1 year TikTok Ranking Switzerland: Which companies are successful

Within a year, TikTok in Switzerland has grown by more than 30 percent in terms of users. Video viewing activity also increased by a staggering 55 percent. Swiss users spend well over an hour a day on TikTok on average. Successful companies should therefore also grow by at least 30 percent in order to "stay with the people".

Swiss companies have jumped on the bandwagon and successfully

While we had discovered 18 Swiss companies on TikTok in April 2020, there were already more than 100 in May 2021. All of these brands have published more than 4000 TikToks this year and worked their way up from an original 743,000 likes to more than 24 million. Many are now already professionalized: 57 percent of accounts are business accounts - 38 percent are also verified. 41 percent still use private or creator accounts.

The big Like collectors include Red Bull, the watch brand Rado, and YB. The three brands also scored in terms of follower growth.

The first does not have to be the most successful

In the ranking, particular attention is paid to the likes per video in order to put individual ricochets into perspective and to rank companies higher that generate exciting content in the long term. What is striking, but not surprising, is that the initial successes are difficult to maintain.

Coop, the winner in the first ranking with around 30,000 followers and 512,800 likes, is still in the top 3 in May 2021 and increased its followers and likes by around 60 percent. Besides Migros and SBB, however, this is the only brand that was able to defend its place in the top 20. All other brands have dropped many dozens of places. So being an early bird can be an advantage, but it's no guarantee of a top spot. SBB, the FOPH and EF Switzerland had the highest relative growth rates in terms of followers and likes - in the 4-digit percentage range. In terms of likes, on the other hand, only two brands lost ground: Lenzerheide and Swatch. The assumption is that a few videos were deleted.

Companies from the consumer goods sector (21.6%), media (19.6%) and tourism (11.8%) are particularly active on TikTok. Media and formats like Tataki, Zwei am Morge, Energy and actually Red Bull collect the most likes and followers. However, consumer products lead the way in terms of top likes per video.

It pays to jump on the TikTok bandwagon early. Now, users are still open to exciting brands. In a year, they'll be more selective.

What influences the range?

The basic principle is well known: TikTok is a viral machine and it is not important how many followers you have in order to achieve great reach and land on the foryou page with users.

In the graphs you can see: Rado has the lead in views per video - through boosted/paid TikToks. It's a different story when it comes to shares and comments per video. Blue Sports and Radio Energy always manage to produce viral bangers that are shared frequently.

When analyzing the actual videos, five patterns could be identified.

• Followers are not relevant: Whether top 10, top 20 or midfield: The analyses did not reveal any correlation between the number of followers, views and likes.
• Activity: The most successful 20 Swiss companies on TikTok have posted four to five times more than the last 20 and have many times more followers (60x) and likes (1100x). Likes per post are also 366x higher. However, if you compare the number of posts of the top 10 and the rest of the top 20, the number of posts there seems to have no influence.
• Trendy Sounds, that are familiar from private accounts do not necessarily have to be taken up by companies. Good content is enough to generate many views, likes and shares. Top videos often get by without sound (speech, lipsyncs, etc.) or with generic, royalty-free music and simply have good stories.
• Videos with above average views almost always have an above-average number of comments. Often also an above-average number of 1st likes and 2nd shares. It is known that the average view time is also important for virality, but this cannot be checked from the outside.
• The application also has a great influence, especially boosting organic TikToks. As mentioned above, Rado always stands out in the top 10. Here, all of the last 30 analyzed videos have been promoted. Ad boosting also has a positive effect on views, likes, comments and shares for accounts outside the top 10, such as Nikin.

What's next?

TikTok is growing rapidly in terms of users, but now also in terms of companies. The quality of the content is high and very creative. No other platform we know of enables small brands to reach so many people organically and virally and to grow rapidly once they have found the sweet spot in their content strategy.

TikTok is now a fixed component of the digital media mix for our customers and for new customer briefings. This is certainly also because the majority of TikTok users are over 18 and other segments can also be reached that are not active on Instagram, Snapchat or Facebook. We personally appreciate the safe brand environment - no fake news, etc. - and the uncomplicated and direct customer service that TikTok offers in contrast to its competitors.

The price per thousand contacts on TikTok is five to ten times lower than on other social media platforms. Click prices and engagement rates including paid follower growth are also impressive. Prices have remained very stable so far and have not increased noticeably. Campaign performance has also remained impressively high over the year, as long as the content is right. Nevertheless, TikTok preaches itself: Create TikToks not Ads! Are you in?

* Mike Swede is a digital strategist, entrepreneur, speaker and lecturer at various Swiss universities such as BFH, MAZ, ZHAW ML & ZHAW AL and the University of Basel. He is co-founder of Goldbach Interactive (exit), the content marketing software Cooala and Powdience - Data Driven Personas.

In April 2020, Schwede launched the first Swiss TikTok ranking. The current TikTok Ranking Swiss Companies is located respectively on Mike.schwede.ch/tiktokranking and is published regularly on Werbewoche.ch.