How healthy is TikTok for your business? Pros and Cons.

If you have ever used this app or even come across a fellow buddy’s clip, you know what it is all about.

It offers you to lip-sync to funny audios, romantic songs etc. and make short videos out of it.

The more people like your video, the more they follow you and the more famous you become, in your own way, ofcourse.

And, if you are a brand or a business, there are chances, your sales might increase. More and more brands are logging in to TikTok in order to increase these ‘chances’.

It has become the latest buzzword for the business community.

And TikTok is leaving no stone unturned in grabbing the opportunity. “Do not make ads, make tiktok videos” is their latest campaign.

They are also claiming to support local communities and businesses in some parts of the world.

So, should your business be on TikTok, how are the results and what are the challenges.

Let’s explore.

TikTok: The next Google?

TikTok boasts of a huge audience base. And there are no two-ways about it.

Business of Apps mentions that TikTok has been downloaded over 3 billion times.

Humongous.

The audience is there, and TikTok claims the algorithm is supportive.

TikTok recently shared it’s second instalment of ‘Path to Purchase ’ report where it says,

58% of users discover brands and products on the platform.
44% discovered something they immediately went out to buy.
Discovery happens on TikTok 1.1x more than on other platforms.

It is being said that Gen Z is preferring TikTok over Google if they want to search anything which provides a great opportunity for many kinds of businesses.

Leading marketer Neil Patel in a latest video describes the reason behind this.

According to him, people pay for rankings on Google while it is much more organic on TikTok.

Brett Armstrong, GM, TikTok Australia in an interview to Mumbrella, says, ‘’53% of users say they trust others to be their real selves on the platform”.

What do brands say?

Many brands have hopped onto the bandwagon and are making their presence felt, no matter how different a path they have to choose.

Morgan and Morgan, US’s biggest injury law firm, has an account with 70,000 followers and flaunts a good rate of engagement.

Even Saas businesses such as Shopify have a TikTok account.

Many small businesses and start-ups are leveraging TikTok to increase their sales.

Is TikTok short term success?

To give you an example, Trapstix is a lip balm brand, a small business whose sales grew exponentially after their content went viral on TikTok.

The story as reported by Retail Revolution is of a brand run by a school girl. The brand has 2.2 million likes on TikTok and 96,000 followers.

Making content for TikTok proved fruitful for her and from 75 orders, she went to 50,000.

Same is the story for many other small businesses in her community. But the catch here is continuity of success.

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After receiving great initial response, some businesses are now struggling with maintaining and scaling their sales.

An anti chafing brand owner mentions here, “TikTok has been working, but I just don’t have the money or the time or the capacity to do all of the marketing [forever].”

TikTok can give you instant success but there are several other factors that can restrict your sales in the long term such as

-not having a plug and play as to what meta apps offer

-expensive ads

-and uncertainty

Another angle to it.

Recently, USA’s Federal Communications Commission Commissioner had asked Apple and Google to take down TikTok off its play stores. The major concern being security.

The claim he made is that the Chinese app leaks data of US citizens to the Chinese government. He wrote, TikTok is not just an app for sharing funny videos or memes. That’s the sheep’s clothing. At its core, TikTok functions as a sophisticated surveillance tool that harvests extensive amounts to personal and sensitive data.

TikTok has been refuting these claims and they are also figuring out a way probably with the USA government.

Earlier, TikTok has been banned by the Indian Government on national security concerns.

The ban in India came as a shock to many on the platform. Influencers with huge following and steady income were left clueless within a span of seconds.

And even after a year of it’s ban, some are still struggling.