TikTok´s contribution to the new way of marketing : A qualitative study about how Swedish SMEs are using TikTok as a tool in their marketing strategy

Sammanfattning: The increasing trend towards digitalization has resulted in social media marketingbecoming a common practice among companies today. This new trend has openedup new opportunities for SMEs, which typically have less resources than largercompanies. One platform which has become popular amongst businesses isTikTok, and it was therefore of interest to investigate how SMEs are currentlyusing this platform in their marketing strategy. The purpose of this thesis was toinvestigate a number of SME operations in order to understand and suggest howthey can improve their current strategy on TikTok. This thesis is based on previous research on SMEs, consumer behavior, socialmedia marketing, TikTok as a marketing tool, content marketing, viral marketing,and paid advertising. Additionally, a qualitative research approach was usedwhere semi-structured interviews were conducted with a total of elevenrespondents. The respondents consisted of a number of Swedish micro, small andmedium-sized firms from a B2C context currently operating on TikTok. The results of the study indicate that SMEs are present on TikTok due to sellingpurposes, interaction opportunities and because of its large reach. The maincharacteristics of the platform were the personal content, the short format videos,and the young audience. However, despite the growing presence of SMEs onTikTok the study suggests that few have a clear strategy on the platform,indicating a potential need for increased efforts to improve their success.