Is TikTok Relevant for Business?

Today we are going to talk about if TikTok is relevant for business in 2020. So TikTok, just to give a quick overview for everyone, you think about TikTok, they are owned by ByteDance, which is the world's largest startup now. And ByteDance is a collection of companies and TikTok is actually one of them. TikTok actually purchased a company called Musical.ly in the past. If you think about what TikTok is, it is basically what Vine was in the past, is short-form videos. And Vine is, you know, it was eventually acquired by Twitter, but Twitter didn't really do much with it. And now I think the timing is, is, is pretty good for a new social network like TikTok to appear. So initially, you know, people are looking at TikTok right now, it's still very early days. People are just dancing all the time. They're, they're lip syncing to stuff and they're like, how is that interesting? Right? But at the same time, when you, when you look at Vine, it was, you know, short 6-second videos where people were doing stupid things and, you know, it took off and eventually it was a successful acquisition. Um, and it was purchased by, by Twitter, right? But it was just the execution of it afterwards didn't work out that well. So if you think about TikTok now, there are, I believe, over 1.5 billion downloads. And what's fascinating is they really leveraged the other networks like Facebook and Instagram, and they bought a ton of ads to drive users for their app. What's amazing is a lot of people have built their influence off of TikTok. If you just look on TikTok for Charlie, C-H-A-R-L-I, She's got, I think, over 15 million followers now on TikTok, and that's actually translated to her for having a couple million followers on Instagram as well. So that's real influence out there. Like a lot of people follow her and a lot of people, um, I mean, they respect and they look up to her. That also comes back to the question now. So how is TikTok relevant for business? I think it's relevant for business and I've actually gotten into some disagreements with people because they're like, no, it's stupid. It's just people dancing, um, all over the place. And oh, it's owned by the Chinese. And these are all irrelevant because at the end of the day, you think about Snapchat, they're a publicly traded company. In the early days, Snapchat was just seen as something for sending kind of, um, you know, dirty pictures. A lot of the investors kind of wrote it off and like, no, I'm not going to invest in that. It doesn't make any sense. And then Snapchat went public. So that's a serious business and the stock tanked. But now recently Snapchat, Snapchat's, uh, they're not even called Snapchat anymore. They're called Snap now. But the company's called Snap. Their stock has actually recovered and they're going to get stronger and stronger and stronger over time. So strong. In fact, um, they're, they're a legit company and they were written off the beginning, but the Snap CEO Evan Spiegel actually said that he thinks TikTok could potentially be bigger than Instagram. So it's not something to scoff at. A lot of celebrities are using it. A lot of people, a lot of marketers are trying to understand it better now. But if you think about it, Vine worked. The 6-second videos worked, and Logan and Jake Paul, who are big influencers now, just kind of across the board on YouTube, Instagram, they even booked out the Staples Center for like a fight with another influencer, like a boxing match. They built their influence off Vine first, and then they parlayed it into, they have a podcast now, they have, you know, a giant YouTube channel, a giant Instagram account. They have all these, they have all this influence now because they started off with Vine. What's to say this can't happen with TikTok. They've built a legitimate business. Here's the thing, with Snap, they got the attention, they got advertisers paying for it. Same, like, Twitter is an advertising-driven business. Instagram, they were acquired because they have a lot of the attention. It's the same deal here. The attention is here right now. How's that going to change anything? Advertisers will pay attention to wherever the attention is, especially consumers. They're already advertising on TikTok, so it is very relevant for business if your people are hanging out on there. Especially if you're advertising to gamers, to, um, you know, a younger generation. It makes a lot of sense to be there because these people eventually, guess what? They're going to have most of the purchasing power. They're going to get older, they're going to be the ones buying things. And so you start there first. And then a lot of these people right now, they're taking advantage of the organic reach. Same thing if you think about LinkedIn right now. Sure, LinkedIn's B2B, but a lot of people are taking advantage right now because the organic reach is good. They're getting the attention. What do you think Charlie is trying to do? She's got these 15 million followers. I think she has a couple million followers on Instagram now. She met up with Gary Vee and then Gary, and she's asking like, hey, what can I do with this influence now? What should I look for next? What should I watch out for? Uh, what mistakes should I avoid? But that is powerful because she eventually can, if she decides to start some kind of business, she decides to start selling products, she can do it. The best example of this is Kylie Jenner, her empire. I mean basically she sold, I think a 51% stake of her company to For $600 million, effectively making her labeling her a billionaire. That's the highest level of influence. When you have the attention, you can do you can actually do business because where the attention is, that's where advertisers go. That is inherently business. We've been testing out TikTok, and you can follow me. I believe it's just Eric O'Sue, but we just posted a short video. There's no rhyme or reason. We just repurposed one of our videos, and it got 900 views on it. I didn't have any followers on TikTok right now. I think I have like 15 followers. But I got 900 viewers on it. Like, to me, that's ridiculous. I like, I almost call it stupid, but it's, it's not stupid. It's kind of just like, that shows the potential behind TikTok. Like if I were to spend more time and post natively to it, I could pay— I could possibly do a lot better. So is TikTok relevant for business in 2020? Absolutely. Sure. ByteDance owns them. Chinese, whatever. Who cares, right? It's a global world. What do you, what do you think they're going to do? Do you think they're going to, I don't know, steal all your data? Who knows, maybe they could, but that's where the attention is right now. You, it's, it's, it's your risk. If you want to take the risk, you can do it. I think it's relevant for business. Back in the day, people were like, oh, Pinterest, that's just for like women to post their wedding photos. And now look at them. They are a publicly traded company. So pay attention to where the attention is. That is where advertisers will go. And because that happens, that is in effect relevant for business. Let me know in the comments if you disagree, if you agree with me or not, Do you think TikTok is relevant for business? Do you think I'm being stupid just like that stupid video? Okay, so YouTube, check out the next video over there and don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe because, well, it helps us grow, helps you grow, and hit the bell button if you're coming from YouTube because you're amazing. All right, see you tomorrow.