SOCIAL
Is TikTok The Next Instagram For Marketers?
By Jane Faber, 3rd December 2019
Back in 2012 when Instagram was blowing up with popularity, it was possible to become very popular through consistent posting, no matter who you were. Now it isn’t so easy to get “Instafamous” through solely posting good stuff due to heavy marketers and so-called “big boys” pushing away all the informal, regular profiles by paying fortunes to advertise on Instagram. TikTok is taking a completely different approach to social media by welcoming relaxed-styled users and raw content.
With TikTok blowing up as of 2019, it welcomes youngsters to get “TiktTok famous” from their bedroom!
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An iPhone displaying TikTok. Kon Karampelas | Unsplash
Accessibility Comparison
Nearly ten years ago, Instagram mastered accessibility to all ages, allowing anyone to build their status on a platform that is easy to use. As the platform gained more and more success, it arguably became harder to gain popularity through Instagram as more and more people were finding new mastering techniques. After a time, this broke a bit of its accessibility feature as now, the successful, famous profile image is only one achievable through constant money pumps or full teams of editors and marketers grinding out your Instagram profile.
TikTok is starting out just the same as Instagram, just on a much larger scale. TikTok lets kids be on the same level as big brands without any effort. Due to TikTok barely requiring anything to get famous, free users have the same chance of getting “TikTok famous” than anybody else in the biz, even the big companies.
Although TikTok has broken through the roof with downloads, it is still not as prestigious as Instagram or Facebook, thus it is more meaningful to have a popular Instagram profile than to have a popular TikTok profile as of today. That’s why people are getting the habit of gaining lots of traction with TikTok and then using it to promote their Instagram or Facebook page.
Instagram Realises Their New Adversary
TikTok has become a growing threat to Instagram and Facebook, especially given its popularity with the younger Generation Z (8 – 23-year-olds), a demographic Instagram and Facebook are eager to recapture with their conscious attempts to mimic TikTok with their standalone video-sharing apps called Lasso and Reel.
Leaked audio from an internal meeting uncovered Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg wants to market Lasso in places like Mexico where TikTok isn’t as prominent, the same is with Instagram’s Reel which is being marketed in Brazil. Before this though, Mark Zuckerberg tried to acquire Musical.ly in 2016 which would later become TikTok.
A timeline of Instagram. David Heckel | Krepling Design
“TikTok is the Instagram for the mobile video age” according to Tech Crunch, and can very well be the next Instagram entirely if it is played correctly. As the only app in the top 5 that isn’t owned by Facebook, it may be a stepping stone to showing other aspects of how social media can be approached.
