Popular Brands on TikTok and identifying the factors that contribute to their effectiveness in communication

TikTok is one of the most popular social networks, having more than 1billion users. This network has significantly grown in popularity during the COVID pandemic, where people found a place to be entertained and spend their spare time, besides traditional media. In recent years the focus of marketers is targeting Gen-Z consumers, and this social network is super popular among them. So, businesses and marketeers adapt their communication to be appealing to this target audience. At the present time, given the fact that the subject is rather new, scientific literature is rather limited to covering the topic. This paper’s objective is to find which factors are essential in making brand’s communication go viral on TikTok, considering also Gen Z preferences: whether is the frequency of posting and adapting to trends, whether is the capacity of offering entertainment or the power of uploading vulnerable/authentic content or collaborating with the right content creators. The research is a quantitative one, taking into consideration several social network key performance indicators and verifying performance through a matrix model. The key findings of the paper were that brands coming from industries such as Entertainment, Sports, Fashion and Beauty have higher chances of becoming viral on TikTok. Furthermore, there are brands that belong to other industries, but due to their posting frequency or attention to qualitative trending content, have become popular on the platform as well. The paper’s contribution to the field can be used by businesses and marketeers to adapt their communication on this social network to be more successful.