As you may have noticed, TikTok’s popularity has skyrocketed over the past two years, making it one of the fastest-growing Social Media platforms in history. Since its boom in 2020, TikTok has become an important platform for the digital marketing world, as well as becoming the ‘Most Popular App’ to date, dethroning Google for the first time just last year.
Where It Now Stands
TikTok’s sudden influx in demand has driven brands to increasingly experiment with the app, exploring new eCommerce opportunities and further embedding TikTok into their approach.
Debra Aho Williamson, a principal analyst from Insider Intelligence, said in a report:
“It has moved well beyond its roots as a lip-syncing and dancing app; it creates trends and fosters deep connections with creators that keep users engaged, video after video. Advertisers want to reach a passionate, dedicated audience, and TikTok can deliver that.”
Likewise, all this newfound fame is also fuelling TikTok’s ad revenue, which, if it continues to go down its current path, will completely overshadow Twitter and Snapchat’s revenue combined. On that note, projections for TikTok’s revenue this year see its numbers go as high as $11.64 billion, up from last year’s $3.88 billion. Effectively tripling within a year, TikTok’s estimated revenue alone is expected to beat out Twitter’s $5.58 billion and Snapchat’s $4.86 billion, even if you combine them.
While brands scrambled to reach the massively growing audience on TikTok, the platform itself, in turn, attempted to ‘cozy up’ top brands in an attempt to win marketers’ trust, snagging a larger share of their budgets. Along with having to face criticisms about creator representation and overall monetization on the app, TikTok still managed to pull off some incredible hat tricks last year by investing in brand safety, ad measurement, and commerce. TikTok also brought in a couple of new creator tools and is launching a new TV app that’s designed to bring the app to bigger screens in restaurants and gyms thanks to a partnership with Atmosphere.
The Wrap
Up until now, TikTok continues to invest and develop its revenue-generating elements, which will likely keep it as a relevant platform for quite some time. TikTok’s global ad revenue is expected to hit $23.58 billion by 2024, putting it dangerously close to YouTube’s $23.65 billion.
To close, we quote another statement by Williamson:
“Another factor that will drive growth in ad spending is TikTok’s unique take on social commerce. It pairs marketers with creators to help content go viral, and that can drive enormous demand for products that advertisers want to promote.”
Subscribe to our ‘Bottoms Up!’ Newsletter. Get the latest social media blogs about news, updates, trends, and effective social media strategies to take your business to the highest level from Tristan Ahumada and Jeff Pfitzer.
Sources