What TikTok Knows About Marketing (For Businesses That Aren't On TikTok)

It is no secret AI is revolutionising marketing. So my question for you today is, does authentic, community-driven content still matter? I think you’re going to know what my answer to that is. But I have just finished analysing the TikTok What’s Next in 2025 trend report that they released. They’ve done a bit of an analysis and, combined with the success that businesses achieve on TikTok every year, it suggests that authentic, community-driven content matters more than ever.

So today what I want to do is I want to unpack why is TikTok showing us that authentic content matters for your business, even if you plan never to post a single TikTok video in your life? What can we learn from TikTok to help our businesses into the future? And what role is AI going to play in creating that authentic content? Or is AI actually going to affect this authentic content? Is it actually going to be a deterrent for this authentic content?

Hi, my name is Jordan McFadyen. Welcome again to the Marketing Mindset podcast. This is, of course, a podcast designed to help you navigate this cluttered world of marketing that we face in this AI-driven world. And I want to challenge you to move away from random acts of marketing towards planning intentional marketing strategies in an AI era.

And welcome to another episode. We’re nearing to the end of January. And look, I’ve just put on LinkedIn earlier today, if you don’t follow me on LinkedIn, you’re more than welcome, I’d love to connect with you over there, just around what a challenging month January is for business owners, especially in New Zealand and Australia, where, of course, it is also summer holidays. We’re juggling family responsibilities with work as well.

I know for us in this business here in New Zealand right now, we’ve got three pay runs to process throughout January, because we pay fortnightly. We’ve got GST to pay. We’ve got provisional tax to have a look at, is obviously all our standard other cash flow that we need to look at. There’s revenue that we’re keeping an eye on, trying to keep the business going, creating content. So there’s always a lot going on with the juggle. So if you’re a parent, I feel you. And February is only moments away. But please, just make the most of the time that we have on summer holidays, if you do have kids, you’re trying to do that juggle.

And like I say, February is coming up pretty soon. And today, what I want to do is I want to focus a lot on TikTok. Now, TikTok’s been in the news a lot recently. If you’re into business or you’re into marketing, or maybe you’ve got teenagers in the house, you’ve got family members in the house that use and enjoy the TikTok platform, you most likely would have heard about TikTok.

You may not be a fan. You may not have an account. You may not be a business that has an audience on that platform. It’s not part of your core personas’ buyer journey. And if that’s you, I actually applaud you for focusing on where your customers truly are. So well done to you on that. But either way, you can’t avoid that TikTok is a bit of a powerhouse. As of November last year, they had a reported 1.8 billion monthly active users globally, with 900 million daily active users. Now, that’s incredible. That is an absolute beast.

And obviously, it’s been in the news a lot over the weekend as well. We see that TikTok, many are saying it was a bit of a political stunt. I’m not going to get into that. But they faced a temporary shutdown in the US due to this federal ban. So the action was based on a national security concern related to a Chinese parent company. So what this meant was, long story short, the app was removed from major app stores. The users were unable to access the platform in the US. However, just moments, hours, literally after the ban was enforced, Donald Trump announces plans to issue an executive order granting TikTok a 75-day extension.

So like I say, we’re not here to get political. I don’t really want to weigh in on that. But I want to demonstrate that obviously TikTok is a bit of a powerhouse. And whether you or your business is on TikTok or not, there is a lot we can learn from its success and the success that businesses have on that platform. That’s where also enters the TikTok What’s Next in 2025 trend report that was released. Now, I’ve been analysing this, and I want to share my insights and any of the learnings that I’ve actually got from this report with you today as well.

Because as far as I can see, in today’s marketing landscape, there is this real interesting paradox that’s happening at the moment. What we’re seeing is that AI tools are becoming much more sophisticated. TikTok’s success, as shown in their trends report, is stemming from raw, authentic human connection. So what I want to explore with you today is how these opposing forces are actually complementing each other, and what this is going to mean for your business, navigating your marketing and your content strategy in 2025.

There’s three core focuses I want to have a look at today from that trends report. Things that I took away from the trends report, anyway. The first one was about embracing authenticity in an age of AI. That’s an interesting one that we’re going to have a look at. Building community engagement, which I think is another interesting one that we need to take a look at. And then prioritising agile and creative experimentation. So these are three things that TikTok themselves have said should be a focus for creators on their platform. So let’s delve into those.

The first one is this authenticity in this age of AI. So this one’s looking at how brands and personal brands have really exploded on the platform. And the data is pretty clear. It shows that the users on the platform really appreciate unfiltered storytelling, that shows real experiences and real diverse perspectives. So my take here is that the key is to focus on creating content that’s going to showcase your true personality and values, fostering things like trust and authority with your audience.

And look, we’ve spoken about this so many times on the podcast, given lots of different examples about this as well. So for example, things like behind-the-scenes content. Your authority-building, informational-based content, similar to what I’m doing right here with you today. Content that truly shows that you are relatable, truly shows that your brand maybe is inclusive to your audience.

And I feel as though TikTok is really walking a bit of a fine line by saying this and by including this in their trends report, and walking a fine line between embracing authenticity and then embracing generative AI. So as an example of this, TikTok have released an AI tool last year called Symphony Creative Studio. And what this is actually doing is allowing brands to generate content quicker. So as an example, you can simply plug in your avatar, put in a script, and then TikTok is going to create a video for you.

There are some tools that are going to enhance and to speed up your creation process, but I’m concerned about some of the ones that they’re offering, literally building your own avatar and creating an AI version of yourself, and then expecting that is going to get that authenticity that they’re also reporting as a trend. So it totally, in my mind, takes away from the authenticity that the data is showing us works on TikTok right now, and that TikTok is literally telling us we should be focusing on in 2025.

So all these AI-generated influencers, all this AI-generated content will over time, I think, create the sense of detachment if audiences perceive them as being inauthentic, which I believe that they will. Plus, allowing AI content into our marketing workflow without considering things like your brand voice, it could actually make your business or your brand sound a bit too overly polished, which may then alter the perception of your brand to your audience.

And that, again, really contrasts with what TikTok’s saying and their overall emphasis on their platform, which is allowing businesses and brands and creators and people to provide raw, behind-the-scenes, unfiltered storytelling about their brands. And we’re seeing that is the best way to make a mark on that platform.

So while TikTok’s Symphony Creative Studio that they’ve released, and all those other generative AI tools that are coming into the marketplace, they’re fantastic for creating the ideas for your content. But I still believe that as businesses, we need to use these tools, these AI tools, really carefully, in a more balanced approach, to avoid making sure that we don’t lose that human touch, that human touch that the data that TikTok is telling us that the audience craves. So just be careful with it.

The second one that I wanted to bring up from this report is around community engagement. It’s around fostering community engagement, which was also a massive part of the trends report. And again, I feel as though TikTok really is a place, and a learning that we can take away from other platforms. It thrives on building a community. And I think that’s really important with all of our marketing strategies as well. And it appears that the majority of this is based on user-generated content. Things like collaborations with other brands or other people, creators or creatives, and combining all of that into one platform.

So what we can take away from this is that brands can actively engage with a community and actually try and participate, listen to feedback, create content with your community of customers or your clients or supporting businesses, and try and build that community around you. If you’re building a personal brand, then what you should be doing is trying to invoke questions in your content and invoke discussions within your content. And this approach is not only going to help you build loyalty, but it’s also going to help your brand be more relevant to your community over time.

And this is where we’re seeing so many different AI tools, which could make this a little bit easier. But also, we do need to go back to that first point that we’ve already discussed, around ensuring that the AI tools that you’re using are going to maintain your authenticity as a business. Because the tools we’re seeing include things like AI comment analysis, which I think are great, because they can help you identify emerging trends. They can help respond in real time to pieces of content, so you can understand what is actually resonating with your audience.

However, if brands overuse AI-generated interactions, so let’s say AI replies to comments. I’m seeing this on my LinkedIn right now. You can tell which is a comment that was written by a human and which is written by an AI bot just to be seen. So we need to be really careful about what is an AI reply to a comment versus what is an actual reply from a brand or someone with an authentic voice. Because audiences just kind of start to feel like they’re engaging with an algorithm, as opposed to engaging with your brand or your business or your personal brand.

So again, I just think TikTok’s strength is really in community-driven content. And they say this in the report. And honestly, I think that the AI is at a really crucial point right now that could actually risk automating the human connection too much, that makes these communities so passionate and so exist in the first place, really.

So my take on it is that AI should be used, and can be used really well, as a listening and an insight tool into how your audience are responding to your content that you’re putting out. But I’ve got to say, I draw the line, and I think that brands need to ensure that real human engagement remains at the forefront when responding to content, when you’re actually building your community. So use it as a tool to analyse. Use it to look at the data about content that is working well with your audience. What kind of comments are they putting on there? What is the watch time like on a certain topic? Use all that data and use AI to analyse all of that, so you can get your content to work better. But I draw the line at that human engagement level. The human engagement, replying to comments and creating that conversation, that needs to remain as a brand, as a human.

Final point I want to have a look at from this industry report is around content, being able to be dynamic with your content, test as much as you can. Because it’s a time where businesses in this age right now, we can experiment, we can use real-time feedback, as I’ve just spoken about before, in our content strategy as we go. And this is where we can actually leverage these tools that AI can help us. And this is, again, going back to some of those ideas we’ve shared previously, around helping with the ideas around your content, using the data that you’re seeing from content you’ve already trialled, or from feedback you’ve had from your clients or your customers. And then trialling mixed media formats to try and enhance that engagement and get better engagement overall.

So again, even if you don’t have a TikTok presence, being able to adopt an agile mindset is literally going to allow your business to stay ahead in this fast-paced landscape that we’re currently facing. And again, it’s not just on TikTok that it’s moving so fast. So if you’re not on TikTok, whatever platform you’re on, or whatever way you’re currently marketing yourselves online, it’s moving fast.

So this is where I want you to think about experimenting with different content formats. We’ve spoken about this even last week, trying to encourage you to go for rich media instead of just going for blog posts. Trying video, podcasts, audio. So experimenting different content formats, and then responding to audience reactions. And what I feel as though this can actually do is actually lead to more effective marketing campaigns for you in the long run. Use it as a testing platform.

Because now that we know that AI can be an absolute game changer for creative experimentation, there are so many different ways that we can use AI to generate different variations of our content, to help us move with some of the fast-moving trends that we are seeing on a day-to-day, week-to-week, month-to-month basis. For example, we spoke about this already, where if you started with a piece of long-form video content, like this piece as an example, you’re then in a fantastic position to then create a blog post of it, social media copy, short-form videos, even use it as a basis for creating designed infographics or PDFs to then share with your audience. AI has massively sped up the way for us to be able to do that.

But always remembering we need to go back to that first point we’ve spoken about, which is focusing on authenticity first. Relying on AI-generated content may become too formulaic for your brand. It may be like a formula, and people can read right through it. And it’s going to lead to things like generic storytelling that your business will likely share, as opposed to bold and experimental storytelling that only you, only your business can share.

And AI content, we’re already seeing this. It’s showing us that it really does lack human creativity. Humans, we can be messy, we can be imperfect, we can be emotional. And these are all qualities that are really driving those viral successes on TikTok right now. And even if your business isn’t on TikTok, we can learn from this with whatever medium you are on right now. AI is going to give that strategic edge in adapting really quickly. But we need to remember that human creativity and your storytelling and your spontaneity will always win in this AI-driven world. And the data again, and the trends report from TikTok, is showing us that.

So let me wrap up with what I believe is the most powerful insight from TikTok’s 2025 trend report. And that is: success in modern marketing isn’t going to be about choosing between AI efficiency and human authenticity. It’s about how can businesses and marketing teams master both of those. So think about it. TikTok has become this global powerhouse, not because of its algorithm, although honestly, its algorithm is really impressive. But it’s become a powerhouse because it creates a space for genuine human connection.

And the platform shows us that even as AI transforms marketing, the fundamentals, they’re not changing. People still crave authenticity. Communities still thrive on real engagement. And we’re seeing that the most successful content is still going to come from creative experimentation. The fundamentals aren’t changing.

But what it means for you and your business is that AI isn’t going to be your marketing strategy. If you’ve written your marketing strategy for 2025 and at the top you’ve just written “rely on AI”, it’s not going to work. Instead, it’s going to be a tool of how you can enhance it. Use AI to speed up your content creation, analyse your audience insights, optimise your campaigns, your paid media campaigns. But remember, these tools should be used to amplify your voice and not replace it.

So look, whether you’re in TikTok or not, the real lesson here that we can learn from TikTok is that its success is to be as authentic as you can. Build real communities and experiment with your content as much as possible. And yeah, use AI, but then use it to enhance your human brand and not replace it. Because at the end of the day, marketing is about connecting, and connecting with people. And that’s something that I believe no TikTok algorithm can do alone.

And look, I’m hoping you’ve gained some new perspectives, some new learnings from that TikTok report, as I did. And I’m trying to develop and think about how I can incorporate some of those into my strategy all the time. And if you’re ready to develop a marketing strategy that is perfectly going to balance AI efficiency with authentic connection, please reach out to the team. Done By Nine, you can learn about how we can help you navigate this new marketing landscape with our marketing strategies. You can head across to our website, it’s donebynine.com, to learn more.

Obviously, on our website as well, we have all our past podcasts, our written content, and all the other resources that we share. We try and share new content every fortnight, so please go out and check that out for more details, or to learn something a bit new about how you can navigate your marketing strategy in 2025. And again, thank you so much for joining me on another episode of the Marketing Mindset podcast. Hope to see you on the next one.