Brands Should Jump to New Social Media Platforms
A brand should jump in on a new social media platform. It gives them the opportunity to expand their brand to a new audience. It also gives them more presence on another social media platform. By expanding their social media platform presence, it assists the brand to branch out to more users on a social media platform and to engage with them. However, it is important for the brand to stay true to themselves. Forbes recommends, “Presenting yourself in a consistent manner helps you control their perception of your personal brand.” It is essential for the brand to be consistent in voice and content on all social media platforms, especially a new one.
Getting on a new social media platform can help the brand get ahead of other brands if the platform is proven to be successful. Depending on how the new social media platform algorithm works it may prove to be beneficial to reaching the brands target audience or helping the brand reach a new audience they did not know they could be of interest too. However, a brand needs to have a supportive social media manager and team to know if they can take on another social media platform. Thedrum.com recommends, “To establish a successful presence on any new platform or trend takes careful planning and resources.” I agree as with each social media platform the users vary and the content may need to vary as well. With careful and strategic planning and a supportive creative social media team they can prove to be successful on a new social media platform.
In the past year TikTok is a newer social media platform that has gained many users. TikTok is an excellent example of helping brands reach their target audience and new audiences. TikTok started in 2016 but became very popular in the past year. It originally started with 15 second videos created by users and brands to entertain other users. Today TikTok has over 1.1 billion active users and the option to create videos up to three minutes long.
TikTok has proven to help small companies, especially in this past year due to the pandemic. A baby swaddle company, Swaddelini credits TikTok for saving their business! The company started in 2015, won awards, but due to the pandemic in 2020 they almost went out of business. In 2021, one of Swaddelini’s TikTok videos went viral and reached their target audience of new moms and dads leading them to purchase the product. Swaddelini now has over 77,000 followers on TikTok and over 1.7 million likes on their account. A big part of how their content reached their target audience is due to the TikTok algorithm.
TikTok has a unique algorithm that understand its users likes and interests. In an article from Later it quotes TikTok saying, “The system recommends content by ranking videos based on a combination of factors — starting from interests you express as a new user and adjusting for things you indicate you’re not interested in, too.” It takes into account what the users likes, comments, and which videos they do not watch all the way through. This helps TikTok to know what to recommend to the user.
TikTok will most likely stick around given the success of TikTok’s growth in users and excellent algorithm to bring users content they are interested in. In recent weeks, TikTok is the first non-Facebook owned social media app to surpass three billion downloads globally. “Alongside TikTok, only WhatsApp, Messenger, Facebook, and Instagram achieved this mark.” According to 9to5mac.com.
TikTok has proven its success and brands that have not joined the social media platform are quickly learning they need to join it. In joining a new social media platform, it can be a risk as the brand does not know if the platform will prove to be successful for them to reach their target audience. However, sometimes the risk can pay off when it is a social media platform does become successful like TikTok did.
