There is no TikTok in influencer marketing.
It's hard to imagine, but brands and agencies are doing just that, knowing they could find their social media blueprints pulled out from under them if ByteDance doesn't meet the Biden administration's ultimatum to sell the app.
Federal officials told ByteDance to stop using the app because of Chinese laws that could force it to give information to Beijing. The app will be banned in the US if the company doesn't comply.
The CEO of ByteDance is testifying on Capitol Hill. He distanced himself from the Chinese government. He used the app this week to warn about a possible ban and to make a short video about it.
Heather is the director of social media at Coyne PR.
She says that brands and agencies who have gone all-in on TikTok will take the biggest hit.
There would be damage to other areas. She says that there are implications for search, small business and politics.
TikTok has grown from 100 million users in 2020 to 150 million in the U.S.
The sunset of TikTok is a major concern for brands and their followers.
She says that a channel-focused strategy should not happen anymore.
Some brands haven't diversified their social media strategy and are focused on TikTok Hart says that brands need to stop thinking about influencers as conduits for isolated channel engagement and more as media properties themselves that can be used across marketing plans.
Fans of TikTok creators are very loyal to many brands. The creator of comedy content has over 2 million followers. She has only 131,000 followers on her two social media accounts. Hannah, who rose to fame on the platform as a lip-sync content creator, has 838,000 followers on TikTok. She has 88,700 followers on the photo sharing site and has no presence on the video sharing website.
In comparison to other platforms, the followership of the biggest TikTok stars has dropped off. A former factory worker in northern Italy who has collaborated with brands like Barilla has over 15 million followers on TikTok. His following on social media is less than on TikTok with 81 million and 492,000.
The app seems to be unaffected by economic concerns. According to WARC, 75% of marketers plan to increase their activity on the platform, and this month they upgraded their forecast by almost $2 billion to $15.2 billion. The forecast would mean a 52% jump in ad revenue for TikTok and would account for almost a third of Instagram's advertising business.
The rise of TikTok is due to its strategy for increasing the number of people using it. The TikTok Creator Fund is one of the most profitable for creators. It takes years of consistent effort to build a large, engaged audience that will stick around, despite the fact that an unknown influencer can quickly rise to fame.
The company said that the creator fund is not a grant or ad revenue sharing program. Your funds will ebb and flow in the same way because you know that performance on TikTok is dynamic.
To be eligible for the fund, creators need at least 100,000 authentic views in the last 30 days in one of six countries, including the U.S. The fund started at $200 million and is expected to reach $1 billion in the U.S.
Without TikTok, where will these short-form video creators go? Reels was introduced in 2021.
The larger TikTok creators have been growing their channels on social media. The disappearance of TikTok will benefit the two social networks.
Hart believes that brands and their agency partners should keep an eye on obscure platforms.
The absence of TikTok could lead to some interesting places that brands can use to their advantage. It is possible that some of the smaller players will benefit as well.
Since its release in 2020, the once-a-day photo sharing app has more than 53 million downloads.
Predicting the next big platform is one of the most difficult aspects of marketing toinfluencers.
Predicting where their target audience will migrate is a challenge. Retailers, like Amazon, may take the opportunity to go all in on their own media networks because of the amount of ad revenue up for grabs.
Meta stands to gain the most from the TikTok ban, but other platforms could also gain ground based on demographic.
She says that partnerships that moved from TikTok to another platform need to be reexamined.
If you're already creating on multiple channels, you can translate your success onto secondary platforms. Other people may not be able to get the same attention. It will be interesting to see who succeeds in the short term.
Mae Karwowski is the CEO and founder of Obviously, a marketing agency that has worked with many brands.
Karwowski says that TikTok has done a great job of helping to elevate a lot of creators. The big X factor for creators would be which platform is most convenient for them. It would be fascinating to see that.
Ryan Detert, CEO of Influential, says that if another platform is able to emulate TikTok, they will be successful.
He isn't the only one who doesn't think TikTok is going somewhere.
TikTok was in danger of being banned back in 2020. Fast forward to twenty five years from now. I think brands think there will be a solution to the problem.
The article was first published on PRWeek US.
