At US bookseller Barnes & Noble, tables display signs with #BookTok, a book recommendation hashtag on TikTok that has pushed paperbacks up the bestseller list. Amazon has a section of its site it calls “Internet Famous”, with lists of products that anyone who has spent time on TikTok would recognise.
The hashtag #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt has got more than 5 billion views on TikTok, and the app has made a grab-bag of products a surprise hit: leggings, handbags, cleaners, even feta cheese. Videos of a baked feta pasta recipe sent the salty white cheese flying out of supermarket refrigerators earlier this year.Gua sha: why the ancient TCM practice is now a viral skincare trend
It’s hard to crack the code of what becomes the next TikTok sensation. How TikTok decides who gets to see which posts remains largely a mystery. Companies are often caught off guard and tend to swoop in after their product has taken off, showering creators with free stuff, hiring them to appear in commercials or buying up ads on TikTok.
“It was a little bit of a head-scratcher at first,” says Jenny Campbell, the chief marketing officer of US luxury brand Kate Spade, remembering when searches for “heart” spiked on Kate Spade’s website earlier this year.
The culprit turned out to be a 60-second clip on TikTok posted by 22-year-old Nathalie Covarrubias. She recorded herself in a parked car gushing about a pink heart-shaped handbag she’d just bought. Others copied her video, posting TikToks of themselves buying the bag or trying it on with different outfits. The US$300 heart-shaped purse sold out.
“I couldn’t believe it because I wasn’t trying to advertise the bag,” says Covarrubias, a make-up artist from Salinas, California, who wasn’t paid to post the video. “I really was so excited and happy about the purse and how unique it was.”
Kate Spade sent Covarrubias free items in exchange for posting another TikTok when the bag was back in stores. (That video was marked as an ad.) It turned what was supposed to be a limited Valentine’s Day purse into one sold year round in different colours and fabrics, such as faux fur.
TikTok is a powerful purchasing push for Gen Z because the creators seem authentic, as opposed to Instagram, where the goal is to post the most perfect looking selfie, says Hana Ben-Shabat, the founder of Gen Z Planet. Her advisory firm focuses on the generation born between the late 1990s and 2016, a cohort that practically lives on TikTok.Users trust the recommendations, she says: “This is a real person, telling me a real story.”
Instagram, YouTube and other platforms connected people with friends or random funny videos before marketers realised their selling potential. For TikTok, losing the veneer of authenticity as more ads and ways to shop flood the app could be a risk. If ads are “blatant or awkward, it’s more of a problem”, says Colin Campbell, an assistant professor of marketing at the University of San Diego in the US.
Influencers who get paid to shill for brands are getting better at pitching goods to their followers, telling them that even though they get paid, they’re recommending a product they actually like. “They feel like they are our friend, even though they aren’t,” he says.Shopping on social media sites, known as social commerce, is a US$37 billion market in the US, according to market research company eMarketer, mostly coming from Instagram and its parent company Facebook. By the end of 2025, that number is expected to more than double, to US$80 billion.
Last month, TikTok began testing a way for brands to set up shop within the app and send users to checkout on their sites. But TikTok has hinted that more is coming. It may eventually look more like Douyin, TikTok’s sister app in China, where products can be bought and sold without leaving the app – just like you can on Facebook and Instagram.TikTok influencers shamed for lavish spending on US$61,000 suit, US$1,500 haircut
“Over the past year, we’ve witnessed a new kind of shopping experience come to life that’s been driven by the TikTok community,” says TikTok general manager Sandie Hawkins, who works with brands to get them to buy ads on the app and help them boost sales.
“We’re excited to continue listening to our community and building solutions that help them discover, engage and purchase the products they love.”
