TikTok – TikTok Academy
Democratizing Digital Education for a Global Marketing Community
Client: TikTok
Year: August 2020 - October 2022
Role 1: B2B Marketing & Creative Strategy, Global Creative Strategist
Role 2: Global Product & Platform Marketing, Global Industry Strategist
Role & responsibilities
As a Global Creative Strategist across product, platform, and industry education teams, I led GTM for TikTok Academy and 14+ product launches, driving +33% adoption and +26% retention. I also developed trend reports and enablement tools shared with 20K+ marketers globally, helping them scale creator campaigns and platform fluency.
My role as a B2B marketer was focused on shaping TikTok's early marketing vision, establishing foundational brand strategy, voice, and education to help define what TikTok meant for businesses.
Co-led TikTok’s first SMB grant program, #TikTokMadeUsFundIt, awarding $95K to small businesses and generating 50M+ views. I also won 1st place in ByteDance’s global hackathon with TixTok. This loyalty-driven ticketing concept unlocked presale access through in-app engagement, sparking cross-functional conversations around monetization and fan strategy.
CASE STUDY
Driving Global Adoption & Education: TikTok Academy & Always-On Creative Strategy
Project Title: Building TikTok Academy and Spearheading Global Always-On Creative Strategies for Business Marketing
Client/Company: TikTok (Global Business Marketing)
Your Role: Global Creative Strategist
Project Goal/Objective: To significantly accelerate the adoption and effective use of TikTok by marketers, brands, and agencies worldwide through the development of a comprehensive educational platform (TikTok Academy) and the creation of strategic "always-on" creative playbooks that position TikTok as a game-changer within the industry.
MY APPROACH
Strategy Developed: Led the overarching global creative strategy, which encompassed the development of large-scale educational initiatives and practical playbooks. This involved positioning TikTok as an advertising channel and a dynamic platform where continuous, authentic engagement ("always-on") was key to cultural relevance and business growth. The strategy aimed to empower clients with the knowledge and tools to utilize TikTok's unique features and drive impactful campaigns effectively. The approach included a refreshed external education strategy, with a completely revamped TikTok Academy launched on September 24, 2024, focusing on modularity and learning paths aligned with business objectives.
TikTok Academy Leadership & Redesign: Led the development and global relaunch of TikTok Academy, serving as the official learning destination for marketers and agencies of all sizes. This involved overseeing the creation of instructional courses designed to teach digital marketers everything needed for TikTok advertising, from creating and managing to measuring ad campaigns. The Academy offers self-paced e-learning courses curated into learning paths, live webinars, and short-form educational videos.. Courses were organized into six learning paths, covering 38 courses, structured by business objectives such as building brand awareness, driving website conversions, and promoting TikTok Shop.
Always-On Playbook Creation: Developed and disseminated strategic playbooks, such as the "Always-On Playbook," to guide businesses on continuous content creation and engagement on TikTok. This involved researching platform dynamics, user behavior, and successful brand strategies to distill best practices for maintaining a consistent presence, creating viral content, and engaging with audiences effectively, ensuring brands could remain relevant beyond single campaigns.
Audience-Centric Content Development: Ensured TikTok Academy content addressed diverse audiences, including small & midsize businesses, enterprise clients & agencies, and creative agencies, recognizing their distinct needs for self-help or additional resources. Courses were designed with clear learning objectives to measure outcomes.
Global Accessibility & Localization: Championed the global availability and localization of content. While initial courses were offered in English, plans were in place for translation, and other formats, such as videos and webinars, were available in multiple languages, including Spanish, Italian, Arabic, Portuguese (Brazil), and Korean, ensuring a global reach and relevance.
Sales Enablement & Support: Developed and supported the rollout of comprehensive sales collateral and 14 new product launches to regional teams worldwide. TikTok Academy was leveraged to empower sales teams with tools to break through advertising barriers and scale advertising effectively, covering essential areas such as creative strategies and measurement.
Cross-Functional Collaboration for Adoption: Collaborated extensively with cross-functional teams (including product, engineering, and regional marketing) to ensure seamless integration and effective communication of new product features and strategies. This collaborative approach was crucial in driving the adoption rate of new product functionalities among regional teams and clients.
Performance Measurement & Feedback Loop: Utilized a data dashboard hosted on Aeolus, combining data from Intellum (the learning management system) and internal 3M reports to track and measure learning outcomes and platform engagement. Also established channels for continuous user feedback.
RESULTS
Global Education & Adoption: TikTok Academy successfully onboarded over 20,000 marketers, brands, and agencies globally, with an impressive average score of 92%, signifying widespread understanding and mastery of TikTok's business value.
Increased Brand Awareness: The developed creative strategies significantly increased brand awareness by +17%, cementing TikTok's position as an indispensable platform for businesses.
New Product Feature Adoption: Collaborated with cross-functional teams to drive a 33% adoption rate for new product features among regional teams, ensuring the rapid integration and utilization of TikTok's evolving capabilities.
Extensive Content Coverage: The revamped Academy offers six learning paths, each containing 38 courses, providing comprehensive educational content for marketers and agencies.