IT’S the balance between that increasing desire for authenticity and that it is coming right from the source so social media really enables and facilitates that but the other side of that is that we have the algorithms and what are they optimizing for or providing us, in short there is a lot to unpack there for brands or even publishers or users.

 This will continue to evolve and this is very visible in this report prepared by GWI, which provides audience insight to publishers, media agencies and marketers around the world.

Podcast is the Future

The authenticity of it and the opportunity to connect with people as a brand never underestimate the value of it because when people tell you what they want you to give them and how it can add value to their lives, go with that. You need to deliver polished stuff, you can do polished, you can do live and you can do all sorts of things. For data miners they find the value incredible in terms of access and reach. The report covers the number of people that tune into blogs and live streaming. There is also a parallel insight on the number of people that use video as a source of learning and that includes live streams.

I recommend that you do a deep dive into the 2023 report if you want to understand a bit more of the business case for this but also from a learning perspective if you’re not data driven to just jump or have a go at it seeing how it works for your business and your audience. In Tanzania there are many small businesses that take advantage of Facebook and Instagram to promote their businesses. If they consider this data their business decisions based on which platform appeals to their clients or reaches, can help them a lot. 

If your content is compelling and adds value people will always come back to it. If it is boring or a promotional content that does not consider the clients desire it will be viewed partially then ignored because there are many choices of content to view so therein lies the trick. Don’t ask yourself should I repeat this but is it worth watching more than once? If not then leave it, but if the next question that comes to mind is how can I evolve it just slightly? A content creator can come up with all sorts of different stuff and you can package that story up for different audiences at different times. Think about your marketing and the genuine advice there is. Try not to repeat and repeat in the way that we used to do on television because that isn’t taking advantage of the opportunity. You can do it but their better ways of using your budget to deliver better outcomes.

The Growth in Social Media Platform

Realistically there are different values in all of these different experiences and people are going to keep coming back to them in the same way that they keep coming back to Snap Chat and X and so forth. Users always have strong views, and they will always voice them but behind all of that are very genuine statements that we need to listen to. People value the experience they get on these platforms and they want multiple experiences so as a marketer let us not try and make it the same. 

We’ve seen Tik-Tok continue to grow through the data its ads now reach a billion adults a month that’s about 23 percent of adults outside of China which is very huge, what is also interesting is the amount of time users spend on Tik-Tok which is like a day a month which is 24 hours a month essentially so that is a lot of time on the platform when you think about it so in contrast to that the other set of people spend about 118 hours a month on Instagram exactly. So when you put the numbers together and contrast between each platform that is when you see that people actually spend more time on Tik-Tok, definitely a lot of money and time goes to Tik-Tok.

Behavior, Affinity and Usage 

What we also see in the report is that Instagram is preferred it is favored more, if you ask someone which is their favorite platform often times it is 46 percent of women under 34 years of age say it’s Instagram versus 20 percent that only say Tik-Tok. What does this really mean for brands across all of these platforms that balance the idea of usage and reach versus affinity? 

The easiest advice is first to try them all out for your audience and see what the outcomes that you care about that is the only way as a marketer you’re going to decide which one of these platforms is best for your product. Even from one campaign to another the same team is going to have different outcomes on different platforms. So, Yes! There is a magic answer and that you can identify and that is Tik-Tok is performing good and now your mind is settled forever. That is definitely not the way it’s going to be.

Indeed try things out for your audience and see what delivers the best outcome. Let’s unpack data from AI, they used to be called Apani and their mobile expects in tracking mobile app trends. Like I said earlier, almost a day a month spent on Tik-Tok but also a day a month spent on YouTube, also 19 or 20 hours spent on Facebook and you got 11.5 hours spent on Instagram. So, if you ask people how much time they spend on social media each day, GWI survey finds that it is 2 and a half hours per user per day and that is spread across all platforms.