Manufacturers have lapped it up. The toy model Nerf now has a chief TikTok officer. The meat stick model SlimJim calls itself the “C.E.O. of verified feedback,” referring to its technique of commenting on as many TikTok movies as doable.

And advertisements on TikTok seem to get outcomes. Final yr, the boys’s style firm Swet Tailor posted a TikTok video promoting the identical shirt, in several colours, being thrown onto a rotating man. The video garnered 5,000 views, excess of most TikTok movies posted by the corporate, which has fewer than 300 followers.

In two weeks, Swet Tailor offered 35 p.c of its stock for the shirt, when it usually would have offered 5 p.c. In contrast, Fb and Instagram advertisements “barely moved the needle,” mentioned Adam Bolden, the clothes model’s chief government.

Swet Tailor at present spends 15 p.c of its advertising and marketing finances on TikTok, largely on partnerships with influencers, however needs to extend the quantity to 50 p.c due to the platform’s youthful viewers and its success at getting viewers to purchase stuff.

“We all know Fb and Instagram are dropping a number of market traction,” Mr. Bolden mentioned. “We realized that video is turning into extraordinarily vital, if not obligatory.”

Different companies are making the identical shift. At Triple Whale, an information analytics firm, purchasers have spent $99.89 million on promoting on TikTok because the starting of this yr in contrast with $18.39 million in 2021, a 443 p.c enhance, mentioned Alexa Kilroy, its head of name.

Nonetheless, promoting on TikTok will not be essentially easy. That’s partly as a result of manufacturers should keep away from turning into, to quote a meme regularly seen on the platform, a middle-aged, skateboard-carrying Steve Buscemi saying, “How do you do, fellow children?”