When it comes to TikTok, some marketers proceed with caution

For some marketers, the bloom is coming off TikTok.

This isn’t necessarily the case when it comes to ad spending — marketers remain invested in that regard. This is more so about the sentiment. That intense enthusiasm for the app that has emanated from marketers over the last four years or so is making way for reservation and, in some cases, trepidation.

“From a creator and marketing perspective, I value the reach and sheer force that a viral TikTok video can give me,” said Kara Harms, CEO of lifestyle blog Whimsy Soul. “But, I don’t believe in putting all my eggs in one basket. I’ve done the work to migrate my TikTok followers over to other platforms such as Instagram, email newsletter and blog posts.”

A year ago a comment like this would’ve been an outlier. Nowadays, not so much.

That’s due to several factors. Some are old, like TikTok’s well-documented measurement issues, while others are newer, like more competition. None, however, is as topical as the geopolitical tensions over TikTok.

Last week’s hearing, during which TikTok CEO Shou Chew was grilled for hours by U.S. lawmakers, only reinforced this. His inability to land any definitive statement about the safeguards the app has in place to protect its data from the Chinese government didn’t inspire confidence.

“I think that TikTok is checking boxes with marketers on safety measures, but the efforts fell pretty flat at the hearing,” said Sam Kendrick, senior director of social marketing at MMI Agency. “Congress poked a lot of holes in every safety measure discussed, but there is an element of scope of social that Congress doesn’t understand. This resembled the Facebook hearings a lot.”

In other words, the hearing left marketers with more questions than answers.

One of those marketers, who wanted to remain anonymous, actually met with executives from TikTok after the hearing in search of answers to those questions. They said the sound bites their TikTok representative shared are similar to the ones that Chew shared in his testimony: the platform is owned by international investors and the platform is moving all data from U.S. users to American servers. And so TikTok remains a closed book.

Deja vu

Marketers, having been through this hoo-ha three years ago when a U.S. ban of the app felt imminent under former president Donald Trump, are more prepared for the situation this time. Their contingency plans were already in place prior to the hearing.

“We’ve put any announcements we have with TikTok on the back burner now because of how charged the situation is around that company right now,” an ad tech exec, who traded anonymity for candor, said of their commercial partnership with the app.

It’s a time to hope for the best and prepare for the worst, it seems.

“In the music marketing community, the potential U.S. ban of TikTok has been quite impactful, as this is a platform many of us in music marketing rely heavily on to connect with fans across the globe,” …read more

Source:: Digiday