TikTok
TikTok has had an eventful January. After a bit of back-and-forth over the weekend, TikTok went from normal – available to use and download on the App Store and Google Play – to completely unavailable. Then it came back online, but with a bit of a hiccup which has persisted for several days now, and TikTok currently sits in an uneasy limbo where users are able to access the platform via web browser or if they already have the app installed, but the app is unavailable for download. The upheaval and uncertainty about the platform’s future are causing headaches for marketers and creators.
Rented Land
What is rented land? I was introduced to the idea of rented land by Joe Pulizzi and Robert Rose on the podcast This Old Marketing a few years back. Rented land, in this context, means a marketer or creator building an audience on a platform where they do not have direct access to their audience. On the other hand, owned land includes things like a customer database or email list that facilitates direct audience access.
Most social media platforms are rented land. What is the downside of building your audience and distributing your content on rented land? If the platform suddenly changes its rules or shuts down, you have no way to reach your audience. While the potential shuttering of a platform is not a unique phenomenon (does anyone remember Google Plus?), social media platforms have their own incentives for allowing and encouraging users and businesses to build audiences on their rented land. These incentives evolve over time as the platform grows. Broadly speaking, a new platform’s sole focus is to acquire users to create a network effect. A more mature platform will monetize its network and users.
Sure, huge swaths of the people who are looking to buy your products and services are spending time and giving their attention to YouTube, Meta, and TikTok. These platforms are behemoths and offer awesome potential for audience growth and engagement. They are built to be addictive and keep us coming back day after day. Some of them have powerful and effective advertising and e-commerce funnels built into them. But those platforms have all of the control. If a platform is shut down then you don’t have access to your audience. You have no way of exporting a list of your followers or reaching out to them on another channel. You have to start over from zero.
What’s going to happen with the future of TikTok? Your guess is as good as mine. The only thing I know for sure is that you have a choice where you publish and build your audience. Choose wisely.
++ Brett ++
Further Reading:
5 Things to Do to Move From Rented Land by Ann Gynn at The Tilt
Tech’s TikTok Dilemma by Sapna Maheshwari, Aaron Krolik, and Tripp Mickle at The New York Times
This week’s inputs:
- The Royal Tenenbaums, 2001 film by Wes Anderson
- A Light For Attracting Attention, 2022 album by The Smile