the app, but ultimately decided against a ban. Instead, Prime Minister Scott Morrison advised users to proceed with caution. Although TikTok launched in 2012, it has only really started to gather pace in Australia in the last 12 months. And with the global pandemic uniting consumers through the message of #stayhome, TikTok has thrived, surpassing two billion downloads in the first quarter of the year. While many big brands have been slow to embrace TikTok, it has proven an important tool for many businesses, not only in forging a valuable connection with consumers, but also boosting sales during a difficult year. Sticky Australia, a family-owned confectionery retail and wholesale business, is one such example, having amassed over 2.3 million followers in the space of just three months. David King, founder and general manager of Sticky Australia, told Inside Retail that the team would be disappointed if a US ban were to take place.“A significant percentage of our TikTok followers are in the US, but it’s also our youngest demographic,” he said. “We will be disappointed if it goes ahead, but I am far more concerned about what the proposed ban says about the deteriorating international trade environment generally, the ongoing conflict between China and the West, particularly the US and Australia, and how that will play out longer-term.”Sticky has been operating from a store at The Rocks in Sydney for nearly 19 years, creating colourful candy before their customers’ eyes. David, a former lawyer, and his wife Rachel expanded the business over the years into the creation of customised products for weddings, corporate events and parties – a chunk of the business that took a major hit due to the pandemic. “Everything disappeared. Retail stopped; we had a lot of wedding business on but that all got cancelled and corporate spend just disappeared at the same time. Our income and revenue stream just went to zero,” David said. Sticky also has franchises in eight countries, which helped generate a following online over the years, but social media wasn’t ever a priority for the business prior to the pandemic. When retail and wholesale orders dried up, King decided to throw a “Hail Mary pass”. “We decided to livestream our business on Instagram first, and the response was pretty good. People really enjoyed it. There weren’t big crowds. We had maybe 50 or 60 people watching us, but we worked very hard on our own online presence in terms of our website, and we started to get some online orders.” With a larger following on Facebook, they decided to introduce live streaming to that platform. In the space of a couple of weeks, the audience grew to tens of thousands. Unsurprisingly, it was King’s 17-year-old daughter Annabelle who was the one to introduce the business to TikTok. Annabelle began posting videos on TikTok in May, and now Sticky candy-making videos can amass between 500,000 and 36 million views. @stickyaustralia Pro vs beginner Lolly-chopping race 🍬 I think he beat me 😅 #candy #lollies #art #satisfying #oddlysatifying #australia #sydney #food ♬ original sound – Sticky Lollies While there’s no doubt that Sticky’s candy-making is fascinating to consumers, it’s not just about views and likes. Since the team invested more time and energy into these social media platforms and the company website, they have reaped the rewards. “We had never really gone hard on trying to sell through social media. It was more a branding exercise for us than a sales revenue stream. It was about engaging with people who liked what we do, but not necessarily trying to do a hard sale on them. “It’s been quite extraordinary. We are selling lots of product now. The visitation to our website and the revenue going through our website is extraordinary – we are blown away.” King has used discount codes to drive traffic to the website, and help the team better understand where orders are coming from. Tackling social issues Social media has united users around the globe, and has served up plenty of light relief during an uncertain and challenging year. In an age where brands struggle to hold the attention of consumers online, with 15 seconds considered the optimum video length for TikTok success, Sticky has proved that sometimes it pays to throw out the rule book. Sticky’s followers are tuning in to hours of content each week. “It’s like this little corner of the world where for an hour, it seems like nothing’s wrong. We have people watching for an hour three times a day, three days a week. It’s just this little community of people who are showing so much love to us – it’s quite extraordinary,” David said. “One of the beautiful things is it’s interactive, so we can talk to people while we’re making candy.” But with a global audience, comes global issues some more charged than others. “We try really hard to not just engage on the product, but to engage with things we believe in as well,” David said. “We’ve done candy to raise awareness about Friedreich’s ataxia, we create ANZAC Day lollies … I’d like to devote more of our time to that kind of stuff, things like Beyond Blue, Black Lives Matter.” However, David said they are always mindful about how they handle sensitive issues like Black Lives Matter, for example, and advises thinking carefully about how to approach a subject like this before jumping in. In response to the global protests, Sticky posted a simple message that read: “We hear you, we see you, we stand with you.” @stickyaustralia ♬ Same Love (feat. Mary Lambert) – Macklemore & Ryan Lewis & Macklemore & Ryan Lewis The secret to social media success “The best advice I’ve ever heard about social media is, ‘It doesn’t matter if it’s good content; it’s content.’ By putting it out there, you can see what works. It doesn’t have to be perfect,” David said. Previously, Sticky’s content was all very curated. Now, they are posting “off the cuff”. “I think it’s important to trust your key people. Let them take their phones and let them help you build the content around the things in the business that they like, and the reasons they value what they do. “Retain control, but give them a stake in the creation and development of the brand itself. They live it every day and if anyone can see the human part of what you do, it’s them, not the social marketing geniuses.” By showing this human side, the culture of the business shines through and has fuelled much interest in Sticky as a workplace. “We have been flooded with CVs. People comment all the time asking if they can have a job here and what kind of training they need to do to get a job,” Annabelle said. By David and Annabelle’s own admission, Sticky is a very “TikTok-able” business. “Our business has always been a mix of retail and performance. There have always been people watching us, we’re just doing it in a different format now,” Annabelle said. She believes fear of the unknown is holding back a lot of brands when it comes to TikTok, but businesses shouldn’t be afraid to show some personality and try something new. “It’s not about following a special formula, she says. “I think a lot of people get caught up in doing what’s already popular and if you’re doing what’s popular, there are a million other people doing the exact same thing and you’re not necessarily doing it better than them. So, if you can create something original and amazing, then you’ve got something worth having.” It’s not the first economic crisis the business has navigated. When the global financial crisis of 2007 hit, Sticky closed all but the remaining one of its local stores, but had the opportunity to expand overseas. “We’ve started businesses everywhere from Saudi Arabia to Mexico to the United States, Cambodia, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Singapore … all over the place. It’s been an adventure,” David said. “It’s a lot easier doing that with the franchise model than it is trying to essentially manage remote locations from Sydney. When the person there has an ownership interest, there’s a real driver for them to maintain, not just the quality, but brand integrity too.”