If you've been following us on social media over the past few months you'll know that we've been going hard on promoting TikTok to our clients, and encouraging as many of them as possible to get on the hype train and learn to get comfortable with the short video sharing platform.
However, with growing concerns about a TikTok ban in the US (Cheers, Trump!) and continued worries about Chinese surveillance via the platform, it looks ever possible that we could be seeing the end of the dancing & lip-syncing phenomenon, at least as we know it.
Enter Facebook owner Mark Zuckerberg who yesterday (5th August 2020) did what Zuckerberg does best and successfully launched a new feature on Facebook-owned Instagram that is essentially a near perfect rip-off of TikTok. Welcome, Instagram Reels.
So... the big question is what does this mean for you & your marketing?
Our answer, in short, is nothing! You see whether or not TikTok comes to an end (or is rescued in the US by a Microsoft buy out) is
irrelevant, because all our clients and friends who over the past months have been learning and mastering the short video sharing method will now be able to seamlessly transition to Instagram Reels, Byte or whatever other platform comes next.
The world of social media, indeed the world of tech as a whole, does not stand still. If you do not value the lessons learnt in mastering a new platform, then harnessing the new reach to increase activity across the entire spectrum of your online presence, you have already failed!
Yesterday we received an email from a client brandishing the past 3 months of his teams TikTok strategy as "a proper waste of time now!". In response we are simply going to share with him the link to this blog post and ask him to monitor how quickly his team now adapts to Instagram Reels alongside TikTok. Our guess is mere moments. His team are now familiar with this style of content creation, adapting to whatever platform it's shared on will be easy.
Whether or not TikTok disappears (and for the record, we don't believe it will, no matter how bad Trump wants it too) the journey has not been wasted. We've had all manner of clients from estate agents to builders learning and enjoying how to promote their brand & services in the TikTok format. So now, whatever comes next, they'll be able to seamlessly transition to wherever that audience moves!
In conclusion our love of TikTok has not diminished and we will continue to promote its use heavily - especially as it is still by far the platform with the best organic reach. So until the day it's pulled kicking and screaming from our phone screens we will be cheering it on passionately from the rafters with face paint, jersey, big foam finger and everything!
Long live TikTok and all who dance and lipsync on her!