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Are polished videos still effective on TikTok?

Everyone's talking about authenticity these days. But is that the only option?

For example, beauty brands often use clean lighting and sharp editing to demonstrate results. Fashion brands may use cinematic clips to highlight texture and movement.

On TikTok, overly polished content sometimes blends into paid ads in the feed.

Does down-to-earth content perform better on TikTok?

TikTok was built on casual, spontaneous content. Users expect personality, humour and relatability.

Creators who film on their phones in everyday settings often outperform brands with studio-style setups.

Content that feels natural often keeps people watching longer because it feels less like a sales message.

tend to hold attention better than highly produced promotional videos.

What if my background or filming space is not ideal?

Filming close-up to reduce visible background

Many creators film in bedrooms, kitchens or offices. Clean and simple works better than cluttered.

TikTok users are used to everyday environments. A real setting can feel more trustworthy than a staged one.

Luxury brands can still thrive on TikTok.

Loewe is a strong example. The brand maintains high product quality and strong visual identity, but also participates in humour and trending formats. Their TikTok content often feels playful while still showcasing craftsmanship and design.

Luxury brands do not need to abandon quality. They can adjust tone without lowering standards.

The key is protecting brand values while adapting to platform behaviour.

Should I mix polished and casual content?

How do I know what is right for my brand?

Do we want to build community or just showcase product?

Are we trying to entertain, educate or sell?

Does our audience respond more to personality or visuals?

Can we produce polished content consistently?

The best strategy often comes from testing both styles and reviewing engagement metrics.

Should My TikTok Content Be Less Polished and More Down to Earth?

Paid ads remain powerful when you need control and scale.

Platforms like Meta, TikTok and Google allow brands to:

Target specific demographics and behaviours

Drive measurable lower-funnel conversions

If your goal is predictable lead generation or direct sales, paid ads give you structured performance data and clear optimisation levers.

Keep in mind you’ll still need to create engaging content or assets for visual paid media - like Meta advertising. You’ll also get better results if you test and change your assets regularly. This means you may need to pay influencers or User-Generated Content creators (UGC) to create videos or pictures for you (unless you do it all in-house).

Influencers bring something ads often struggle to replicate: trust and context.

Creator content feels native to platforms like Instagram Reels and TikTok. A strong plus of hiring a content creator is that you don’t have to do as much work in-house - they can film, edit, and post for you.

Starting conversations in comments and DMs

In 2026, audiences respond well to faces, opinions and lived experiences. A creator explaining why they love a product often performs better than a polished brand asset.

Influencers often have the advantage here.

When someone discovers your brand through a trusted voice, the impact tends to feel more organic. Engagement rates are usually higher, and the content can circulate through shares and saves.

Paid ads can still drive awareness, but they rely heavily on strong creative and compelling hooks.

If you are launching something new, influencers can generate buzz faster.

Paid ads typically perform strongly at the bottom of the funnel.

Retargeting website visitors, abandoned carts or engaged viewers allows you to move warm audiences toward action.

Influencers can drive sales, especially in niche communities, but tracking and attribution can be more complex. Discount codes and affiliate links help, but paid media dashboards still provide clearer data.

Is influencer marketing more cost effective?

Micro and nano influencers can be cost-efficient, especially if their audience is highly aligned with your brand. Engagement rates are often strong relative to their follower size.

Paid ads may feel expensive upfront, but they allow you to optimise continuously.

The smartest approach often considers lifetime value, not just immediate CPA.

What happens when you combine influencers and paid ads?

This is where many brands are seeing the strongest results in 2026.

Testing UGC-style ads against polished brand creative

Creator content often performs well in paid placements because it feels native and relatable.

There is no universal rule, but here is a simple way to think about it:

If your priority is growth and awareness:

 Lean heavier into influencers and content creation.

Lean heavier into paid ads and retargeting.

If you want long-term brand equity and performance:

For example, a £5,000 monthly budget could look like:

£1,000 on amplifying top-performing creator content

The key is testing, reviewing and adjusting monthly.

What should you consider before choosing?

Do we need immediate sales or long-term brand building?

Are we building community or just driving traffic?

Your answers will guide your strategy more than any trend report.

Paid ads offer structure, targeting and scalable conversions.

Influencers offer trust, storytelling and cultural relevance.

The most effective brands are not choosing one over the other. They are using each where it performs best.

In 2026, success comes from understanding how people discover, trust and buy. So build your strategy around that behaviour.

Influencers vs Paid Ads in 2026: Where Should You Spend Your Budget?

Channel selection is becoming more important as the social media landscape evolves.

Unless you are Nike or Coca-Cola, what marketing department has the budget or resources to deliver effective social media strategies across seven different platforms?

If your social media budget is less than £100K per year, then carefully choosing two platforms and implementing a considered plan is going to be more effective than spreading your efforts thinly across multiple platforms.

But how do you choose which social media channels to focus on?

Start by asking yourself these questions…

1. Where is your audience already spending time?

Don't just guess. Check your website analytics, look at survey data online or even ask your customers directly. One of your chosen platforms should be one your audience actually uses. This doesn’t mean you can’t also create your own branded space that you bring people to such as an email list or substack.

 Balancing a third party community and an owned space supports brand longevity as you aren’t solely reliant on external platforms.

2. What business objectives are you trying to achieve?

Trying to drive awareness?Trying to shift perceptions? Attract a new audience? Looking to build a community? Generating B2B leads?

Think about the specific features each platform has e.g. Facebook Groups, TikTok Shop, Instagram Broadcast Channels, LinkedIn Events and then consider how you can leverage those features to work towards your objectives.

Although there are more typical choices for objective and platform fit (e.g. LinkedIn is an obvious choice for B2B lead generation), that’s not the only thing to consider. Sometimes going against the grain and choosing a more unlikely platform offers greater reward.

3. How quickly do you need to start seeing results?

In an ideal world, all brands would have time to test and learn. But the reality of it is, some businesses may have external factors such as funding opportunities, stakeholder expectations or partnership deals that could come with obligations and timelines.

Building a community on X or Threads is going to take time. Organic growth on Pinterest is playing the long game with consistency and optimisation. Same with building subscribers on Substack. There are no short cuts. Meta has great advertising opportunities if you’re looking for some quick wins.

 Quick wins don’t always = success. Sometimes slow and steady wins the race.

4. What platform(s) are saturated already with brands in your industry?

If you have some key competitors thriving on TikTok, perhaps you can piggyback off their audience. But ask yourself if there’s space for another brand on that platform or is there a gap somewhere else?

The most important thing is about doing something unique on the platform you choose to make your brand stand out.

Social media strategy shouldn’t be dictated by the skills your team has. Your team should be built around your plan. However it’s worth considering the cost associated with the skills you’ll need and the practicalities of bringing them into your team (whether that’s as employees or freelancers).

 Treat it like a bonus if your team’s skills compliment your chosen channel mix but don’t worry too much about this unless you have a very fixed team with limited skills.

6. Will this platform still make sense for your brand in 12 months?

It’s so easy to get pulled in by a shiny new platform. Testing new platforms is definitely encouraged by us but ultimately, your chosen channels need to align with strategic goals.

If you’ve done the upfront research and thinking before choosing your platforms, try to resist the FOMO when you see others enjoying success on other platforms. Unless you’ve got the budget and resources to invest in lots - in which case, go nuts!

 for Swyft, the international furniture brand.

Choosing the Right Social Media Platform for Your Business

As a social agency there’s nothing worse than pouring your heart and soul into a piece of content for clients and it absolutely flopping. But that 5 minute meme you put together - well, of course, that was the one that went viral! 

There’s a tendency for clients to lean towards the negative when something doesn’t work and naturally we’ll feel deflated. In those moments, it’s important to remember it’s all trial and error and if something doesn’t work, there’s always learning to take away!

We wanted to share 3 posts that have surprised us, good and bad, and the learnings that are helping us (and you!) to enhance social content.

We recently tried a new style of content for a Library business, showcasing print outs of the different artwork ahead of the special editions launching. This was a different style of content for the brand, showing prints of Dust Jackets and Hard Covers. Our expectations weren’t very high as we weren’t sure how much this would resonate with the audience, but the post surprised us with a massive 50K views!

And why? Well, we pin it down to people loving a sneak peak prior to a launch, as well as that exclusive look behind the scenes into how something is created. So, something we thought might under-perform, has become a useful tip into how to capture our audience’s interest.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DIMIwmdNytp/?igsh =eHNudzRqeXpiMHAw

After working with a client for a while, you start to get a feel for what content resonates best with the audience and what doesn't. But sometimes, a small tweak can really impact performance.

Posting for a jewellery brand, we created a video of an order being packaged, with a voiceover about a couple’s experience picking rings and what they offer. However, this didn’t drive as many likes as it did the previous time despite it being the same style.

This likely comes down to a slight change in messaging from what the audience really wants to see, both from the content and the pain points covered. We later did more research on TikTok and saw oval rings were in the top searches, so if the content featured an oval ring specifically it may have performed better. We’d also covered the sustainability of their rings in previous posts, showing that addressing a key concern for customers was just as important as the content format itself.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C8E-oIXIxfh/?igsh=ZXZoZmw5a3czbG1p

When a collab post was no longer possible for our charity client, the brand agreed to re-share our feed post to their stories. And after expecting this to under-perform, the post got 4K views and roughly double their average likes.

As much as a collab was preferable, it served as a reminder that working with brands in other ways can still have a great impact on results! By the brand reposting the story, it gave the charity credibility and helped to reach a wider audience, and perhaps even felt slightly less ‘manufactured’ and more authentic.

www.instagram.com/reel/DI1PSSFI3Cz/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA== 

These examples are a great reminder that content success isn’t always predictable and that’s okay. Whether a post exceeds expectations or falls flat, there’s always insight to be gained. By staying curious, analysing results and being open to testing new ideas, we can keep refining our approach and creating content that truly connects.

And if your 5 minute content goes viral, take the win!! 

3 Social Media Posts That Surprised Us- The Good And The Bad!

If your colleagues would rather paint their whole house with nail polish than show their face on camera, try any of these 10 content ideas 👇

Come to work with me (shot from a first-person perspective)

5 quick-fire tips from…(interview them over a cuppa and turn their answers into typographic assets)

The [name] edit (a curation of their favourite products from your range)

Berlin’s public transport system has them

Creative team challenges (latte art, pumpkin carving, pottery—the uglier the result, the better)

[Name] narrates (they do the voiceover for someone else’s video. 

Like this dad who narrated his daughter’s hair routine

Like the puppet idea? Here’s where you can get one made

Aesthetic quote templates for your typographic content

The Nutter Butter account is face-free and totally weird

In the pool with…Malika Favre from I Can’t Afford This But Maybe She Can

 is a French Artist and the co-curator of 

—“the long distance shopping list of a wannabe millionaire and a would-be millionaire.”

It started 3 years ago as a passion project with her close friend and fellow colour-lover, 

. Through daily posts, they open a dialogue about beauty in all shapes and forms, from everyday objects to fashion, architecture, interior design and anything in between.

How did the idea for ‘I Can’t Afford This But Maybe She Can’ come around?

The idea for the account came a decade ago when George and I were both living in London. It first started as a private joke turned public by George posting random things on Insta for me to buy. It literally was an account for an audience of one.

Years later, during the lockdown, we decided to revive it together and start curating objects we each coveted but couldn’t afford. It started growing, first slowly, then suddenly very rapidly and eventually became what it is today. Our aesthetic was somewhat niche and pretty different to other blogs out there at the time: a mix of graphic, bonkers and often colourful things.

Despite every marketing expert telling us that video and talking-to-camera is the only way to succeed on social, you’ve grown ‘I Can’t Afford This But Maybe She Can’ to 240K+ followers with just images—none of which feature either of you. Why do you think the content has landed so well?

Though we don’t create content as such, there is an element of art directing in the way we curate, which helped getting visual traction. We are both from the design world so we are very picky about what images we post and what feels pleasing to the eye, but other than that I think the strength of our content is the curation itself. Taste is a mystery and I feel that most people feel self conscious and shy about publicly embracing all the facets of their own taste. We definitely don’t, and I think it is that spontaneity and carefree approach to curating that has helped us grow. We don’t post content that can be found anywhere else and we don't put any limits to what we post, nor do we ask for each other’s approval before posting. Also, we are not a business and as such, we don’t have to push sales, to please anybody but ourselves or make concessions.

We post stuff we genuinely love and without asking for anything in exchange from makers and designers. Social platforms have become so commodified these days, so that kind of generosity is a rare occurrence and is what helped us build a great community of like minded people over time.

Would you ever do face-to-camera content on ‘I Can’t Afford This But Maybe She Can’?

We are not against it but this was never our strategy. First because we live in different countries but also because we don’t need to be the face of the content we post. At the end of the day, this account is not what we look like at all, it is about our eye and taste. We simply want to showcase other people doing great things and not getting the traffic they deserve.

That being said, there might come a point where we would show our faces but only if the content justifies it aka doing podcasts, interviews or studio visits for example…we just haven’t found the formula yet and are not in any hurry.

What are 3 of your top tips for content curation?

Be genuine and spontaneous, in tone and choices.

Be coherent but do not constrain yourself to your safe zone. It’s a mysterious balance.

newspaper idea from Paris boutique, Maison Guava

, is a great way to make company announcements (that could easily be faceless).

10 fun and faceless content ideas for camera-shy teams

The digital world is noisy and we’re all fighting for the same people to stop scrolling and pay attention! So, how do you make sure your image and video ads don’t get lost in the chaos?

First impressions matter, especially when your ad has about 1.7 seconds to grab attention. Whether it’s an image or a video, the key is bold, clear, and high-quality visuals that pop. Here’s how to do it:

: These stand out against busy social media feeds.

 don’t love text-heavy images. Keep it clean and to the point.

: We’re wired to connect with people. A smiling face or a dramatic expression works wonders.

: Even subtle motion (like animated text or a quick zoom) keeps viewers engaged.

For video ads, the first three seconds are everything. You need to make your audience pause and think, “Oh, what’s this?”

 – No long intros! Jump straight into something 

 – Something that sparks curiosity, like “What if you never had to meal prep again?”

 – Many people watch without sound, so make sure your message is clear even when muted.

People aren’t here to watch a feature film (unless you’re advertising one). The best-performing video ads are often under 15 seconds. For images, keep the message concise. Ask yourself: If someone only looks at this for two seconds, will they get the point? If not, simplify it!

Your audience should know exactly what you’re offering at a glance. Avoid vague messaging.

Instead of:  “Transform your skin today!”

Try: “Get glowing skin in 7 days – try our Vitamin C serum now!”

A strong call-to-action (CTA) is non-negotiable

Never assume people will just know what to do next. Tell them! Whether it’s “Shop Now” or “Sign Up Today” make it clear and compelling.

Even the best marketers don’t get it right the first time. A/B test different visuals, text, and formats to see what works best for your audience. What grabs attention? What gets clicks? Keep tweaking until you find the perfect combination for your audience.

Mastering image and video ads isn’t about throwing money at something and hoping for the best. It’s about understanding what makes people stop scrolling, pay attention, and take action.

person mastering image and video ads on a laptop and mobile phone

Mastering Image and Video Ads

Meta’s new rules mean that if your website falls into a “restricted” category then certain website actions are now off-limits for ad optimisation. Some actions which have been effected include: donations, lead generation, or purchases. A lot of charities fall under the “health and wellness” category, so they’ve been hit hard by this change.

Meta says it’s all about protecting user privacy but the lack of transparency around how sites are classified makes this extra tricky.

: Without conversion tracking, Meta’s algorithms can’t target your ideal supporters as accurately.

 Say goodbye to custom audiences based on website actions.

: Awareness campaigns are still fair game, as are any campaigns with conversion goals which take place on Metabut direct-response fundraising is taking the biggest hit.

There are a few things you can try to overcome these changes…

Think Meta made a mistake? Hit that appeal button and see if you can get your website reclassified. This does mean going around the houses with Meta Support, which we wouldn’t wish on our worst enemy but you might get somewhere!

: Focus on campaigns that don’t rely on website conversions. Utilise Meta for prospecting and awareness and convert that interest elsewhere.

Keep all your conversion goals within Meta

: Eg. run a Meta Lead Gen form synced to your CRM, rather than directing people to the forms on your website.

Track clicks through Meta, not conversions

: Use Google Analytics to measure ad performance.

Some charities are launching separate domains for fundraising campaigns to sidestep restrictions. By directing your ad traffic to a domain which isn’t flagged as “health and wellness” you can sidestep the restrictions.

Meta isn’t the only channel in town! Check out:

 – Great for awareness and video focused campaigns.

 – Alternative platforms with unique targeting options.

 (like My Thank You) to turn appreciation into action.

Yes, these changes are a curveball but you’ve got this! Adapt, experiment, and stay ahead of the game. Meta isn’t the only player in town and with the right strategy, your charity can keep making an impact.

Meta’s new ad restrictions: What charities need to know

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