Five years ago, success on TikTok came from quickly hopping on trends. According to Duolingo's Zaria Parvez, that strategy is now saturated. Brands that stand out today prioritize unique creative that isn't trend-dependent, as consumers have grown tired of seeing dozens of brands doing the same thing.

Social media platforms heavily promote new features to drive adoption. By being an early user of TikTok's 'Bulletin Boards'—a feature similar to Instagram's broadcast channels—brands can gain a significant, temporary advantage in reach and visibility before the feature becomes saturated and algorithmic priority fades.

The "candy salad," a consumer-driven trend on TikTok to combat candy inflation, was quickly adopted and productized by Ferrara (owner of Nutella) with a dedicated kit. This shows how major CPG brands now monitor social platforms to rapidly identify and capitalize on organic consumer behavior.

By natively embedding a full suite of AI tools for video generation, editing, and ideation, TikTok is evolving beyond a content distribution platform. It is becoming a self-contained creation engine, reducing creator reliance on third-party apps and positioning itself to challenge YouTube's dominance.

The more time spent scripting, refining, and editing a post, the less authentic it becomes and the worse it typically performs. Higher-performing content often results from reducing the time between the initial idea and hitting 'publish.'

The algorithmic shift on platforms like Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook towards short-form video has leveled the playing field. New creators can gain massive reach with a single viral video, an opportunity not seen in over a decade, akin to the early days of Facebook.

The Instagram Edits app now exports performance metrics as a PDF. Marketers can upload this report directly to AI tools like ChatGPT for an instant breakdown, trend identification, and strategic recommendations, automating a previously manual analysis process.

Creating "best of" content roundups is now easier with AI. Instead of manually sifting through data to find top performers, marketers can use AI to quickly identify popular content and even extract key summaries, significantly speeding up the creation process and enabling deeper insights.

Sophisticated AI video tools like Creatify analyze vast public databases of successful ads to identify common narrative patterns. This distilled "template" of a good story arc is then used as an underlying conceptual framework to structure new content, increasing its probability of success.