If you know anyone under the age of 18, you have probably heard of the app TikTok. If you haven’t heard of TikTok, maybe you’ve heard of Musical.ly? Either way, here is a little background on the apps. In 2017, TikTok’s parent company ByteDance bought Musical.ly for $1 billion and the app owned a very popular market in the US: teens. In 2018, ByteDance merged the two apps, keeping the title TikTok. So, what exactly is TikTok? The mobile app allows users to create a video, up to 15 seconds, of themselves (typically music videos) and share with their followers. See examples here.
The app has 26 million monthly active users who, on average, spend 46 minutes daily in the app. And now they are looking to monetize this platform, but experts are worried it may slow down the app’s popularity.
Ads will run as full-screen units in the app with an option to ‘Skip Ad’ in the upper right corner but the app is still testing what they think is best when it comes to options. Keep in mind that TikTok has an option to filter out comments via keyword and a lot of control over your account’s privacy. These are smart because it is a primarily teen used platform. Deciding whether or not the app is right for your brand comes down to one question. Are you looking to target primarily teens? If so, this could be a great option, but take your time developing a teen-friendly ad that they won’t swipe away from.
TikTok is definitely the social app to watch at the moment, don’t disregard it’s ad potential when the time is right to market to younger audiences.
Source: http://sclhs.in/PF0a5z
-Sarah Aiken
Community Editor