Identifying TikTok Strategies That Drive Over 236M Views

Key Takeaways

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Focus Allocation — TikTok: In both US and Canada, TikTok has recently seen massive growth, with a +282% YoY increase in MAU and a +462% increase in traffic for the month of February (2020 vs 2021). TikTok users are turning to the app for content about connected fitness, particularly videos about Peloton, who is a leader in the segment with their top five hashtags generating over 236 million views globally. 

Whitespace Opportunity: 

• There are currently no connected fitness brands with large audiences and consistent posting on TikTok. 
• Only two brands in the connected fitness industry are active on TikTok: iFit (38 followers, 10 posts) and Hydrow (10 followers, 0 posts). 
• The top five Peloton hashtags: #peloton, #pelotonbike, #onepeloton, #pelotonjourney, #pelotontiktok and their reach offer the option to breakdown brand related content into different categories. 
  

TikTok Tactic — Relating to User Content: Broader categories identified within specific hashtags across Peloton and Apple Fitness reveal great ways creators are connecting and experiencing their equipment and training. Current popular content categories for connected fitness on TikTok include:

• Workout Humour: users creating videos that share their sentiment towards their ability to complete intense workouts.
• Instructor Appreciation: users sharing their favourite moments from classes with instructors they love.
• Fitness Journey: users sharing their personal journeys using their connected fitness including how much weight they have lost over time.

TikTok Tactic — Trainer Spotlight: Similar to the brands themselves, currently very few connected fitness trainers are active on TikTok. Out of the few that are, all three of them are Peloton trainers and only two are actively posting as of 2021. Each trainer carries a strong brand awareness for Peloton seeing highest engagement on Peloton-related and tagged content. See how each trainer has successfully built their top videos:

• Cody Rigsby: As one of the top shared trainers on user generated content throughout TikTok, Cody gained 47.2K followers within a two week span showing a clear ‘want’ by the TikTok community for his presence on the app. As a new creator, he only has four posts but two of them use #peloton hashtag and all of them feature his funny personality.  
• Kendall Toole: Kendall focuses on two main forms of content related to Peloton including: duets with fans and comedy skits discussing people complaining about the intensity of her classes. This content has garnered her top liked post (47.4K) and top shared post (1.8K).
• Ally Love: While Ally has not posted content since December 2020, her top posts often included her participation in dance challenges such as the #tapinchallenge and the #savagechallenge which led to being her top engaged post. 

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In North America, TikTok has seen massive growth with a +282% YoY increase in Monthly Active Users (MAU) and +462% increase in traffic YoY in February 2021.

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TikTok users are turning to the app for content related to connected fitness. The top five most popular hashtags all include “peloton”. Together they generate over 236 million views globally. 

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There is currently a large opportunity on TikTok for connected fitness companies. Only two competitors have a TikTok account; iFit & Hydrow with 38 and 10 followers respectively.  

Brands with no TikTok Account:

• Peloton*
• Tonal
• Apple Fitness +
• Climbr
• Open
• Echelon

*Recently a @one_peloton TikTok account has been created but it is not verified and is currently inactive. 

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The top 3 content themes for connected fitness are:

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Workout Humour:

A trend on TikTok shows users making jokes about their fitness programs. Often they will make fun of themselves and their ability to keep up with their classes. 

It also gives users an outlet to play around with their experience of using equipment at home. These videos often include close ups on different aspects of their outfits, bikes and surroundings to help tell the story. 

Opportunities:

• Brand Voice: Many users make TikToks about their transformation in attitude after riding their Peloton for a few weeks such as this one. 
  

• Peloton Hacks: Users also share videos of how they have tried to make the Peloton lifestyle and system work for them through tips and tricks such as this video. ‍
• Reach: Content portraying others’ experiences with their connected fitness opens up the conversation, allowing everyone to identify and laugh along their journey as well.

Top performing humour videos focus on a storyline related to connected fitness usage at home, ways instructors inspire users and joking about the intensity of the exercises.

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Instructor Appreciation:

Users create videos sharing their thoughts on a variety of instructors, usually focusing on their music choices, inspiring quotes and dance moves.

Opportunities: 

• Screen Sharing: Creators are often found filming their screen during memorable moments throughout a class. Videos taken directly from their video footage are often not properly oriented for TikTok such as this one. This highlights a whitespace for high quality video content made ready to share on a platform such as TikTok.
  

• Trainer Personality: TikTok snippets of trainers can give insight into what a class experience looks like and what kind of energy and guidance will be provided. 

Many creators post content about their favourite moments from specific classes or highlight instructor mannerisms in appreciation posts. 

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Fitness Journey:

Creators have been using a mixture of text or time lapses to show their progress since starting their workout journeys. This provides a tangible experience for others to see what “pay off” or value these systems can offer.

Opportunities:

• Results Driven: Beyond offering connected fitness as a lifestyle, this demonstrates how it can be applied to a healthy regime. 
  

• Content Options: These videos tend to manifest in two main ways. The first video is one that demonstrates the entire progress over time, such as the ones shown to the left. The second version is centered around multiple videos demonstrating different timelines. See this account for many videos demonstrating Peloton experiences. 

Through hashtags such as #pelotonjourney many creators are sharing their fitness journeys and goals using different connected fitness apps. 

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Currently only two Peloton instructors are active on TikTok including Cody Rigsby and Kendall Toole. Instructor Ally Love started an account but stopped posting as of December 2020.

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On March 7, 2021, Cody Rigsby posted his first video, gained 47.2k followers and was verified within two weeks.

On his profile, two out of four videos feature the #peloton tag. His content explores motivational videos and workout snippets, all featuring elements of humour.   

Videos with Cody Rigsby had 17.5M views before he was even on TikTok. Cody Rigsby Fan Page was launched at the end of 2020 and accumulated 18.6K followers over three months.

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40% of Kendall’s TikTok content mentions or features Peloton as part of the story. Her top liked video and top shared video feature Peloton.

Her top videos include a mixture of:

1. TikTok Duets reacting to people’s comments about her 
2. Comedy skits about people calling Peloton to complain about the intensity of her classes 

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Ally’s top TikTok video, where she participated in the #tapinchallenge, generated 55K video views. 

Dancing challenges on TikTok have become one of the most popular content categories on the platform. The #dance hashtag alone has generated over 2.5B views.

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While there are currently only a small amount of trainers on TikTok, there are a large number of TikTok fitness influencers such as: