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Corey Kogan
TikTok Is Looking To Venture Into Social Commerce
TikTok is the new social media wave everyone is using now. A video-sharing platform that’s gradually taking over every other social media platform. TikTok has gathered over one billion downloads in just a short period of time. This is surprising because the idea behind TikTok is simple and straightforward, not particularly unique.
It’s almost impossible for you to be on social media and not stumble on a TikTok video. There are TikTok videos that are even on YouTube. Before you watch a video on YouTube you might come across an advert for a TikTok video. There’s no doubt that Tiktok has gone globally viral, allowing for TikTok to get Millions of views on a daily basis..
The Rise of TikTok
Tiktok was launched in 2017 by a Chinese company for audiences outside China. One year before the launch, they launched a video sharing platform for Chinese internet users only, called Douyin.
After the launch of TikTok, the platform became so popular, it became the most downloaded a new app in the United States, making it the first Chinese app to achieve that record. As of today, TikTok has over one billion downloads excluding downloads from China. TikTok is now available in over 150 countries and spoken in 75 different languages. In just two years time TikTok has gone from new kid on the block to having one of the largest social media platforms in the world. Now, they aim to make their each even longer by branching out or expanding into social commerce.
What is Social Commerce?
Before we dig deeper, here’s what you should know about social commerce. We can say that social commerce is utilizing social networking platforms for the purpose of selling goods or services. There are popular social media platforms that have mastered the art of social commerce. Platforms like Twitter, Instagram and Facebook are already invested in social commerce.
The success of a social commerce campaign is measured by how much the users on the platform to engage with the posts. The normal metric for measuring the success of a campaign is the number of shares, retweets, likes and comments on either posts, videos, polls, and links to third-party platforms such as e-commerce store.
Social commerce in and of itself is a growing business, and has still not yet reached its full potential. Which is why TokTok has set its sights on disrupting the industry, which is full of massive potential and big-budget competition.
Social commerce has become the norm lately, with fashion houses using their social media pages to draw in shoppers. E-commerce websites are always looking for new opportunities and new platforms to help promote their products and TikTok has been been just presented the perfect opportunity. A platform where popular influencers have followers in millions (the top influencer in TikTok has over 34 million dedicated followers). Since the app is made up mostly of millennials and Gen Z’ers, whom control enormous amounts of purchasing power, selling your products through this platform will be a great way to increase revenue..
How TikTok Hopes to Achieve this Feat
The viral video sharing app, allows users of the platform to add links to their own e-commerce or any e-commerce site to their profile. This is just like how Instagram allows its users to add links from their personal site to their bio, this is an amazing development for TikTok stars. The very popular influencers on TikTok, have millions of followers, whom upload funny and amazing videos on the platform are about to make it big if this actually becomes a reality. This means TikTok stars can now refer their users directly to their website or e-commerce store.
Statistics show that more than half of Millenials and over 69% of Gen Z will buy a product if it was recommended by an influencer. Tiktok influencers have a very wide reach. Since the app is also popular in China as well as other countries in Asia. It’s also getting massive traction in the United States and some African countries like Nigeria, South Africa and Egypt.
The social commerce testing idea was a part of what the company called “experimentation”. This improves user experience on the app. TikTok is trying to make the app as lucrative as Instagram for its influencers and business owners. This dabble into social commerce sector might enable TikTok to finally emerge as an industry giant like Instagram and Snapchat.
This incentive will help improve the quality of the videos shared on the platform. People will now have something to lose if their videos don’t get the kind of traction it needs to foster those fans who may become customers. This will allow for the videoes to have more value, the content creators’ to be more creative, which will in turn allow the app to grow bigger and better than before.
These new features added by TikTok will have a vast impact on the landscape of social commerce, allowing for the viewer to login directly to a third part website straight from the TikTok app. The practice of link-adding, is just one of the contributing factors that has led to the success of Instagram. TikTok, whose unique features also make it endearing to its client base, creates a platform that allows it to be both lucrative for the content creator which provides a segway into a more beneficial platform for its users.
In conclusion
Brands have now begun working with TikTok influencers. Recently I had stumbled upon a particular TikTok influencer on LinkedIn, whom had leveraged her own TikTok popularity in order to promote B2C products for a particular brand. Now that TikTok has added social commerce to its landscape, influencers can now be more focused on turning their engagements into profits.
The exciting part about this news comes at a time when Instagram decides to hide its”Like” count. Brands will reach out to you when they’ve seen you reach a certain point in popularity. However, Instagram’s new policy integration makes it harder on influencers which are now complaining because of the negative effect it’s having on their businesses.
TikTok should capitalize on the opportunity to influence new users to its platform. However, this all depends on how much fun TikTok can offer its users. If TikTok manages to outperform its competition, while still managing to provide the link-adding feature, the effects will have a resounding effect on social commerce.
