TikTok ban and its business impact on Influencer Marketing Industry
As the world is fighting a deadly pandemic, there is another concern to be addressed at hand. One that wasn’t discussed ever since its ban by the Madras High Court upon a PIL last year till until now. We are talking about the Chinese apps ban and TIKTOK being at the forefront of it. The very topic that had more than 10,000 people agitating in under 10 hours on Twitter. Wild because India is TikTok’s largest market with more than 200 million active users in India. By April 2020, when it crossed 2 billion downloads globally, India was its biggest contributor. In 2019, India led the world in global app downloads, with TikTok being the most-downloaded one. No doubt TikTok had become livelihood for many Indians in metros as well as in the smaller towns. To many, the platform provided overnight riches and stardom and turned many ordinary Indians into social media stars.
Creators whose livelihoods depend on TikTok will naturally be the worst impacted. Brands, on the other hand, stand to lose out on a huge & easy-to-tap young consumer market, which was not only quick to reach but easier to sell to.
The impact will also relay on the influencer marketing agencies since TikTok over the time forged very strong partnerships with the marketing agencies that enabled brands across the country to put the pedal to the medal with TikTok influencer campaigns. But despite all this good mojo for TikTok, concerns around the app’s security and privacy continued to mount and ultimately led to its ban. With advertisements worth millions of rupees at halt, agencies will have to bend over backwards not only to hold out for themselves but to as well go the limit for hundreds and thousands of creators who may have been impacted due to the ban.
The revenue stats and engagement through user-generated content are bound to be affected at the helm especially immediately! Campaigns already planned for TikTok will most likely get redistributed on other platforms such as Chingari, Mitron, Roposo to name a few. It will become imperative for brands as well as for agencies into rethinking their media strategy and to diversify TikTok’s share with other alternative platforms. It may as well be an appropriate time for Social media giants such as Youtube and Instagram to cash upon the opportunity and launch their already pivoted products SHORTS and REELS, respectively, in India.
However it will be true to say that despite the diversification, engagement will be hampered for creators who’ve never explored the surrogate platforms yet, as building community of followers doesn’t occur in a day and establishing presence take years.
Drawing the similar narrative, Praanesh Bhuvaneshwar, Co-Founder, Qoruz another influencer discovery and outreach platform, said “TikTok is still a fairly newer platform, and it is not reached a stage to be deemed ‘unavoidable’ per se. So, thishas little to nothing in terms of affecting brands’ planning and launches of campaigns. it is just a good time for FB and Google, and perhaps the native platforms of India such as ShareChat or Roposo”
TikTok India, though, called the ban an “interim order”, some virtuosos of the business may counter to believe that the impact may not be interim. Elaborating on this Vikas Chawla, Co-founder of Social Beat says “This is not the first time Tiktok is getting banned from India. The existing users continue to be active on the platform but interest from brands has surely taken a hit and new brands are unlikely to experiment with it. Even brands that are active on the platform have stopped campaigns. It’s going to be an uphill battle for the platform. Even for content creators that rely on the platform to earn, it’s going to be a huge dampener.”
It is also believable that the ban on all or some of these 59 Chinese apps might not be final, and the government might permit thecompanies to submit clarification. Convinced by the same Pranay Swarup – Founder and CEO – Chtrbox said, “In the best interest for the creators on these apps, we are hoping that this is not a permanent ban, but as the situation improves and platforms make required changes, we might just see some of the banned apps make a comeback”
“The influencer marketing industry won’t be impacted long term – audiences from Tiktok will quickly shift their focus to new short form video apps. It will take some time for creators to build user bases to the same extent again and understand the new emerging platforms – but as long as there are quality creators, they will be viable options for brand storytelling. We’ve always believed platforms can change – but people with influence will remain as a constant” He added.
Payal Sakhuja Founder of Ripple Links abided her faith in the mobility and patterned adaptability of Influencer Marketing agencies. She pointed out that, “As an industry, influencer marketing has always been fluid. When we started, there was a focus on blogs, this then moved to virality on Facebook and Twitter to aesthetic content on Instagram and mass content on TikTok. “
At a time when physical distances have been nullified by compounded proximity and social media platforms have become a big part of our lives, it’s true that TikTok was simple, easy to use, and most importantly, available in 14 Indian languages, which made the platform exceptionally reachable. It gradually determined its democratic nature, one that resisted the stereotyped boundaries of caste, color, creed, class, and content in an otherwise status-conscious India. TikTok’s emergence was leading to a shift where brands were moving out of mega-influencers in YouTube and Instagram space to micro-influencers on TikTok across the chartered and unchartered territories.
“It’s funny that some of us celebrating ban on TikTok but was bashing nepotism few weeks back. Though, at Pulpkey, our primary network of influencers are from Instagram and YouTube, I believe TikTok has played a significant role in giving aplatform for anyone who has something to say irrespective the cities they live in India. TikTok played a great role reaching out to Tier 2 and Tier 3 markets through influencers” said Amit Mondal. Founder, Pulpkey
Having said that the anti-China sentiment in the middle of a national crisis is imperative. Nothing and nobody must undermine the security of the country and come prejudicial to its sovereignty and integrity. It is a great time for India to consider boosting its Make in India initiative. While it shall keep the economy afloat and help in self-sustenance, it is also necessary to consider national security as we slowly attempt to grow into an influential power. It’s high time we learned from the past, lest we invited another East India Company!