May TikTok actually turn into a competitor within the net search and discovery stakes, and transfer into Google’s territory?
Google’s Senior Vice President Prabhakar Raghavan recently shared that the search big does certainly see this as a danger, noting that:
“In our research, one thing like nearly 40% of younger folks, once they’re in search of a spot for lunch, they don’t go to Google Maps or Search. They go to TikTok or Instagram.”
That’s not overly shocking, however the quantity of searches that might indicate is important, with hundreds of millions of searches being performed each minute through Google’s apps. If TikTok and Instagram are consuming into that, that might have huge implications, and never only for Google itself, but additionally for manufacturers seeking to join with youthful audiences, and maximize their discovery alternatives.
Do you’ve a TikTok search engine optimization plan in place? Must you?
The thought of TikTok as a search engine isn’t new.
Again in 2019, funding agency Andreesen Horowitz highlighted the potential of TikTok as a search engine, based mostly on how Chinese language customers had been evolving their use of Douyin, the Chinese language model of the app.
As per AH:
“Since many Douyin movies are geo-tagged and routinely categorized into buckets – eating places, vacationer sights, motels, tradition, leisure, procuring, train – customers can browse them to seek out fascinating locations to go to and issues to do. Companies are additionally in a position to entice new prospects by supplementing Douyin with primary info, waitlist assist, and coupons.”
Douyin has turn into an eCommerce powerhouse in China, and mother or father firm ByteDance has been pushing to transform TikTok alongside the identical traces in western markets – with blended outcomes up to now.
However Raghavan’s feedback do level to discovery, specifically, being a major alternative, and with increasingly more younger customers referring to TikTok clips to find the most recent traits and merchandise, that must be on the radar of all manufacturers, as a possible avenue to reaching new audiences, and maximizing curiosity on-line.
I’m not even joking however TikTok is proving to be a greater search engine than Google lately
— KA (@ikeko__) May 30, 2022
This sentiment is turning into more and more widespread, and TikTok can also be leaning into discovery, with a variety of recent options, apart from its essential eCommerce push.
Not too long ago, TikTok started experimenting with linked keywords inside feedback and video descriptions, which information consumer discovery by connecting them by way of to broader traits.
As you may see on this instance, posted by consumer Olivia Deng, sure key phrases, together with product names, now autolink by way of to look outcomes for that time period, serving to to facilitate extra search exercise, and get customers partaking with product discovery within the app.
That, in fact, leans into TikTok’s in-stream procuring as nicely. However at the same time as an apart from this factor, extra discovery might facilitate vital potential for a lot of manufacturers seeking to elevate consciousness, and spotlight particular merchandise within the app.
Add to this the truth that, in line with data from Cloudflare, TikTok.com overtook Google as probably the most visited area on this planet in 2021 and there’s a reasonably clear image forming, with regard to TikTok being a key vacation spot for discovery in 2022.
As per Mashable:
“Persons are sick of the Google recipe algorithm that prioritizes obscure search engine optimized blogs. It has been a working joke on the web that as a way to learn a recipe you must get by way of the blogger’s complete life story, however that is truly deterring the younger folks I talked to from trying to find recipes on Google. As a result of a TikTok has to shortly seize your consideration, recipe movies on the platform are to the purpose, placing the concentrate on the meals, not the creator.”
That would apply to extra than simply recipe websites, and with a current survey additionally discovering that TikTok is the fastest growing news source for users aged 16 to 24, the broader development is evident.
So must you be growing a TikTok search engine optimization technique? It could appear uncommon, however the stats don’t lie, and the insights right here do counsel that product discovery is rising within the app, which is the fastest-growing social platform on this planet at current.
That would facilitate huge alternatives – and perhaps, now could be the time to get in, and set up a presence, earlier than everybody else begins attempting to optimize for TikTok search.
