Expert explains what’s behind the TikTok craze – and how your business can take advantage of the format .
The TikTok app is a worldwide craze. In September 2021, it reached the milestone of 1 billion monthly users. Its dizzying growth – 45% since July 2020 – has led more established platforms such as Instagram and YouTube to follow a similar path, creating products such as Reels and Shorts, respectively, which allow the creation and sharing of short videos. These features simulate the same characteristics of the algorithm created by the Chinese app to detect interest in content and suggest similar videos in sequence.
According to Rejane Toigo, a neuromarketing master, social media specialist and founder of Like Marketing, at no point in the history of social media has a content format been simultaneously belize whatsapp data popular on the three largest platforms in the world. The popularity of short videos should not be ignored by companies when promoting their products and brands on social media.
According to Toigo, who is also a columnist for Administradores, the explanation for the format’s success lies in its content, which tends to be easier for the brain to assimilate and interpret. “This type of content is neurocompatible, that is, it is capable of activating specific neurotransmitters that trigger a cascade of sensations in the individual, which makes it practically irresistible to the brain,” he explains.
The first characteristic of short videos that makes them neurocompatible is that they are fluid and fast, telling stories in a loop, often using elements from the user's pre-existing memory, such as audio from famous TV or movie characters, popular music or current satire.
According to the neuromarketing master, this causes the brain to adhere or reject the content in milliseconds, activating system 1 described by psychologist Daniel Kahneman in his acclaimed work Thinking, Fast and Slow. According to Kahneman, the human brain can be divided into two operating systems: fast (system 1) and slow (system 2). For everyday functions, we would use system 1, and for complex tasks, we would use system 2.
Toigo states that the fact that they are metaphorical also makes them easier to understand. “This way, they can reveal complex concepts and important messages quickly, causing them to be processed by system 1,” she emphasizes. According to the founder of Like Marketing, the same metaphors, expressed through words, would only be understood by system 2.
Short videos are also neurocompatible because they promote the instant activation of mirror neurons, a specialized structure located in the prefrontal cortex that generates the uncontrollable imitation reflex. It activates the motor regions of the brain, even when people are not moving. “We yawn when someone next to us yawns because of this brain mechanism, and we also feel the urge to dance when we watch a dance on Reels or TikTok because of it,” he highlights.
Another characteristic that makes videos neurocompatible is that they are usually fun and funny. “Laughter stimulates the production of serotonin, a neuroregulator responsible for the feeling of well-being, and is capable of altering the production of cortisol and adrenaline, hormones responsible for stress,” explains Toigo.
The well-being caused by the content also drives people to share the videos with friends and acquaintances. “By doing this, we simulate in our minds that we are laughing with them, which enhances the feeling of well-being,” she says. According to the expert, studies on the collective effect of laughter have already concluded that human beings have the capacity to laugh up to 30 times more when they are accompanied: “This probably explains why humorous content is the most shared on social media, providing greater reach and visibility to short video formats.”