Nine of the Fastest-Growing TikTok Accounts
TikTok is taking the world by storm in 2020, growing faster than even Facebook and Instagram. It has skyrocketed to become the 6th most popular social media platform. TikTok has made its parent company Bytedance into the most valuable startup in the world at $78 billion. The site averages eight visits PER USER per day, with over 90% of users visiting more than once a day.
Even with the controversy surrounding their data practices, you can hardly afford to sleep on 800 million active users per month. Brands who invest in TikTok marketing can follow a few simple growth hacks that the top 40 creators (10 million+ followers) use every day.
Here are 9 of the fastest-growing TikTok accounts, as well as the engagement strategies they use to build their followings.
Art and Talent
Regardless of TikTok’s relatively young user base and sometimes unfavorable reputation (as you’ll find with most new social media platforms), it still rings true that the most successful creators are the ones who display real talent or provide quality entertainment. Unique skills are always a great tool for establishing a solid audience and keeping them engaged with your brand.
1. Jason Coffee
Jason Coffee (@jasoncoffee) is one of the most successful influencers on the platform with 20.4 million followers.
Jason uses his TikTok channel to share family-friendly comedy with his audience, often featuring his son and daughter, who are in the most common TikTok user age group. Considering the young age of the majority of users, it’s no wonder his wholesome style has developed a strong fan base.
Engagement Strategies
- Comedy
- Family-friendly content
- Audience targeting
2. Zach King
Zach King (@zachking) is topping influencer charts with 48.9 million TikTok followers, and it’s not hard to see why.
Like Jason and most other creators, he incorporates comedy into a lot of his videos, but his content stands out with incredible video editing and optical illusions. While maintaining a fun and family-friendly brand that relates to his audience, Zach performs digital magic that you just have to keep watching.
Engagement Strategies
- Illusionism
- Video quality/editing
- Family-friendly content
- Audience targeting
Relentless Entertainment
The fastest-growing TikTok channels in 2020 are largely sports and entertainment giants like the NBA, Ellen DeGeneres and Netflix. Only 15% of TikTok users are over the age of 35, which supports the idea that entertainment is effective as a marketing tactic on a platform where your target audience is the minority.
Something these big-time entertainers have in common is that they post quality content relentlessly, some up to six times a day. The minimum for the fastest-growing channels this year seems to be one video every other day, but most of these top performers are posting more than once a day.
3. NBA
The NBA’s TikTok channel (@nba) blew up with over 2.7 million new users in under one month this year, bringing their total to 11.7 million followers.
The NBA channel posts between five and six times every day, racking up more than 150 videos in a single month. Their content is mostly made up of sports highlights, funny moments, and some player-submitted content.
Engagement Strategies
- Entertainment
- Frequent posting
- High-quality video
- Star power
4. ESPN
Similar to the NBA channel, ESPN’s TikTok account (@ESPN) saw a dramatic increase of 1.3 million followers in a single month for a total of more than 11.1 million followers as of August 2020.
ESPN posts slightly more than the NBA, but still averages five or six videos per day. There is a dramatic difference in their content, however. ESPN’s videos are all about the audience, comprising user-generated content, as well as professional content that features audience highlights and athlete interactions with the audience.
Engagement Strategies
- Entertainment
- Frequent posting
- User-generated content
- Audience targeting
- Star power
5. Ellen DeGeneres
Ellen (@ellendegeneres) jumped up 1.2 million viewers in a single month this year, bringing the beloved philanthropist talk show host’s total number of followers to more than 6.5 million.
Ellen’s TikTok captures the heart of The Ellen Show, featuring clips of interviews and performances by guests on the show, as well as some fantastic behind-the-scenes footage. Ellen’s page posts almost every day, coming in at about 26 videos in a month.
Engagement Strategies
- User-generated content
- Entertainment
- Frequent posting
- Star power
6. WWE
Coming in at 7.4 million followers, the World Wrestling Entertainment TikTok page (@WWE) saw a jump of over 700K in one month this year.
The WWE page posts clips from their performances and old throwback fan favorites daily, keeping their audience engaged without giving everything away, which is a great way to bring your audience from a social media platform to your business.
Engagement Strategies
- Entertainment
- Frequent posting
- Teaser videos
7. Netflix
The revolutionary home movie giant itself has taken to TikTok (@netflix) and saw growth of more than 600K in one month, bringing their following to 9M million as of August 2020.
For the most part, Netflix’ posts are promotional videos for the movies you can find and watch on the streaming platform, but they’ve gotten pretty creative with how they promote movies, including user-generated content, behind-the-scenes, and star power. Netflix has the lowest posting rate on our list today at only one post every other day.
Engagement Strategy
- Star power
- Entertainment
- User-generated content
- Frequent posting
Hashtag Challenges
Hashtag challenges are a huge hit on TikTok, giving creators and audiences a chance to connect and have fun doing something that’s usually harmless, funny, charitable, or otherwise positive. Over 16% of all TikTok videos are related to hashtag challenges, and just like any other popular thing, marketing experts are taking advantage. For more insights, our full guide on TikTok hashtags can be found here.
8. Guess
By running a branded hashtag challenge, Guess (@guess) made a big splash on the platform with their #InMyDenim challenge. The hashtag entries currently have 52.1M views on TikTok.
Guess was the first American brand to launch a marketing campaign as an official TikTok partner with TikTok. TikTokers were encouraged to show off their best Guess denim styles, using the hashtag #InMyDenim. This campaign inspired a huge wave of high-quality user-generated content, including content from TikTok influencers who in turn inspired more videos.
Engagement Strategies
- High-quality user-generated content
- Hashtag challenge
- Audience targeting
9. Kind
Healthy snack company Kind (@kindsnacks) gained an impressive 60 million views in less than 24 hours with their hashtag challenge, #kindsimplecrunchcontest.
The challenge was to make a video that featured the “crunch” of Kind’s “most crunchiest bar yet,” and the user whose video was played the most won a trip to New York and a year’s supply of the featured snack bar. Kind partnered with influencers Zach King (above), Kombucha Girl, Oven Mom, and Rachel Ryle to promote the challenge. Kind also provided soundtracks users could include in their UGC.
Engagement Strategies
- High-quality UGC
- Hashtag challenge
- Star power
- Free giveaway
If you’re looking to grow your brand on TikTok, check out our helpful guides here:
