As a TikTok agency, we know that building an organic TikTok community from scratch might seem daunting, but with the right approach, it can become an exciting and rewarding endeavour.
In this blog we will be highlighting the success story of our client Urban Tandoor, Bristol’s local Indian restaurant and kings of parodies (as we like to call them), and how we grew their TikTok account to over 136K followers (and counting!) with over 4.4M likes and 44M video views from TikTok users all around the world! Insane, right?
Urban Tandoor are the pioneers of delicious, traditional Indian cuisine in Bristol.
However, that is not their only speciality, they are now the biggest Indian restaurant on TikTok, becoming an international sensation!
So, how did they become so successful you ask?
At the end of 2021, Urban Tandoor had already perfected their food and service offering, but were trying to establish themselves more in the community.
They recognised the importance and reach of social media and approached Nonsensical with a brief to make them the most well-known restaurant on TikTok in Bristol.
They wanted to achieve this organically, with compelling and unique content to resonate with their audience, connecting with their staff and not just the product.
At this time, the TikTok account had under 1K followers and little engagement. The account lacked personality and did not comment on anything topical.
This is where we stepped in.
We drafted a strategy that would consistently keep the restaurant’s current and prospective audience engaged.
We took an approach to prioritise consistency and explored various avenues of the business to see what the followers reacted positively to.
The biggest challenge to overcome was finding and understanding the niche of content on TikTok that resonates with the audience or identifying their ‘Tok’. It took months of testing and being bold with content before we got our first big hit.
We tested food content, as well as home style videos, but it wasn’t until we got the restaurant staff involved that we started to see viral results, and what they are now most-well known for, parodies!
Urban Tandoor’s utterly hilarious and extremely witty parodies are what has really set them apart from other accounts.
I mean, you’re the naan that I want, bhaji girl, 500 miles to name a few, speak for themselves!
The consistent performance of parodies also led to the idea behind our epic April Fools campaign – ‘Only Naans’.
The Only Naans campaign worked really well as a play on the popular ‘Only Fans’ platform, creating the Only Naans Instagram account, with the April Fools campaign pointing towards the account as if it was a new venture for Urban Tandoor. There was even a naan bread duvet cover involved. (Clever, we know!)
The media coverage this campaign received was phenomenal and was featured in the likes of Reddit, Daily Star, Bristol Bites, Secret Bristoland Bristol Live!
This innovation paired with the continued ‘hit songs’ helped to propel the account’s success further.
The originality behind the ideas, lyrics, costumes, the consistency of the parody songs and just how much they resonate with their audience, are why the account is now at 136K followers, with over 4.6 million likes and four videos reaching well over 1 million views!
The restaurant now welcomes visitors from all over the country because they saw Urban Tandoor on TikTok!
Of course, none of this would be possible without the stars of the show, the phenomenal team at Urban Tandoor.
We have to show recognition for how much they have fully immersed themselves in our crazy ideas, not to mention their willingness to try different things and being the stars in the videos, reiterating just how much they are invested in the platform itself for the success of their business – and what a success it has become!
So thank you Urban Tandoor (we make a pretty incredible team). We can’t wait to see what’s next!
So, what are the key takeaways here?
We’re not done yet!
Nonsensical’s Head of TikTok, Nat Brereton, will be hosting a FREE TikTok webinar on 2nd November 2023 1PM GMT, who will delve deeper into Urban Tandoor’s success on TikTok and is for anyone who is looking to grow their TikTok account successfully!
It’s the perfect time to start growing on this platform, and our webinar will show you how!
Register here to join us!
For extra TikTok Training check out our website!
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