TikTok – to the moon or back to earth?
The next six months will be decisive for the app and short-form video landscape. Are you buying or selling?
TikTok has every opportunity to cement its place in the social media pantheon.
Worldwide, it was the most downloaded app in 2020. With 1 billion monthly active users, it trails Instagram – which has been around for a decade – by just 200 million users.
Almost 50% of Americans between 18 to 29 years old use the app regularly; the under-18 crowd (the app’s original target audience) is way higher.
And TikTok’s user base isn’t just huge. It’s obsessed.
Active users open the app 19 times a day and spend 52 minutes glued to their #ForYou feed – a highly addictive stream of hyper-personalized 15-second videos.
The platform was also a formative coping mechanism throughout the pandemic. Bored in the house content (audio NSFW) helped TikTok duplicate their 2019 growth in 2020, and deepened emotional connections to the app.
So, is the party just getting started for TikTok or has it already peaked? Brands should be prepared for both outcomes – because they’re both distinctly possible.
POV: To The Moon 🚀
Central Argument: TikTok is too big to fail.
It’s not just the passionate user base, epic growth and favorable demographic trends. It’s the product itself.
The AI behind TikTok’s #ForYou recommendation engine is the stuff of fantasy for other social media giants. It’s the best tech in the game, full stop. And it improves with every additional second of user engagement.
Sure, people have fair questions about TikTok’s data collection and usage practices. Guess what – people have similar concerns with Google, but more than nine in 10 people still use Google Search. The algorithm is too legit to quit!
Nathan Apodeca’s internet-shattering September 2020 TikTok featuring “Dreams” by Fleetwood Mac made the band more popular than ever before on the internet. Same for Ocean Spray.
Their official tagline “It Starts on TikTok” perfectly captures the app’s amazing ability to predict and accelerate popular videos across its platform, transforming ephemeral content into cultural phenomena.
Simply put, nothing can launch a person to fame faster than TikTok – and the same goes for brands, products, songs, foods, dances, hobbies, and places.
If you heard “Dreams” by Fleetwood Mac on the radio, at the mall, cafe, or party in the past year, it’s because of TikTok.
If you made that viral feta pasta recipe in the past year, it’s because of TikTok.
If you bought the Bissell Little Green Machine vacuum cleaner, it’s because of TikTok.
FOMO dictates that everyone wants to be a part of the new thing – and this supersonic content sharing and trend discovery is that new thing.
It’s why millions of Millennials 25+ downloaded the app during the pandemic, and it’s how TikTok will continue to grow rapidly. Every social media app starts with a young user base before expanding into older age groups, and TikTok is no different.
Another factor that will help TikTok grow up? Marketing.
TikTok is on the cusp of becoming the top player in social commerce.
Source: Marketing Dive
Right now, products that go viral on TikTok do so without any direct connection from content to cart. Imagine the potential once influencers and brands can hyperlink in-content products directly to eCommerce pages or, better yet, social commerce pages within TikTok.
Bottom line – in the next six to twelve months, marketers and agencies will start treating TikTok less like the weird new kid on the block and more like the kid with the biggest house on the block. Once that happens, TikTok will permeate popular culture just as much as Twitter and Facebook and accumulate millions of new users.
In three years, Instagram will be standing in TikTok’s shadow.
POV: Back to Earth 🌎
Central Argument: TikTok will lose a war of attrition (if it’s not undone by scandal first).
TikTok has enjoyed smooth sailing for the past three years. No real competition. A global pandemic that drove a surge in screen time and social media usage.
But the headwinds are coming on fast.
Instagram is the most direct threat to TikTok’s short-form video dominance. The recommendation engine behind Instagram’s #ForYou-equivalent feature – Instagram Reels – has improved by leaps and bounds in the past six months. And so has user engagement.
With all the financial and technical resources of Facebook trained on stymieing TikTok, it’s a safe bet that Instagram’s AI will catch up to TikTok’s by 2022. And unlike TikTok, which has no notable user experience outside of the endless scroll of videos, Instagram already has an entire ecosystem of features to keep users engaged and support content creators.
Once Instagram Reels achieves AI parity with TikTok, why should users remain active on both apps when Instagram can satisfy video and photo sharing?
There’s also competition from Google.
79% of internet users have a YouTube account, so even if YouTube isn’t as natural a fit as Instagram, we wouldn’t bet against them.
YouTube Shorts just announced a $100 Million fund to lure TikTok creators away from the app. This cut the head off the snake strategy could prove effective. The #1 TikTok influencer – Charli D’Amelio, who has 115M+ passionate followers – recently expressed displeasure with the app’s less authentic, more monetized evolution. As TikTok moves aggressively into social selling, this will rob the app of the “joy” that has made it so successful.
Here’s the other thing. TikTok’s growth is maxed out. Even if older millennials and some Gen Xers download the app, they aren’t creating content and eventually stop using the app.
That could be because there’s a much higher learning curve and discomfort factor in creating “authentic” videos than sharing photos. And the inescapable videos of teenagers dancing are a little uncomfortable, too.
Lastly – the elephant in the room. TikTok’s extraordinary AI is powered by extraordinary data collection from users. A high-profile privacy showdown from users, parent groups, ex-employees, and/or public figures exposes TikTok to real risk.
There’s also the question of where that data is going – and whether the U.S. DOJ and other governments might force Apple and Google to pull the app from their respective stores. That there is non-zero chance of this happening should raise alarm and deter brands from going all-in.
Bottom line, TikTok is a flash in the pan and it’s all downhill from here.
Our POV: Everyone’s a Winner 🏆
This isn’t a zero-sum game between TikTok, IG Reels, and YouTube Shorts.
You can’t underestimate consumer appetite for video content.
Consider the much-discussed “streaming wars” between Netflix and its newer rivals.
Although Disney+, Hulu, and other OTT platforms gained 50% more U.S. subscribers in 2020, these gains did not come at Netflix’s expense. There’s more than enough demand for all of these services, according to this WSJ quote:
“Instead of a streaming war, there’s been streaming coexistence and parallel growth.”
We expect the exact same trend with short-form video. TikTok will remain the top player globally, and Instagram and YouTube grow a ton, too.
How Brands Can Prepare
UGC is too powerful to skimp on. Major brands must invest heavily in earned and shared media strategies across all short-form video platforms.
First and foremost, they can’t fly blind without any market intelligence from TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Snap, and other video apps.
They need to keep a pulse on UGC. And in order to do that, they need software that can find and track in-content brand mentions and appearances by detecting logos, products, and other market intel. Read more about our brand recognition and reporting platform, or click the button below for a demo.