The news: With a TikTok ban in the US fully on the table, influencers are vocally preparing to migrate to other short-form video platforms in case a deal can’t be reached between ByteDance, TikTok, and the US government.
- Last week, the US government ordered ByteDance to divest TikTok in the US or face an outright ban despite a series of concessions from the app. China has been reluctant to allow a sell-off of the app’s US business, suggesting the possibility of a stalemate.
Toeing the line: TikTok’s rapid user growth, discoverability, and strong brand activity made it a go-to platform for influencers looking to reach wider audiences, though they're typically active on several platforms.
- Even so, advertisers haven’t stopped spending on the platform. Evan Horowitz, CEO of Movers+Shakers, told AdAge that clients haven’t slowed spending and generally feel that things will be resolved.
- Advertisers’ resistance to redirect spending in anticipation of major industry changes is unsurprising—the same is happening with third-party cookies which will disappear in 2024, but are seeing increased year-over-year spending.
The winners: TikTok’s large and growing share of advertising spending won’t disappear if the app goes kaput. Instead, it will be directed to one of the other two leading short-form video platforms: YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels.
- If the two platforms began as uninspired copycats that were full of videos with TikTok watermarks, they’ve now started to grow into formidable platforms of their own. YouTube Shorts hit 50 billion daily views in Google’s most recent quarter, and Meta says Instagram Reels will be revenue-neutral by 2024.
- So which of the two will creators flock to? YouTube may be the dominant video platform on the internet, but Instagram remains one of the most-used social platforms, especially among a similar demographic to TikTok’s. Forty-four percent of US teens and adults said they use Instagram, per Edison Research. Excluding minors, YouTube’s largest demographic in the US is ages 25 to 34.