellers. Indeed, these businesses excel at crafting narratives that instantly captivate viewers, hold their attention, and deliver a satisfying conclusion. Behind-the-scenes glimpses, honest reviews, hauls, and startup stories are just a few examples of the types of compelling stories that often yield high levels of engagement.
Stay up to date with the latest trends
When it comes to TikTok, all the latest trends always stay on top of mind. A TikTok trend is a viral short video created by a lot of users with popular features, sounds, hashtags, dances, or challenges. Using a TikTok trend is an awesome content strategy to connect with your target audience.
TikTok hashtag is a tool to categorize and allow your content to appear in front of TikTokers who aren’t already following your brand. If used properly, hashtags can help you extend your reach beyond your followers and attract more potential customers.
Interact with your followers and other TikTokers
TikTok is all about connecting with others, so to expand your exposure, don’t forget to interact with your followers or other TikTok creators. By replying to comments you receive on your videos, you can create a sense of community and increase deeper engagement with your audience.
Collaborate with other content creators
Apart from posting videos and interacting with other TikTokers, another way to make your brand viral is to coordinate with famous TikTok content creators. A win-win situation for both is helpful to improve your follower count and increase content visibility.
Create a TikTok ad
If you have found little to no luck with organic content, you may want to seek a more consistent and impactful approach. In such cases, running an advertising campaign on TikTok could be a viable option. TikTok now has provided many ad solutions that can guarantee to boost your performance at every stage of the marketing funnel, from raising awareness and generating interest to driving actual conversions.
If you are a beginner in the TikTok advertising landscape with little clue on how to run a TikTok ad, our app NestAds can be of help. Designed to simplify the TikTok ad creation and management process, NestAds is suitable for businesses of all types and sizes. What’s even more exciting is that you can try out our app for free, and our team of experts is available to provide further guidance and advice.
