TikTok might be popular with younger users, but it seems the service wants to appeal to a wider audience in general. Over the last year, the micro-video-sharing service has come under increased scrutiny for the way it handles user data, as well as how it moderates content.
There’s little doubting the quick-video service’s appeal to younger users. Even before the service was rebranded as TikTok, it was already doing well with the youth demographic as Musical.ly. However, since the name-change took effect, the service has increasingly gained in its appeal to kids, and that’s something many find worrying, including TikTok.
A new Wall Street Journal report explains that in spite of the app’s popularity, the company wants to move away from its core demographic. Citing a meeting that’s said to have taken place in 2018, TikTok CEO, Alex Zhu, made it clear to employees that relying so heavily on younger users runs the risk of the app becoming dated. Due to this, Zhu instructed the company to focus on moving away from kids and more on appealing to a wider audience.
TikTok Facing Uphill Battle With Older Users
Arguably, the position TikTok finds itself in today is one many services would be more than happy with. One of the key trends in marketing right now is finding new ways to get younger users to engage more with a product, service, or platform, and that’s something TikTok has no problem with. The app itself saw a massive spike in downloads in 2019 and its rise seems somewhat unstoppable at the moment. However, the nature of the platform, and its ultra-short videos, remains a hurdle if TikTok wants to draw in a broader audience. While the service is free, and viral videos are popular with many age groups, it remains to be seen if a dedicated app like TikTok is necessary to satiate the demand for viral content aimed at older users. This is even more true considering other social media services already, and successfully, deliver viral videos to those same users.
Another issue facing TikTok is its advertising model in general. While the service might want to appeal to a wider user base, it clearly understands how important the youth market is to advertisers and directly uses this as a pitch on its advertising pages. With TikTok so heavily relying on its youth advertising, it's unclear if the service ever will step out of that shadow and into the wider audience light, and especially if advertisers continue to be willing to spend big on a targeted and centric audience. In this sense, it might already be too late for TikTok to pivot away from its core user base.
Source: WSJ