The Signal: In March this year, just as shelter-in-place orders forced billions of people indoors, we reported on a growing number of niche topics that were emerging on TikTok (examples below). We also highlighted opportunities in TikTok-adjacent products and services, such as ring lights for selfies (a term that had more than 450k searches/month at the time).

Since Then: Only 2 months have passed since we reported on this trend, and in that time TikTok and its niches have exploded — again. In the US alone, the number of unique mobile visitors 18 years and older skyrocketed by 36% from 28.8m in March to 39.2m in April. Many big name brands have jumped on the bandwagon (see these 21 inspirational TikTok marketing strategies).

Here’s how a few of the niche topics we reported on have grown:

  • #americanhistory: 5m views then → 11.2m now
  • #jigsaw: 81m views then → 132.6m now
  • #magictricks: 300m views then → 531.6m now
  • “Ring light”: 450k searches/month then → 673k now