How 5 Challenger Food & Drink Brands Have Leveraged TikTok Virality For Business Growth

TikTok in the Food & Beverage Industry

TikTok has emerged as a powerful force in the food and beverage industry, transforming how businesses market their products and how consumers interact with culinary content. Its success lies in providing a creative and easily consumable platform for short videos, making it ideal for sharing cooking tips, showcasing recipes, reviewing beverages, and exploring gastronomic trends. The platform’s visually appealing and engaging nature draws in a vast user base, creating an ideal space for food enthusiasts, chefs, and brands to share their unique perspectives and offerings.

In terms of marketing, TikTok’s impact is profound. Brands utilize influencers and sponsored content to reach a broader audience and increase brand awareness. The platform’s algorithm and user engagement often lead to videos going viral, amplifying product exposure and driving consumer interest. TikTok’s real-time analytics and feedback mechanisms provide valuable insights, allowing food and drink brands to tailor their marketing strategies effectively. Where TikTok challenges and trends help to boost marketing efforts, encouraging user participation and brand integration.

TikTok’s influence has significantly shifted the landscape of food and beverage marketing, fostering creativity, innovation, and real-time consumer interaction.

Top 5 US Food & Beverage Brands Leveraging TikTok for Business Growth

TikTok is a hotbed for brands looking to hop on trends, partner with influencers, and scale quickly by maximizing the platform’s formulas for going viral. Here are some of the best:

4. Last Crumb

Spearheaded by “the Head Baker”, Last Crumb is a luxury cookie brand based out of Hollywood, LA. The brand is on a rebellious journey to provide the world with the ultimate tasting experience, with cookies worthy of a Michelin star.

Like your favorite high-end fashion labels, Last Crumb channels exclusivity to reel in consumers by launching unique collections and limited edition drops for consumers seeking the premium.

How they continue to use TikTok to drive growth

Last Crumb combines high-quality production with trending sounds and meme templates on its TikTok channel, which proves to be a fruitful formula. The brand cooked up over 224k followers, with over 2.3 million likes.

While some might argue that $160 for 12 cookies is a little expensive, Last Crumb promises a Michelin star quality with every cookie sold. The brand utilizes user-generated content on its channel too, having creators showcase their product in their content, which is then reposted to the brand channel.

Why it works

Last Crumb’s TikTok channel feels a lot like that of a high-end streetwear brand, in that their content features unboxing, and the unveiling of exclusive products. Within these themes of luxury, the brand ensures to stay relevant with its target audience of Gen Zers, appealing to them through the use of trending sounds and templates.

What makes TikTok a great social platform for growth?

TikTok is a powerful growth platform due to its immense reach and engagement. Its algorithm-driven content distribution ensures exposure to a vast audience, boosting brand visibility and attracting potential customers. The short-form video format encourages creativity and allows for rapid content creation, ideal for showcasing products, services, or skills succinctly. The platform’s diverse user base facilitates targeting specific demographics effectively.

Virality is key on TikTok, enabling content to go viral and garner widespread attention quickly.. The platform’s algorithm prioritizes and amplifies engaging content, allowing even relatively unknown creators to reach a massive audience within a short time. A single viral video can lead to an explosion of followers, likes, comments, and shares. This viral effect can transcend TikTok, spilling over to other social media platforms, boosting brand awareness and potential opportunities. TikTok’s “For You Page” (FYP) algorithm is designed to expose trending content to a broad user base, emphasizing the potential for content to rapidly gain momentum and achieve widespread visibility, making TikTok a dynamic platform for viral sensations and exponential growth.

5 key takeaways for brands looking to cut through on TikTok and make the most of viral moments

Going viral on TikTok often isn’t enough. Brands must capitalize on their surging popularity to maintain sustained success. Fortunately, there are a lot of strategic points that brands can implement to ensure they’re maximizing virality on TikTok. Here’s some of our key recommendations:

1. Leverage the momentum: Brands should look to capitalize on the attention garnered from going viral by promoting core messaging, values, and offerings – really letting those new faces know what the brand is all about, give them a reason to stick around. Going viral gives brands a lot of momentum, but leveraging it is a different story altogether. To maximize this momentum brands should ensure that they are prominently featured and explained in the viral content itself, leaving audience members a lasting impression.

2. Create a strong brand persona: Cohesion points to the action of firming something together, creating something whole. That’s exactly what brands should be aiming for with their social media presence. Developing a cohesive and memorable brand identity that resonates with a target audience is a sure fire way to keep on top. Brands should clearly communicate their values, mission, and unique propositions to establish a more meaningful connection, converting viral traffic into community members.

3. Have a long term vision and be adaptable: Developing a long term strategy that incorporates constant messaging ensures that brands stay relevant amidst enormous spikes in traffic. Thinking long term, and being malleable to changes in the market, audience preferences and emerging trends can help brands adjust their approach to meet evolving needs. Going viral can throw a few spanners in the works, so best to stay on top!

4. Implement data-driven decisions: Behind the trends, challenges, and viral content lie some pretty heavy analytics tools. TikTok’s analytics offering enables creators to meticulously analyze their content, and gather learnings to personalize future content. From watch time to viewer drop-off, and even content recommendations and inspiration, there’s plenty available to elevate a content strategy. Brands should use these tools to measure the impact of viral content, using the insights to identify trends, and optimize for growth.

5. Strategic partnerships and collaborations:  As the world’s leading global influencer marketing agency, it would be rude of us not to suggest implementing strategic influencer partnerships on TikTok. These collaborations with creators, other brands, pages, channels, or organizations can help expand reach and brand recognition. Let’s not forget credibility either. Having an endorsement from an influencer is often the best way to elevate brand visibility, and foster a more meaningful impression on potential customers.  Partnering with creators also increases the chances of going viral, if not through their creative content ideas, then by accessing their hyper-engaged user base.

By incorporating these strategies, brands can enhance their presence on TikTok, increase engagement, and increase the likelihood of their content going viral, ultimately expanding their reach and brand impact on the platform.

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Goat is a global social media agency with expertise in TikTok marketing. We help brands to reach new audiences, capture attention, grow their accounts, and drive conversions through organic, paid and influencer strategies. Get in touch today to find out how we can help you!