6 Small Businesses That Are Killing It On TikTok [+ How They Did It]

For many brands, TikTok is a scary, unknown place. What do you post? How do you use the trending sounds? I’ve rounded up small businesses that have generated thousands of likes and followers on their TikTok profiles alone.

In this article, we not only list successful small businesses on TikTok with a breakdown of their strategies but also hear from some directly on what influenced their success.

Note: In this article, we define small businesses as those with one to 25 employees.

1. POPFLEX

Founded by influencer and content creator Cassey Ho, POPFLEX has amassed 2.5 million likes and 116K followers since first posting in May 2020.

What’s the key to its success? Leveraging Ho’s loyal community and telling honest stories.

Ho grew in popularity on YouTube as a fitness instructor sharing pilates workouts and advice, hence the name @blogilates. After years of success, Ho launched the apparel brand, POPFLEX.

“It's such a huge benefit to work with a social media personality like Cassey, who already has not only a fanbase but a loyal community that she has built trust with,” says Lexi King, PopFlex’s social media lead. “We are an extension of that at POPFLEX.”

Knowing that these two brands are deeply connected, King says they focused on sharing the behind-the-scenes journey of building and growing POPFLEX.

“…People love seeing the ‘why’ and the process behind our products,” says King, “it makes the brand relationship less transactional and more of a relationship.”

She says that instead of selling a product, they sell a story about finding a solution to a problem. On TikTok, each account feeds the other, creating what King calls an ecosystem.

“If you happen to be scrolling TikTok and come across Blogilates’ video promoting a product, that will likely lead you to check out POPFLEX where you can then see the product on different bodies through our try-on videos or see more of the functionality behind the product,” she says.” It's about creating an ecosystem of content, it’s like telling one big story.”

In addition to storytelling and leveraging their founder, King shares that the brand invests in building relationships with diverse content creators, through partnerships and gifting.

“Seeing our products promoted on external influencer/creator accounts helps build our awareness and trust with the consumer while also giving our customer real, raw, and unpaid reviews,” says King on gifting products to influencers.

Unlike many other brands on TikTok, POPFLEX doesn’t only rely on trending dances to gain traction.

“Doing trendy dance moves doesn’t always need to be your answer to increasing your reach,” says King. “You can find a unique way to utilize a trending audio to push your product and educate your audience about your brand.”

She continues, “In fact, being different and interpreting trends in unique ways has been some of our best performing content.”

If there’s one piece of advice King could offer other small businesses, it’s this: Succeeding on TikTok involves trial and error.

“You have to find what brings your audience in, weeding through what works and what doesn’t,” says King. “The only way to figure that out is by posting and by not being afraid to test new things — new creators, posting at different times, new angles, trends versus storytelling, etc.”

2. Faces Cosmetics

While some brands steer away from pushing their products on TikTok, others find great success in doubling down on this strategy. Faces Cosmetics is one of them.

About 90% of the TikTok videos this brand posts on TikTok are directly related to its product, specifically the quality, performance, and durability.

The reason this strategy works so well is that in just a few seconds, the video addresses user pain points and shows how the product solves them – all while leveraging trending sounds.