Authenticity over perfection – whatever that means

The way that brands create content for social channels has shifted with the rise of TikTok and the push to focus on Gen Z. That means brands — and influencers — are moving away from a perfectly curated Instagram post to a seemingly more authentic TikTok video.

“There has been a rise in backlash against ‘perfection’ on social media over the last few years,” said Katy Tenerovich, director of social strategy at Carmichael Lynch. “People are demanding authenticity, but even so that word lacks authority. Brands and agencies need to start tapping into this and stop spending absorbent resources on producing perfection that consumers don’t relate to.”

The kind of competition marketers are up against when it comes to consumer attention has also changed the game, and will continue to do so in 2023. “Today’s audiences are tuning out Hollywood-quality content because they are content creators themselves,” said Ternerovich. “They want to see and engage with things that look like they made it themselves. Marketers used to have to compete with other brands and the entertainment industry for space and attention. Now they have to compete with every single person with a social media account.”

TikTok as a search engine

Marketers and agency execs expect TikTok to continue to rise in 2023. That’s certainly a carry-over trend from 2022, but marketers say the approach to TikTok may change in the new year as they seek to find ways to master search on the platform.

“It finally clicked to me how well search works on TikTok and how valuable that is,” said Victoria Vaynberg, CMO of Zola, when asked about her marketing New Year’s resolutions for the brand.

Douglas Brundage, founder and CEO of creative consultancy Kingsland added on, saying, “Gen Z routinely cites TikTok as their favorite app, and it’s usurping Google as the go-to search engine for the world’s youth.” This makes marketers’ desire to master search on the platform logical. However, the increased scrutiny of TikTok by the government may make achieving this tricky, especially if the app is outright banned.

“Spending will continue to increase on TikTok because the product is incredible,” said Brundage. “It simply seems to work better every day at generating leads, increasing revenue and building community for brands. However, the U.S. and Western European governments continue to increase their scrutiny of the platform, and it could all come to a head in 2023. Legislation in the U.S. is already heating up again from some states banning the …read more

Source:: Digiday

Author: Aaron