It Doesn’t Matter if TikTok Gets Banned
For almost three years now, the headline reappears every other month or so. “TikTok Facing US Ban.”
With a constant changing of government oversight officials and renewed privacy concerns recycling this headline over and over, it’s difficult to tell if this most recent wave threats to TikTok is real or not.
TikTok has long been under scrutiny for its privacy practices, particularly regarding the data it collects and shares with third-party companies. The app has been accused of collecting an excessive amount of user data, including location, device information, browsing history, and even keystrokes. This data is then used for targeted advertising and personalized content recommendations. However, the concern is not just about the data collection itself, but also about where this data goes and who has access to it. There have been concerns about the potential for this data to be accessed by the Chinese government, as the app is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance. These concerns have led to TikTok being banned in some countries, including India and the United States.
In response to these privacy concerns, TikTok has made some changes to its policies, such as allowing users to opt-out of personalized advertising and limiting the amount of data collected from minors. The company has also stated that all data from non-Chinese users is stored outside of China and not subject to Chinese law. However, many remain skeptical about these claims and continue to question TikTok's privacy practices.
In addition to these privacy concerns, the app continues to grow its user base in the United States at incredible rates, breaking through almost every significant demo. If you thought it was just an app for teens, that label is no longer true. Translation: every lawmaker and regulator knows someone on TikTok now.
Whether or not TikTok is banned, sold or deleted from the App Store, one thing is for sure, the game has changed.
In 1999, a revolutionary technology was born in a college student’s dorm. Napster was a peer-to-peer file-sharing platform that allowed users to share and download music files for free, which was a groundbreaking concept at the time. Prior to 1999, the only option to listen to your preferred music was to buy physical copies or listen to the radio and hope to hear your favorite songs.
All of that changed when Napster came along. Ordinary people with a computer and an internet connection could upload the music they owned, share it with others and download peer-owned music for free. As a high school student at this time myself, Napster and similar services like Limewire were revolutionary. My friends and I traded music, burned CDs with our favorite songs on them and discovered new artists - all for free.
Napster would eventually go away in 2001 after several lawsuits by the music industry. However, the era of digital music and streaming had already been ushered in. The sale of physical music was forever changed and eventually Apple Music, Spotify, Tidal, Pandora and other platforms would carry the torch forward.
Fast forward to today. TikTok isn’t the first social media network or video streaming app by any means. Where they have completely turned the world of content and social media upside down is through its algorithm and user experience. Just like Napster, whether TikTok stays or gos, its impact will stay.
In what ways has TikTok forever changed digital media? Here are the top 3 ways:
Viral Content > Following
Ever since Twitter’s arrival and Facebook’s implementation of “Business Pages”, the formula for being successful with social media content has been pretty much the same:
Create great content
Get it seen
Build your audience
Continue creating content for that audience
TikTok has completely upended this approach with the For You page and algorithm.
The new formula looks something like:
Create viral content
Create viral content again
The biggest shift that has taken place here is an emphasis on viral content versus building your following. The “legacy” way of content strategy was to build up the largest size audience you could in order to reach and engage with your target consumers with frequency. The TikTok way puts little to zero emphasis on who a user is following.
While the algorithm for TikTok is a well-guarded secret, we do know a few things. Overall, the algorithm is designed to personalize the user experience and surface content that is likely to be of interest to each individual user. Read that again. It doesn’t prioritize who a user is following. It prioritizes the content.
As a digital marketer with nearly 15 years of practice, this is the biggest shift I see in how brands, marketers and creators are having to rethink their content strategies. “Building your audience” and “creating for your followers” is no longer good enough. Each piece of content needs to be created with the potential, and the assumption, that it will be viewed by someone who has never heard of your brand before. I’ve spent several years coaching clients and coworkers to avoid chasing trends or obsessing over viral ideas. It’s possible in 2023 that might be bad advice.
Of course, this is no longer a TikTok phenomenon either. Twitter now has separate tabs with “For You” and “Following” feeds for users. Meta has openly said they are showing more content to users that comes from accounts they don’t follow. For the most part, users don’t seem to mind. While the average Instagrammer may be frustrated over seeing fewer of their friends’ baby photos, the engagement statistics behind TikTok and short-form video don’t lie.
Short-Form Video
In 2023, this almost goes without saying. According to Sprout Social, short-form video is the most popular and engaging form of social media content (like to Sprout article). Less than 5 years ago, that wasn’t the case though. Social platforms were emphasizing content types like long-form video, UGC and live streams. Social marketers often aimed to keep their video content short, but short-form video is a whole new category unto itself now.
I’ve often been asked what qualifies as a short-form video. Is it 60 seconds or less? Or even less at 30 seconds? The truth is that, despite any definition that the internet may give you, a short-form video is best described by pointing someone to TikTok. The top brands and influencers on TikTok are creating entertaining and educational content sometimes in even the smallest increments like 10 seconds. Effective short-form video is the kind where you forget that you’re even watching something, The length of the video is irrelevant because the user is so immersed in the content and storytelling that there’s no time to consider whether they’re bored or not.
In the past several years, major players have attempted to replicate the success of short-form video on their own platforms - generally with success. The two biggest examples of this copycatting are Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts. The success of this kind of content points to two obvious conclusions: First, users want short-form video. According to Sprout, consumers find short-form videos 2.5x more engaging than long-form videos. Second, the channel is less important than the content in this case. While TikTok still dominates Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts when it comes to daily video views, both Instagram and YouTube have seen increased engagement and usage on their platforms by making short-form video a higher priority for their network. If TikTok were to go away, other channels are already prepared to scoop up users hungry for short-form video.
Full Screen Immersion and Endless Scrolling
Lastly, the endless scrolling and full screen immersion experience of TikTok is here to stay as well.
Currently, when users log into TikTok, they’re instantly served with a full-mobile-screen, vertical video. TikTok branding and other text is minimal compared to the other major social networks. Users then swipe up to see the next piece of content, which also takes up the fullness of their mobile screen.
Before TikTok’s ubiquity in the US, social platforms dabbled with expanding the content viewing experience to a nearly full-screen immersion. For example, in 2018, Instagram expanded from only allowing square photos to integrating portrait layouts as well. As you might have guessed or experienced, Instagram Reels now offers the same full-screen experience as TikTok (as does YouTube Shorts).
Perhaps the best example of this trend expanding into wider digital culture is the forthcoming redesign of Spotify. While it hasn’t fully rolled out to its customer base yet, Spotify has given The Verge and other media outlets a sneak peek at its upcoming app experience.
The latest design update from Spotify places a significant emphasis on visual elements and vertical scrolling. This redesign transforms the user's homescreen from a static arrangement of album covers to a dynamic feed that bears a striking resemblance to social media platforms such as TikTok and Instagram. By incorporating vertical scrolling, Spotify aims to enhance the user experience, allowing for more seamless discovery of new content and features across the Spotify ecosystem.
Whether TikTok stays or goes, the trend of digital platforms evolving their platforms to be fully immersive and friendly to discovery will continue.
While other app innovations like visual search will have a lasting impact, I believe these three categories will become, and to some extent already have, the norm for the next decade of digital marketing. In the end, TikTok may get banned in the US. However, much like Napster, its impact on culture and digital media in particular is here to stay.
Ryan Sawrie
Digital Strategist
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