Why TikTok Made Us Buy It

Lately, the hashtag "TikTokMadeMeBuyIt" is making waves. The hashtag currently has 8.4 billion (yes, billion) views. People are proudly posting about things they bought based on posts they saw on TikTok: pink shoes, feta cheese, or even a tattoo printer. Items that are shared then go viral and create a craze for consumers to buy the product. In fact, many of these items that are marketed on TikTok often sell out and become an even hotter commodity.

There is nothing new about social media being used to influence consumer behavior. But why is TikTok so effective at making us buy things?

Three reasons

1. It is the perfect mix of advertising and entertainment, often referred to as advertainment. This practice has its roots in the original radio (and then TV) soap operas. Soap operas were not originally developed to entertain but instead were designed to cleverly integrate the brands of the parent companies inside the content of these stories. The first companies to produce the radio and then TV soap opera series were detergent companies like Procter & Gamble (the makers of Tide and other household products). They realized that placing their brands in the stories and in the hands of aspirational characters was much more persuasive (and cheaper to produce) than making commercials. The influence was subtle but real. Today, social media plays a similar role. TikTok videos that are entertaining and fun to watch, but also feature brands and products, operate the same way. In fact, 86% of marketers have used influencer marketing to generate sales or for brand awareness. This stat is likely to increase as organizations continue to intertwine social media into their marketing strategies.

2. Perhaps the main difference between TikTok influencers and traditional product placements in TV series and films is that the advertised brand is no longer so subtle. This is a surprising twist because usually knowing that we're being persuaded makes us more likely to be on our guards, and defend ourselves against a persuasion attempt. This defensive mechanism is referred to as persuasion knowledge activation. What's so clever about the #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt trend is that it's making the influence overt (obvious to us) instead of covert (more disguised). It's making it OK to be influenced and to be happy to tell others about it. It's brilliant marketing that is encouraging consumers to buy more stuff (that we might not need). And it’s working. According to research, 61% of consumers aged 18 to 34 stated an influencer did influence their decision-making.

3. Finally, the whole #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt trend has become a social phenomenon. The influence of a post does not come from the post itself but from the reactions to the post and all the comments that a post triggers. Social norms reflect the perceptions of what other people think and do. The more we believe that many other people, especially other people like us, engage in a given behavior, the more we are likely to also do it. My recent research shows that social norms are especially influential when we are in a state of high physiological arousal—when we are excited or engaged. TikTok users are often in this type of state when scrolling and looking to discover the next trendy thing to buy. Psychologically, we follow the social norm because it makes us feel good to be part of the group.

So it is with these three key ingredients—entertaining content, not-so-subtle messaging, and social norms—that TikTok really does make us buy things. And tell others about it, so they too will happily buy it, and tell others about it … and the cycle continues … indefinitely.