A bunch of my friends and family have been recommending I check out TikTok. So as part of a digital marketing assignment, I signed up for an account, and this is what I discovered.
Looks like it’s finally happened, or at least I’ve finally noticed. For what was once a fountain of knowledge on the up and coming Facebook and Instagram, has now run dry at the oasis of competitors of TikTok and Snapchat. But honestly, this can’t be considered news. In terms of past social media accounts, I’ve tended to overlook the new forms of social media, whether it was through comfort with my current profiles, or simply a lack of interest. Nevertheless with my growing interest in the field of digital marketing as a career path, I recognise the advantages of keeping up to date with the last social media outlets. That being said I will allow once last quote of lamentation before focusing on the task at hand.
“I used to be with it, but then they changed what it was. Now what I’m with isn’t it, and what’s it seems weird and scary to me. It’ll happen to you!”
Abraham Simpson, The Simpsons
Alright then, one of my assignments for this week was to join a social media platform which I do not already use, and write a brief description of my experience using the site. With that in mind, here is what I discovered after signing up for a TikTok account.
When comparing TikTok to previous social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram. I recognise the differences tend to involve the concept of Instant Access. By that I mean that TikTok focuses of high-speed content creation by its users in the form of videos of 1 minute or less. With a target as simple as this for new members, people need far less convincing to create their first post, which leads us to the differences in immersion.
Whilst platforms like Instagram still retain a layout of frames and borders when members scroll through news feeds and search engine functions. TikTok choose to remove all conventional margins, meaning the videos which you view/create fill the entire screen. Meanwhile previous options which once occupied the margins such as likes, comments and shares, are now laid over the top of the video without drawing attention away from the content itself. An additional edit which I find fascinating is the removal of common phone information whilst using the TikTok app. For example within the app, you will be unable to see the time or your phone’s current battery percentage. You are also unable to listen to music from other apps whilst browsing TikTok. All of which leads to my theory that this part of the app’s strategies of reality disassociation and proprietary environment. Much like news feeds with automatically refresh, hiding the such information such as time and battery life help obscure just how long viewers have been using the app. This is assisted by the universal understanding that content is limited to 1 minute per video. With such a short duration for content, it’s understandable for viewers to be convinced that spend little time using TikTok, until they switch off the app. And with such encompassing social environment, it’s no wonder companies and brands are looking to TikTok to attract and retain young customers. But more on that later…