René Martinez — Creative Director
I'm René, a creative director of social media and content strategy who's built and led teams creating content for organic and paid social. Full-stack creative with AI-powered workflows that reduce spend and lift output. Built for teams that want a leader who makes successful content and knows why it works. All the work here is my own.
How I Built a Successful TikTok Strategy From a Near-Zero Start
See how a culture-first content strategy turned a stigmatized product into a thriving social media brand.
When I stepped into the role of Creative Director of Social Media at Spokeo, I knew that TikTok was one of our bigger challenges. We had underperforming content, and a brand perception problem no budget could fix. The challenge was building a meaningful audience from scratch for a product people were embarrassed to be associated with.
Before building any content strategy, I run the same foundational exercise regardless of brand or category. It organizes every relevant variable into one clear picture and gives us a starting point for content we can actually produce and publish. Without this foundation, testing is guesswork. With it, we can test in volume, collect real performance data, and let the numbers tell us what to double down on and what to cut. That data becomes the basis for defining the content pillars and the long-term strategy.
The framework gives me a clear starting point and a content direction to build from. Early on that meant producing high-volume, low-barrier content: product tutorials, use-case demos, competitor-inspired formats, and anything else that gave us real material to test. The goal was not perfection. It was volume. You cannot build a strategy from a handful of data points, so for six months I produced, tagged, and tracked every piece of content against a consistent set of performance benchmarks, cataloging what failed, what met expectations, and what exceeded them. That body of data became the foundation everything else was built on.
"The data told me people don't want to be marketed to. They want to be entertained. They were curious, worried about people they meet online, and not yet sure they needed us. That uncertainty was the window of opportunity."
Six months of tagged, categorized performance data gave me something most brands never build: an evidence-based content map. Every piece was logged by platform, theme, format, and style. The pattern was clear. Content that led with the product pushed audiences away. Content that lived inside their culture pulled them in. The shift was from hunting to building a web. Instead of chasing the customer, we built the cultural environment they were already living in, the fears, the conversations, the stories around modern dating, deception, and relationships, and let the product become the natural conclusion. That proved to be the key turning point.
With the data in hand, it was time to build the content pillars. These were not assumptions. They were conclusions drawn from six months of evidence. From here the strategy had a foundation it could stand on.
I also believe that finding your voice is not a finish line. Platforms shift, algorithms change, and audience behavior evolves. Monthly, quarterly, and annual reviews are not optional. They are how you stay relevant and protect what you built. For this phase of the TikTok strategy, everything ran through three core pillars.
Soft CTA across all content: "Always verify your dates before meeting" → Spokeo logo → link in bio
The numbers tell part of the story. The real lesson sits underneath them.
Building an audience for a brand people are reluctant to admit they use requires a discipline most social strategies never develop. Without natural product affinity or brand love, you have to earn attention in a space where you have no inherent right to it. The shortcuts most brands rely on are not available to you.
That constraint, as it turns out, is an advantage. The discipline it demands, rigorous testing, constant reassessment of assumptions, and the willingness to cut underperforming content before sentiment solidifies around it, is exactly what any brand needs to build a sustainable, long-term scalable strategy. Whether you are building from zero, working with an established audience, or navigating a repositioning, the methodology holds. The audience always tells you what they want. Your job is to listen carefully enough and be ready to act on it with amazing content and constant testing.
Here are other channels and details where I applied this same strategy to success.
Revenue tracked via UTM parameters, discount code redemptions, and link-in-bio attribution across TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. C-suite recognized a 20 to 40% year-over-year improvement in conversion efficiency attributable to the organic social program.