When Brandon Hurst first determined to promote his vegetation on TikTok Stay in 2023, the 32-year-old Sylmar resident didn’t know what to anticipate. He stated he thought he may promote not less than 30 vegetation, however as an alternative offered 250.
Now, three years later, the web creator, who goes by Brandon the Plant Man, sells as much as 5,000 vegetation every week, works out of a 3,000-square-foot greenhouse in Sylmar and has a employees of 13. He credit a lot of this success to the publicity he’s obtained on TikTok.
“I’d be out of enterprise if it wasn’t for TikTok,” stated Hurst. “I’d have ended the enterprise and gone again to working the desk job that I used to be working prior. I used to be already on that path, that was the place we had been headed. After which TikTok actually did flip that round.”
Hurst is likely one of the 920,000 California-based companies utilizing the social media platform to succeed in new prospects and develop their manufacturers, based on new information from consulting agency PF International.
In 2025, TikTok helped generate $12 billion in promoting and merchandise gross sales for these companies and supported 52,000 jobs within the state, stated the PF International report, which was commissioned by TikTok.
Nationwide, financial exercise on TikTok final yr helped contribute $81 billion to some 8.5 million U.S. companies, the report stated.
The surge in exercise displays a rising pattern towards on-line commerce, as extra small companies and customers flip to social media platforms like TikTok to purchase and promote items.
“We allow American tradition, American creators, American companies, to succeed in an viewers world wide,” stated Nicole Nason, TikTok’s head of U.S. public coverage, stated throughout a presentation on Wednesday morning.
The brand new report comes as TikTok is more and more desperate to tout its financial affect as a newly shaped U.S. three way partnership. In January, the corporate was taken over by three managing buyers: Silver Lake, Oracle and Emirati funding agency MGX, every holding 15%, with ByteDance retaining 19.9% of investments. This transition got here after TikTok’s Chinese language guardian firm, ByteDance, was beneath stress to divest its possession within the app’s U.S. operations or face a nationwide ban, on account of safety considerations.
Final month, TikTok additionally settled a $400-million lawsuit from the U.S. Division of Justice, ending a 2024 lawsuit alleging the corporate violated federal kids’s privateness legal guidelines.
TikTok, which operates its U.S. headquarters in Culver Metropolis, the place it employs a number of hundred employees, is generally identified for its viral, short-form vertical movies. However, through the years, the platform has grow to be a hub of curated viral content material and a central a part of many companies’ advertising methods.
The app additionally has options like TikTok Stay, the place companies can host reside procuring occasions, and TikTok Store, which serves as a direct-to-consumer on-line market.
For its examine, PF International surveyed greater than 11,000 adults within the U.S. and 5,000 companies. The agency additionally carried out 5 case research with U.S. small companies and TikTok creators and interviewed over 600 folks across the nation. The information set mixed that survey information with authorities statistics, trade analysis and TikTok’s personal inner information.
PF International lately revealed an analogous financial report for the U.Okay. and is engaged on reviews for 10 different European international locations with TikTok.
Neil Ross, a companion at PF International, stated a standard international theme is that TikTok customers usually tend to see one thing on the platform and exit and do it.
“Individuals world wide are utilizing it as a form of digital entrance door to work out the place to go, what to buy, what experiences to have,” Ross stated.
The U.S. report states that 27 million Individuals “visited an unbiased store, cafe or restaurant for the primary time after seeing it on the platform.”
The app’s roots date to 2014, when an app referred to as Musical.ly was launched in Shanghai. In 2016, Chinese language tech firm ByteDance launched an analogous platform in China referred to as Douyin.
Because the apps grew in recognition, ByteDance picked up on their potential. It bought Musical.ly in 2017 and mixed all these platforms into one, named TikTok. Over the subsequent few years, the app started its speedy ascent, hooking in customers with a curated algorithm and viral developments. In the present day, 200 million Individuals use TikTok each month, based on PF International.
“Each day, TikTok powers actual financial affect throughout the USA, serving to entrepreneurs develop their companies, attain new prospects, and create jobs throughout the nation,” stated Adam Presser, TikTok’s chief government in an announcement.