We all saw this coming. Eventually, Social Media would rule over our lives, dictating what actions we should do daily and what choices to make; sci-fi movies were right – we would eventually be dominated by machines and their processes. Kidding aside, it has become evident that Social Media is where most people decide to share their life events and accomplishments. It’s unclear exactly when this phenomenon started, but among other platforms, Instagram and TikTok seem to really take the spotlight when it comes to people broadcasting their life trends. 

The Story of You

Me? Yes, you! To help, a team from Confused.com, that name sounds very reassuring, conducted a broader study of life trends that looked at the most popular life event postings on both apps, based on Hashtag use. It might just provide you with important and relevant data that you need to really spice up your content planning. Amazing how everything, regardless of how qualitative it can sound, always manages to end up relating to audience reach, yes? 

Anyway, let’s first take a look at Instagram. Based on what Confused.com’s team was able to find, the top 10 most shared life events are: 

  1. Marriage           6. Pregnancy

  2. Birthday            7. New Home

  3. Baby Shower     8. Promotion

  4. Graduation        9. Death

  5. Engagement      10. New Child

Fairly logical findings, the structure of which is fairly similar to what you’d find in an explanatory hierarchy in financial planning, but what’s really worth noting is the variance in post volume; the difference between the #1 and #2 ranked events is in the millions. Also, did you notice that most of these are celebratory events? Just a nice fun fact. Based on these and depending on what you’re offering, you can use these insights to determine which people to focus your campaigns on. 

Hoping on over to TikTok, we see a similar scenario: 

  1. Birthday           6. Gender Reveal

  2. Pregnancy        7. Divorce

  3. Separation       8. Engagement

  4. Death                9. Baby Shower

  5. Graduation       10. Funeral

Damn TikTok, why you gotta be so morbid? Pardon my French. It seems that TikTok’s younger audience focuses more on certain life events compared to that of Instagram’s. For example, ‘Separation’ is 11th on Instagram while ‘Marriage’ is 23rd on TikTok, which makes sense because younger people nowadays have shown to be more averse to lifetime commitment. In turn, this would also tie in with separation, whether romantically or otherwise (I.E separation from parents, home town, etc). 

The Wrap

For the most part, the study provides you with information you’re already likely to know. The best that the research offers seems to be some extra insight relating to audience demographics, more accurately painting a picture that you can use to determine where and to who you should focus your efforts. Bottom-line, people use Instagram and TikTok for major announcements or lamentations; how you use them will depend on your goals and specific strategy.

Sources 

http://bit.ly/3VDqSpJ