It’s no secret.
AI is revolutionising marketing. So my question today is, does authentic, community-driven content still matter?
I’ve finished analysing the TikTok ‘What’s Next in 2025 Trend Report’. Their analysis and the success businesses achieve on that platform suggest that it matters more than ever.
The Power of TikTok in Today’s Marketing Landscape
You would have heard about TikTok if you were into business or marketing.
You may not be a fan or have an account, or your business may not need to feature on the platform as it’s not a core part of your persona’s customer buying journey.
Either way, you can’t avoid the fact that it’s a powerhouse.
As of November 2024, TikTok had 1.8 billion monthly active users globally, with over 900 million daily active users.
Then, over the weekend, we saw TikTok all over the news, with many saying it was a political stunt.
They faced a temporary shutdown in the U.S. due to a federal ban. This action was based on national security concerns related to its Chinese parent company, ByteDance. Consequently, the app was removed from major app stores, and users were unable to access the platform.
However, shortly after the ban was enforced, President Donald Trump announced plans to issue an executive order granting TikTok a 75-day extension to find an approved U.S. buyer, allowing the app to resume operations.
We’re not here to get political or weigh in – but more to demonstrate that this is a powerhouse, and whether you or your business is on TikTok or not, there’s a lot that we can learn from its success.
Understanding the Marketing Paradox
Enter the ‘TikTok What’s Next in 2025 Trend Report’. I’ve been analysing it, and I want to share my insights and learnings with you.
As far as I can see, an interesting paradox is happening in today’s marketing landscape.
While AI tools become more sophisticated, TikTok’s success, as shown in their trends report, stems from raw, authentic human connection.
So, I want to explore how these seemingly opposing forces complement each other and what this means for your business’s marketing and content strategy.
I’m going to focus on three core pieces of their trend report:
- Embrace Authenticity
- Community Engagement
- Prioritise Agile and Creative Experimentation
Authenticity in the Age of AI
If we break this down, the first trend featured in the report was TikTok’s success, which is mainly due to its emphasis on genuine, relatable content.
And that’s how brands and personal brands have exploded on the platform.
The data shows that users on the platform appreciate unfiltered storytelling that shows real experiences and diverse perspectives.
The key is to create content that showcases your true personality and values, fostering trust and authority with your audience.
We’ve spoken about this before and given lots of different examples, such as behind-the-scenes content, authority-building and informational-based content, or content that truly shows that you are relatable and inclusive to your audience.
TikTok is walking a fine line between embracing authenticity and then embracing generative AI. For example, they released an AI tool last year called Symphony Creative Studio which allows brands to generate content quicker.
You can plug in your avatar, plug in a script and have TikTok create a video for you.
This takes away from the authenticity that the data shows us works on TikTok right now.
All these AI-generated influencers and AI-generated content will, over time, create a sense of detachment if audiences perceive them as inauthentic, which I think they will.
Plus, allowing AI-created content into your marketing workflow without considering your brand voice could make your business or brand sound overly polished, which may alter your audience’s perception of your brand. This really contrasts TikTok’s overall emphasis on providing raw, behind-the-scenes, unfiltered storytelling about brands.
So while TikTok’s Symphony Creative Studio and all the other generative AI tools available to us are fantastic for the ideation stage, I still believe that businesses need to use AI carefully and in a balanced approach to avoid losing the human touch that data shows TikTok audiences crave.
The Power of Community Engagement
Fostering community engagement was also a massive part of this trends report, and again, TikTok really thrives on building community.
Most of this is based on user-generated content and collaborations with other brands or creatives.
What we can take away from this is that brands can learn to actively engage with their community. They should try to actually participate, listen to feedback, and create content with their community of customers, clients, or supporting businesses.
This approach will help you build loyalty and keep your brand relevant.
We’re seeing so many different AI tools making this easier, but we also need to go back to that first point about ensuring that the AI tools will maintain your authenticity as a business.
The tools we’re seeing include AI-driven comment analysis, which is great because it can help you identify emerging trends and respond in real time to content and comments on pieces of content. However, if brands overuse AI-generated interactions, let’s say, AI replies to comments, audiences are going to start to feel like they’re engaging with an algorithm as opposed to engaging with a personal brand or a brand.
Again, TikTok’s strength is really in community-driven content, and honestly, I think AI is at a very crucial point now that could risk automating the human connection too much, which is what makes these communities so passionate.
So my take on this is that AI should be used and can be used really well as a listening and insight tool into your audience and how they respond to the content that you’re putting out, but I must say that brands need to ensure that real human engagement remains at the forefront.
Creative Experimentation: The Key to Success
The other key part of the TikTok industry report for 2025 concerns content, including the ability to be dynamic with your content and test, test, test.
It’s a time when businesses in this age can experiment and use real-time feedback to refine our content strategy as we go, and this is where we can leverage tools like AI to help with the content ideation using data that we see from the content we’ve already posted, trialling mixed media formats to try and enhance that engagement as well.
So, even if you don’t have a TikTok presence, adopting an agile mindset will allow your business to stay ahead in this fast-paced digital landscape.
So, I want you to think about experimenting with different content formats and responding to audience reactions. This can actually lead to more effective marketing campaigns for you in the long run.
Now that we know that AI can be a 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 keep up with some of the fast-moving trends that we’re seeing.
For example, we’ve spoken about this on the podcast a lot: If you start with long-form video content, you’re then in a fantastic position to create blog posts, social media copy, short-form video, and even use it as a basis for creating designed infographics or PDFs to share with the audience.
AI has massively accelerated our ability to do that, but we must always remember to go back to the first point we’ve spoken about, which is authenticity.
Relying on AI-generated content may become too formulaic for you and your business. It will lead to generic storytelling that companies could share instead of bold, experimental storytelling that only you and your business can share.
AI content has already shown us that it lacks true human creativity, which is often messy, imperfect, and emotional. These are all the qualities driving viral successes on TikTok, and for businesses that aren’t on TikTok, we can all learn from this today.
Finding the Balance: The Future of Marketing
While AI gives us a strategic edge in adapting really quickly, we need to remember that human creativity and spontaneity will always win in this AI-driven world, and the data from TikTok also shows this.
Let me wrap this up with what I believe is the most powerful insight from TikTok’s 2025 Trend Report: success in modern marketing isn’t about choosing between AI efficiency and human authenticity – it’s about mastering both.
Think about it.
TikTok has become a global powerhouse not because of its algorithm (though it’s impressive), but because it creates space for genuine human connection.
The platform shows us that the fundamentals haven’t changed even as AI transforms marketing.
People still crave authenticity, communities thrive on real engagement, and the most successful content still comes from creative experimentation.
What this means for your business is that AI isn’t your marketing strategy; instead, it’s a tool to enhance it.
Use AI to speed up your content creation, analyse your audience insights, and optimise your campaigns.
But remember, these tools should amplify your authentic voice, not replace it.
Whether you’re on TikTok or not, the real lesson we can learn from TikTok and its success is to be authentic, build real communities, experiment, and, yes, use AI—but use it to enhance your human brand, not replace it.
Because marketing is all about connecting with people.
And that’s something no TikTok algorithm can do alone.