Memphis, Tennessee, resident Chloe Joy Sexton lost her marketing job during the pandemic. Her real passion, however, was food. She and her husband quickly focused their efforts on building a bakery, BluffCakes. Chloe leveraged her professional background, promoting her colorful, “giant cookies” to get trending on TikTok. It worked and she went viral in 2020.
Two years later, she and her husband hire a team to create and ship Chloe’s giant cookies across the country. Plus, she’s in the process of opening a brick-and-mortar store. However, she continues to share her business journey and her personal life to her 1.8 million-plus followers on TikTok.
If you’re wondering how to start a business or even what’s possible to turn into a small business. Then check out what's trending on TikTok. It might just provide some inspiration you need to get started. Here are a few of the top trending small business ideas on the popular platform. Plus, some ways small business owners are leveraging the app to elevate their business’ success.
What began as a platform for users to transform dance moves into viral hits has become so much more. While the platform boasts 1 billion users worldwide, a recent report from Insider Intelligence’s eMarketer projects around 750 million active monthly users in 2022.
Statistics aside, however, TikTok is now the third largest social media platform, ahead of SnapChat and Twitter. While there’s still plenty of dancing, singing, and practical jokes on the app, TikTok videos have the potential to reach wide, diverse audiences around the globe.
Baked goods like BluffCakes are big businesses trending on TikTok. But, the app really upends how we talk about traditional marketing. The resulting ecosphere leaves plenty of room for every small business niche to potentially find its place. Thus, gain a following while figuring out how to start a small business. Here are a few other trending small business ideas from TikTok:
Yes, slime. Search any interest you may have, and you’ll discover TikTok videos on it. From miniature dollhouse art to DIY soap crafts. While Andrea O initially began promoting her Texas-based slime business, PeachyBbies, on YouTube in 2017, sales began to slump. Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and she began focusing more marketing efforts on TikTok, growing her following to a million in less than a year and to 4.5 million viewers by 2022. As sales skyrocketed, Andrea hired a team of 20 employees and leased warehouse space to fill the demand.
She’s one of quite a few small slime TikTok businesses that got big on the app, taking advantage of trends like ASMR and sensory goods.
For little to no cost, print-on-demand services, or PoD, give aspiring entrepreneurs a low-cost way to start a business. Instead of ordering large amounts of inventory, such as t-shirts or coffee cups, a new business can rely on PoD, a third-party supplier that prints and ships items as they sell.
PoD is a trend that’s here to stay, and TikTokers are here for it, sharing their best tips on how to make money using print-on-demand services. PoD market size was around $4.9 billion in 2021 and is forecasted to reach $6.17 billion by the end of 2022.
An Etsy seller, for example, can reduce overhead and gain better control of their supply by listing a digital rendering of a T-shirt design rather than keeping up with inventory.
Major PoD includes CustomInk, Vistaprint, Shutterfly, and Spoonflower. However, the print-on-demand ecosystem enables even a small creator to use the same model to fulfill orders as needed, whether leveraging Etsy to list items or selling on their personal site.
Second-hand goods, yard sales, estate sales, and thrift stores pop up as TikTokers take audiences along on their quest for those hidden gems most of us walk right past. Cary Williams, of American Arbitrage, has amassed an 850,000-person (and counting) following on the app, carting users along to dust off old jerseys or identify marks on fine china.
Resale locations like Goodwill and ThredUp are some of the major players in the resale industry. But whether reselling on eBay, Mercari, or Etsy, small business owners can take a tiny piece of the estimated $17.5 billion in annual resale revenues.
With such a huge potential audience, small business owners use the app to create content that helps drive sales and increase brand awareness. Chloe at BluffCakes does promote her product, but her more compelling content is about the hardships, lessons, and triumphs she’s learned selling giant cookies, along with her personal stories about losing her mother to brain cancer and raising her young sibling.
You don’t have to have a compelling personal story to find success on the app, however. Here are a few things to keep in mind when using TikTok to support your marketing efforts:
Whether you have a nice camera or just an iPhone in your pocket, TikTok’s simple-to-use editing tools allow small business owners to provide a “day in the life” experience to their customers, giving them a glimpse into those behind-the-scenes moments of the business.
Cary from American Arbitrage shows how much he can get when flipping an item and warns viewers away from overproduced products that won’t make money in resales. Unlike a polished commercial or content marketing package, customers like the unfiltered, authentic feel of videos like his.
Seek out entrepreneurs on TikTok. Whether it’s a financial guru offering 60 seconds of advice or a slime creator with beautifully shot products, there’s a lot to learn on the platform, and creators are happy to engage with others, offering everything from managing your small business accounting to free business budget templates.
TikTok is proof that if you can dream it, someone is doing it as a career. Search for your interests to see how other small business owners have positioned themselves in their area of specialty. Laundromat owners, soap makers, vending machine owners, greeting card illustrators, and musicians are eager and willing to share their knowledge.
What’s the takeaway? If you’re not on TikTok, you should be. As a small business owner (or if you’re just curious about how to start a business), it’s just too easy a marketing opportunity to pass up. Whether you own a posh, downtown boutique or you’re a small farm that produces popcorn, its worth it. TikTok allows your customers to see the inner workings of your business, establishing a genuine, personal connection and promoting brand awareness.
