TikTok: Why brands should learn about tomorrow’s channels, today

Blog Jori van de Spijker – Managing Consultant

There’s no escaping the growing attention for one of the newest social media channels: Clubhouse. And although Clubhouse is not nearly as far as its competitors – partly due to the exclusivity of the app – it reminded me of the rise of all those other channels; Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and more recently TikTok. In the past 10 years, I have seen the media landscape change and learned that market research is never finished. In a constantly changing world with more and more new technologies and innovations, the challenge for companies to keep up is greater than ever. A decade ago, the question was still mainly what the effect was of a banner on a website. Later, that became whether it was useful to invest in social media channels, and what to do about advertising on Facebook and YouTube. The themes were always polarising. One part of the market saw it as hype, others as the only way for brands to stay relevant. Both groups turned out to be right; the platforms remained and became important tools, but were also not nearly as disruptive to traditional channels as first believed.

It’s all In the numbers

In 2021, TikTok is a good example of an emerging channel. According to official numbers from 2020, TikTok has 800 million active users worldwide. Meanwhile, the number of users is even estimated to be around 1 billion. With 2.6 billion downloads (December 2020), and global penetration of 18% of internet users aged 16-64, TikTok is now among the social media giants. In comparison: TikTok reached this number of monthly active users in less than three years after it was founded, whereas it took Instagram six years. Looking at TikTok’s target group, about 60% of users belong to GenZ. Users spend an average of 52 minutes a day watching and posting videos, and open the app around 8 times a day (Ofcom estimates that people spend around 43 minutes a day on Google’s platforms and 36 minutes on Facebook). So, it’s no secret that TikTok is well underway to break all records. So why isn’t there more attention, and especially the need, to test the waters?

balance is key

Research is often done for two reasons: 1) to validate whether what you have done works and how it can be done better, and 2) to understand how the unknown works. What you often see with new technologies is that they are so small at the beginning that the investment in research does not outweigh the budget that is spent on them. For example, in the past, the focus was mainly on the TV campaign, and there was little or no need to understand how advertising on social channels works because it was just a small slice of the total budget. The choice is then often made to not research it at all. A disadvantage of this is that companies are sometimes overtaken by time. Before you know it, a channel that was small at first – Facebook, Instagram, and now TikTok – has suddenly grown into a major player, and large budgets are now allocated to it. Meanwhile, competitors have learned how these channels work and how they can best deal with them, and you are caught empty-handed. Facebook is a good example; companies wanted to advertise on Facebook, but stuck to A/B testing and were reluctant to invest real research budgets to understand how the channel works. But some companies did because they saw that consumers were attracted to the platform. 5 years later, and Facebook was suddenly one of the most important channels in the mix.

The next ‘big thing’

You see the same thing happening now with channels like TikTok. You never know if it is short-lived, that’s the exciting thing. A lot was expected of influencers at first, but that trend seems to have eased, Snapchat isn’t what it was two years ago, but Instagram, and Instagram Stories, have made it. Whichever way it goes, you can’t afford to miss the boat, and not think about testing TikTok commercials right now. Of course, the bulk of your research budget goes into measuring and optimising the biggest marketing activities. But why not free up a budget to test these new initiatives? Even if they don’t seem worth it today, it may be these insights that give you a decisive advantage tomorrow.