Is TikTok punishing multifaceted brands?
Opinion
Consistency has always mattered on social platforms. On TikTok, it has tipped into something closer to rigidity, says Jungle Creations’ Lauren Kirkland.
TikTok has built its reputation on momentum. For brands and creators alike, it can still be the fastest route to scale. But that same engine now feels increasingly unforgiving for anyone who doesn’t fit neatly into a single, repeatable mould.
The platform’s recommendation system appears to reward thematic purity to an extreme. Accounts that stick to one format, one tone, one promise to the audience are more likely to compound reach over time. Those users who demonstrate range often see the opposite. A video that mirrors previously successful formats can reach hundreds of thousands or more, a post that steps outside that lane can struggle to reach even a fraction of an existing follower base.
When consistency becomes a constraint
For publishers and complex brands, this creates a structural problem. Their value often comes from breadth. They cover different stories, audiences and moments, but on TikTok, that breadth can start to look like noise.
Mix celebrity clips with explainers, branded content with interviews, and the algorithm struggles to understand what the account is meant to be serving. The signals stop stacking, and performance becomes uneven, sometimes brutally so.
The result has been a quiet shift in behaviour. More brands are experimenting with channel splitting, creating multiple TikTok accounts aligned to specific content pillars.
Podcasts sit on one handle, whilst explainers get their own home. This isn’t born from a desire to fragment brand identity, but a response to the platform’s logic. Faceted brands are adapting themselves to fit a system that prefers singularity.
What’s striking is how often this approach clashes with platform advice. TikTok partners still frequently warn against creating multiple accounts under one brand, citing dilution and operational complexity. Yet the performance data many teams see tells a different story.
When content falls outside the themes that have historically performed, reach drops sharply and consistently. Over time, teams are forced to choose between visibility and expression.
The algorithm only rewards clarity
This tension becomes clearer when looking at creators and publishers who do succeed within TikTok’s current rules. Diary of a CEO is often cited as a benchmark for disciplined optimisation.
Under the guidance of Grace Andrews, ex-social media manager for Steven Bartlett, the dragon’s video podcast leaned heavily into systematic testing. Multiple camera angles captured emotional moments. Thumbnails, captions and on-screen text were constantly iterated. Different versions of the same core content were published to see which combinations drove retention and reach.
The challenge is that this model doesn’t scale cleanly to multifaceted brands. Testing variations of the same idea only really works when the audience has one dominant reason for following.
For publishers covering everything from reviews to news, the audience is not a single community but a collection of overlapping ones. Each content type attracts different behaviours, watch patterns and intent signals.
In that environment, testing starts to fragment rather than clarify. A podcast clip competes in a feed shaped by celebrity content, and each variation does not get enough distribution to provide meaningful insight.
The algorithm, in turn, learns to show that content to an ever-smaller subset of followers. The widely discussed experience of “1,000 view jail” is less a punishment and more a symptom of mismatched signals.
The optimisation trap
As performance becomes less predictable, the response is often to slow everything down.
Decisions that were once made on instinct start to feel loaded, with each creative choice weighed for its potential impact on reach.
Small adjustments multiply, revisions stack up, and the process becomes more cautious and more tiring with every pass. What should feel fluid starts to feel dense, particularly for teams trying to do meaningful work within the tight limits of time and resources.
A/B testing itself isn’t the issue. It’s a familiar discipline across media and marketing. But on TikTok, the bar for meaningful experimentation keeps rising. What works for a well-resourced, single-focus creator operation can quickly become unmanageable for publishers juggling multiple formats, audiences and commercial demands.
The irony is that this depth of optimisation often runs counter to the creative instincts many teams are trying to protect. Speed, intuition and responsiveness are replaced with constant second-guessing. The process becomes more about not upsetting the algorithm than about saying something interesting.
Creativity under algorithmic pressure
Channel splitting is emerging as a pragmatic response rather than a silver bullet.
Segmentation allows each account to develop a clearer relationship with the algorithm and a more coherent set of audience expectations. Testing variations makes sense when it occurs within a single vertical rather than across many. It restores a degree of logic to performance without demanding infinite experimentation.
This dynamic isn’t limited to publishers. Creators who built their following around a single niche often struggle when they try to evolve. The platform’s memory of what they “are” can be difficult to rewrite. Pushing through prolonged underperformance becomes a test of motivation as much as strategy.
None of this suggests TikTok is acting maliciously. The platform is optimised for relevance at scale, not for protecting creative energy. Pattern recognition sits at the heart of its success. But as brands become more complex and audiences more fluid, that rigidity starts to show its limits.
The open question is how long this tension can hold.
Creativity relies on range, surprise and progression. Algorithms rely on predictability.
For now, multifaceted brands are bending themselves to fit the system, splitting identities and narrowing output to stay visible. Whether that remains sustainable or desirable is still up for debate.
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Lauren Kirkland is the social creative lead for Four Nine at Jungle Creations