12 TikTok trends for engaging your audience
Keep you content fresh
Need some new ideas? A creative refresh? I’ve got 12 TikTok Trends to help you produce more creative and engaging vertical videos for your audience.
Watch video examples for each trend via the “Inspired by” Airtable links below.
1. Bold Views + Known Brands
Taking a bold view is one of the primary strategies we encourage brands to develop.
A bold view for your brand is a) possibly controversial (serious and/or silly) and b) a position your brand can defend. A bold view is like a cheat code for content marketing. It helps you find your ideal audience because you’re being direct, instead of dancing around a topic—that doesn’t stop the scroll. Now, combine your bold view with something your audience is highly familiar with— a celebrity or a big brand, and you’ve got some viral potential.
Inspired by Cambridge Wines offering a Veuve alternative and Jay Baer’s review of Michael Jordan’s tequila.
2. Feature Your Experts
Think about your stand-out colleagues across the organization, especially the customer service team. How can you spotlight them and celebrate their expertise? Is there a department that could provide niche tutorials or a BTS Q&A for your FAQs?
Inspired by Heinz and their “head of tomato technology.”
3. Build Experiences for Creators
We’re evolving past “Instagrammable moments” and into “TikTok viral experiences”. Even if you don’t have a retail location, consider events and experiences that allow you to interact and engage with your customers.
What would make your customer take out their phone and start recording a video? Also, you can back up and start here: what happened recently that made YOU hit record? Do some brainstorming with your team and start keeping a notes doc of inspo, as these things come up.
Inspired by the Noksu hidden subway restaurant in NYC.
4. Voice of the Reviewer
We trust third parties. Working with outside voices can be powerful for content positioning.
Partner with creators or production shops to produce reviews of your product with an outside point of view. These especially work well when they reflect an editorial POV. This can work both as lower-production, creator led review content or higher production reviews like those produced by quality digital publishers.
The goal is to communicate trust.
Inspired by Vesi’s glove technology review ad
5. Voyeurism
Feature visuals that the audience isn’t supposed to see.
Discover a hidden room. Eavesdrop on a conversation. Peak around a corner. Whisper something important.
How you can produce content that feels special because it builds in voyeurism? Make the audience feel special. We’re not asking you to record something private, that would be rude. But utilize our collective love of secrets to recreate moments that feel rare or elusive.
Inspired by Oats Overnight’s over-the-shoulder “personal texting”
6. Lofi Transitions
Lofi or lower production content is the default on TikTok. More brands than ever are embracing the low production look because it's more native.
One clever creator trend is to use simple manual transitions in place of fancy editing. Instead, use hand motions like a “grab” and “release” content transition. Or mimic your own lofi transition sounds with your voice. It's giving Wayne's World transition vibes.
Inspired by Shopify’s Vegas Sphere transition
7. Don't Shy Away From ASMR
The importance of audio branding continues to grow. ASMR is a low-production way to start building your audio brand with sounds your customers will find familiar. Even for videos not dedicated to ASMR, test pulling in one of these ASMR tactics to add to your content’s sensory experience.
Whisper: Soft, gentle voicing of story and speech, breath, secrets
Scratch: Typing on a keyboard, softly scratching, or fingernails tapping hard surfaces
Crinkle: Crinkling hard paper or packaging, rustling leaves, or the crackling of a fire
Rustle: Brushing against fabric or paper, leafing through book pages
Drum: Soft fingertips softly thrumming, closing a book, setting down a heavy object
Inspired by Sephora’s ASMR product unwrap
8. Lofi Demos
Demonstration content performs well on TikTok for both physical goods and visual processes. When you craft these demos in a lofi style the content resonates even more. Your audience sees content that looks more like something they could have created. It taps into authenticity.
A year or two ago product demos were much more polished on TikTok. Today, brands are seeing results from looking a little more real.
Inspired by lofi demos by Shopify + Away
9. Podcast Look and Feel
We’ve talked about this in our TikTok Marketing Course, but podcast out-perform on TikTok. It's because we think podcasters have authority and expertise. Not just anybody sets up a studio mic, films themselves, and puts their thoughts out into the world. That's our assumption on some level at least. Podcast clips also benefit our love of listening in on a conversation, especially when it starts in the middle.
In 2023 creators made fake podcast-style videos to increase their engagement. Should you fake the podcast look? No, please don't. But, if you have a brand podcast, put those clips on TikTok — and consider recording personality-heavy interviews with studio microphones.
Inspired by @docamen
10. First-Person Day In The Life
Day-in-the-life videos and lifestyle BTS are strong storytelling mediums. Building on this foundation, more brands are featuring these creator-style shots (especially in their ads). These look like common, everyday tasks shown from the first-person perspective.
Examples include pouring a bowl of cereal, refueling your car, or wrapping a present.
Show the scene from a first-person view, with movement, mimicking a personal experience. This gives a sense of participation to the viewer. Meta’s new Ray-Ban smart glasses and similar technologies will make filming this type of content even easier.
Inspired by Oats Overnight’s gas station video hook
11. Over The Top Reactions
Sometimes you just have to go big. We're seeing more brands invest in over-the-top content on TikTok. This might include multi-day shoots, exotic locales, or scaling unique concepts — all for one TikTok video. Combine that with customer response or surprise and delight experiences and you've got some big viral potential.
What's something big you can do to surprise your top customers? How can you respond to a product complaint in such an elaborate way that you turn them into your biggest fan?
Inspired by The North Face helicopter delivery
12. Real Bad Ads
Weird, odd, and just plain bad.
Bad ads have always been a secret weapon on social. It's confusing what people will click on. Breaking patterns is powerful. And those boundaries continue to get pushed with increasingly odd and confusing brand TikTok content.
Most recently we've seen a series of videos from IKEA featuring a turkey-sized meatball. And while we have questions, it's hard to argue against the compelling nature of weird content. It's beyond memorable, whether you want to forget it or not.
Inspired by IKEA’s turkey-sized meatball
Happy Holidays!
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