When Slim Jim joined TikTok in February, the snack brand set out to maximize engagement with users on the platform by positioning itself as TikTok’s “CEO of verified comments”—a verified brand account whose reputation would revolve around commenting on as many users’ videos as possible. Embracing this self-imposed title has helped the brand win over 3.2 million followers in the span of six months. 

Conagra Brands, Slim Jim’s holding company, partnered with creative agency 180 to launch a TikTok account and build out Slim Jim’s presence on the platform. The two companies first began working together nearly four years ago to refine Slim Jim’s social media identity on Instagram by embracing meme culture instead of explicitly promoting Slim Jim’s products, said Amy Morgan, director of brand communications at Conagra.

In social media speak, the term “verified” refers to an account that a platform, such as TikTok, has determined to belong to the person or brand that it purports to be, which is then indicated by a coveted blue checkmark next to the account’s username. 

For Slim Jim, being the “CEO of verified comments” has meant that TikTokers upload videos that tag Slim Jim and challenge the brand to leave a comment—whether that video involves a user doing push ups using a Slim Jim instead of their hands, or simply filming a Slim Jim on a table. In addition to putting this CEO title in bold capital letters in the brand’s TikTok bio, Slim Jim also regularly boasts in videos about its ability to engage with more users via comments than any other accounts, including one in which the caption declares: “Just summon me— I’m built different.” 

“We were going to be the verified creator that would make sure that no matter what, you rang the bell, we came running and we showed up [and commented]. And, of course, what people want to do when that happens is test your might,” said Evan Weissbrot, president of 180. “We’re talking about this insane amount of [user-generated content] that’s being created. There have probably been close to three million videos that have been made of users saying, ‘Slim Jim, show up. Show up and do something. Show me some love.’ And those videos have probably generated 550 million views of the Slim Jim brand.”

Users don’t stop at simply pressing the “follow” button on Slim Jim’s page, they collectively inundate each of the brand’s videos with thousands of comments and create their own Slim-Jim-inspired videos, such as the one user who built the brand’s logo out of Rubik’s cubes. As of June 30, Slim Jim’s account has a 20% engagement rate and an average of one million views per video, according to data from 180. That number far exceeds the average brand engagement rates listed in a recent report by streaming analytics firm Conviva, which found that engagement rates for the 50 most-followed brands on TikTok typically range from 1% to 10%.

Slim Jim’s engagement with TikTok users, more than any other metric, has been responsible for the brand’s rapid growth on the platform, Weissbrot said. Since uploading its first video to TikTok on Feb. 4, Slim Jim has accumulated its following entirely through organic growth, surpassing TikTok giants like Nike, which has 2.6 million followers, and McDonald’s 2.3 million followers. 

“We didn’t just blow right by them from the commentary or followership, but the amount of actions that were driven,” Weissbrot said. “None of [our content] is technically viral—it’s performing at our baseline—but we’re the first brand on TikTok to be a viral commenter. To create a groundswell of people all wanting to see what we have to say and what we have to do, creating content with us and on our behalf.”

Beyond encouraging other users to create videos aimed at capturing Slim Jim’s attention, the brand’s social media team also regularly produces its own content to appeal to its meme-loving community known as the “Long Boi Gang”—a nod to how many users referred to the brand’s meat sticks as “long bois” in Instagram comments, Weissbrot said.

To ensure the brand is producing fresh, relevant content, 180’s video producers focus on timeliness rather than high production quality; in Weissbrot’s words, “The goal is not to be the most crafted, but the most contextually and culturally aware.” Both 180 and Conagra’s social media teams are fully immersed in the TikTok world and will often bounce ideas off of each other in a shared group chat when they encounter a trend on the platform. And, because members of Conagra’s legal team are also members of that chat, these potential videos can be greenlit within just a few hours. 

Many of Slim Jim’s videos perpetuate in-jokes and concepts that originated on the brand’s Instagram page, from the “meatric system” that uses the brand’s products to measure different objects, to faux pasta recipes using Slim Jims in video segments called “Slimguine.” Most recently, the brand has played into the “GigaChad” meme and its notion of extreme masculinity and brawniness, with 180’s designers developing a “GigaJim” 3D model that transformed the meat stick into an incredibly muscular golden man. Some of the brand’s memes have even been incorporated into the product itself, such as the community’s “long boi” moniker adorning the packaging for some meat stick varieties.

Weissbrot said his agency has distributed Slim Jim-branded products created in-house to TikTok creators who agree to let Slim Jim repost their videos to the brand’s page as a show of appreciation. And, of course, as the self-titled “CEO of verified comments,” Slim Jim aims to post comments on as many videos as possible each day. 

Perhaps most notably, Slim Jim has built its massive following on TikTok—and on its Instagram account before it—entirely without paid media support. Unlike many brands on the platform, Slim Jim has stayed away from working on paid campaigns with TikTok influencers or any other type of promotional content. 

And through TikTok, Slim Jim has only expanded the scope of its “Long Boi Gang,” drawing in equal numbers of male and female followers and users of all ages—even vegans who don’t actually consume the brand’s products themselves—all of whom have formed a close-knit online community that transcends sticks of meat.

“That’s part of the fun — being able to say, ‘When Slim Jim shows up, it's just gonna be a good hang. It's gonna be a lot of fun, and it's probably going to be a bit unexpected,’” Weissbrot said.