Why Brands Are Turning to TikTok for Gen Z

TikTok might well be the first Gen Z-propelled social media app to gain widespread global adoption. Here's what's making us stop and take notice of this short-form social video platform.

"Gen Z juggles multiple devices, multiple platforms, social media, instant messaging, video games and live-streaming all at the same time. We see their social media habits and purchasing behaviours influencing Millennials and Generation X too, and even the younger generations following them. They are the most influential but elusive consumers in history." Josh Rathour, CEO UNiDAYS

Gen Z is TikTok, a social media app that allows its users to post 15-second video skits of themselves lip-synching and dancing hilariously to karaoke tracks, dressing in weird costumes and otherwise having really, really awkward interactions (called “duets” in TikTok parlance) with their fellow TikTokers.

TikTok: Gen Z’s first truly global social media app

When China’s Bytedance, currently ranked as the world’s largest most-valuable internet startup (out-valuing Uber by three billion dollars), decided to merge a social app named Douyin with musical.ly, the Gen Z-favorite karaoke app, it created a massive overnight sensation. TikTok’s active monthly users now number roughly 500 million — and from all around the world.

Why do Gen Zers like TikTok? Let us count the ways. . .

• TikTok offers a user experience that's visual and straight-to-the-point. It appeals to Gen Zers’ eight-second attention spans as well as to their overwhelming preference for visually-oriented social media platforms. 

• It’s truly global in its scope, a melting pot for musical audiences as various as hip-hop heads, Bollywood teenyboppers, Euro technophiles, indie rockers, country purists and K-Pop fanatics. (And in the process, it has the power to create mind-bendingly funny cultural "mash-ups” between these sub-genres.)

• To be sure, TikTok’s become a vehicle for teen and college influencers to make a digital name for themselves (newsflash: the vast majority of memes and quick-snack content circulating through the internet nowadays was created by teenagers.) That being said, part of TikTok’s appeal is its sheer, clown-car-crash goofiness. TikTok encourages absurdity, and it doesn’t appear to take itself as seriously as other apps that are popular with Gen Z do.

Will TikTok stand the test of time for your Gen Z strategy?

TikTok might well be the latest globally heralded social media app to make a major splash with Gen Z, but will its influence last? Will it dominate social discourse in the same way Facebook did this past decade — or will it take the MySpace route and spontaneously combust into a dim ball of sunset? That remains to be seen.

 Just watch this video.