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jess-dw-sherman · 5 years ago

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Media Switch-up: Pinterest

Why I chose this platform

I chose Pinterest because I’ve never used it regularly and definitely have never used it in a professional capacity. When I first created an account around 10 years ago, I tried to use it for a lot of different things like reading lists and travel ideas, but after a couple of months I stopped putting in the effort. I’ve used it in the past for some things, like saving some ideas for planning my engagement party or wedding dresses that I liked. I am also sometimes redirected to it when I’m looking for ideas for new hairstyles or clothing trends, but I never do the initial search on Pinterest.

I think my homepage is definitely influenced by the few times I’ve been directed to the site. I recently watched an episode of The Crown that depicted Jackie Kennedy, I’ve been looking for Halloween costumes, my fiancé and I are redesigning our apartment, I recently dyed my hair, and I’m kind of planning a wedding. All of these things pop up when I first log on (also, I’m clearly not an active user as shown by the 99+ notifications I seem to have accumulated at some point).

Initial Thoughts

Since my homepage is catered to my past views, I looked at what is in the today tab. It was pretty similar to my own homepage, focusing a lot on home design, beauty/fashion, crafts, food, and cats. Other “Today” editions from the past days also seemed to include the same type of content.

Content on Pinterest

Through my research, I think my initial thoughts were a pretty good summary of the main types of content that is posted. Most content is a single image or a collage of a few static images. The images are high quality and have a clean aesthetic. The main types of content usually posted on the site are: products, recipes/food, infographics, and how-to guides.

User Statistics

According to the Omnicore agency, there are over 400 million active monthly Pinterest users, with the largest user base being the U.S. followed by Germany, and users spend an average of 5 minutes on the platform. Females make up 71% of the users, and the main age ranges of users are 18-29 (34%) and 34-49 (35%). 70% of users have a college degree, and 80% of mothers who use the internet use Pinterest, and a majority live in suburban environments. According to the Pew Research center, White individuals are the most likely to use Pinterest, while Black individuals are the least likely. In summary, a major group of users seems to be white suburban mothers who have college degrees.

The Omnicore analysis also had very interesting data about how consumers use the platform. 90% of weekly users make purchase decisions on the platform and 77% have discovered new products or brands through it. A majority of users use the mobile version of the app, and also feel that the platform is a place for positivity. Most users describe the platform as a place to find ideas for starting products or to find products and brands they can trust.

A very aesthetically pleasing platform

I find the site to be easy to use and very pretty. The photos, graphics, and general content are clean and simple, and generally high quality and colorful. The main focus of the platform is visual - I don’t think this would necessarily be a place to put videos, and usually posts that link to long articles contain an initial photo and a few lines of text. When you’re pinning something to your boards, you can choose which photo from the link you want to display, also showing that appearance is really a main focus for users and creators.

How do brands use this platform versus individuals?

Individuals

I think individuals tend to uses this platform for ideas and to consolidate different ideas for things like projects or recipes. Individual users can create multiple boards with different sections. For example, I decided to look at this to get organized for (somewhat) starting to plan my wedding. There are so many aspects to planning an event like this, so I was really happy to see I could put sections into my overall wedding board, to separate ideas for different things like rings, venues, dresses, hairstyles, and decorations.

There is also an interesting collaborative aspect. I can share the board with other users, and I can also share different sections with different people. That’s useful if I’m planning an event or project where different friends are involved in different parts.

Brands & Companies

I found an article that discussed four extremely successful brands on Pinterest: Chobani, Starbucks, Birchbox, and LÄRABAR.

I noticed that all of them have an overall visual theme. LÄRABAR, a snack company, uses a similar look and format for all of their posts, even if they have different content.

Interestingly, I did see that some brands use short clips. They are more like GIFs than videos and the movement makes their ads more dynamic. Starbucks used a GIF of someone snapping to emphasize how easy it is to make a cup of their coffee at home. Their account, which has over 400,000 followers, really makes use of their branding colors through their posts.

Overall the content seems to be very positive and light-hearted. The topics are often things like useful tips and recipes, or interesting facts or information. I think Chobani has done a great job with their page - a lot of their posts are yummy recipes that you can make with their yogurt. I like how they’re not marketing their products directly - they’re really taking advantage of the fact that a lot of users are looking for things like ideas or projects and showing how their products can be used in fun ways.

I am having some trouble thinking of ways that companies like banks can use it I did find that BNP has one that they use to link to articles and events, but other groups like Morgan Stanley and Goldman do not. I think it’s probably never going to be the top platform that the industries use for brand awareness, but the current lack of use by those types of companies does make it seem like something worth looking into for innovative campaigns and marketing.

Final Thoughts

I think Pinterest is very cute. It’s fun to look at and lets you easily browse similar products and looks without having to do multiple searches. I see how it would be very useful for retail brands and food brands. Since the content is usually one image, it seems pretty easy to create a branded look. I think companies have to go past just using it to market their products, by doing things like Chobani, or maybe partnering with influencers who wear or use their products to appeal to the interests and passions of specific audiences. For companies that are not in those industries, it’s possible that the platform could be a good way to share things about the workplace culture or environment, events, and tips. I am going to try and train myself to use it more regularly for my own projects - the platform has set up many ways that make it easy to create pins while browsing other sites, and often product pages have Pinterest buttons. It looks like a nice place for individual users to find information and ideas and save them in a convenient and visually appealing format.

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jess-dw-sherman · 5 years ago

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Media Switch-up: YouTube

Why I chose this platform

For this week’s media switch-up I selected YouTube. I don’t use the platform that often, pretty much only to see clips from shows like The Daily Show (Trevor Noah), Last Week Tonight (John Oliver, The Late Show (Steven Colbert), and the Graham Norton Show. I've used it for some yoga and workout videos during Covid, and occasionally when bored for outtake videos for shows that I like. I don’t browse the platform for other content and I only use it overall when I specifically want to watch one of these shows. Recently, I’ve watched all three 2020 election debates live on YouTube. I’ve also never used it from a corporate or professional standpoint, so I think there’s a lot for me to learn.

As you can see from my homepage, my feed is very much targeted to the type of videos I watch regularly:

User Demographics

I was a bit surprised that YouTube is one of the most popular video platforms for video content on TV. According to Sprout Social, YouTube is the second most preferred platform to view video content as of 2019 for users age 18-34 - Netflix came in first place, Hulu in third, basic cable fourth, and broadcast media. I guess that considering the variety of videos that are available on YouTube, it makes sense that it would be so popular. Also, unless people pay for a YouTube Premium subscription, the platform is free and available on mobile devices. This makes it more accessible for people who can’t/don’t want to pay for streaming sites like Netflix and Hulu, and for people who don’t have TVs or don’t use TVs to consume content like you would need to on basic cable and broadcast media.

Use by country

The platform has over 2 billion users worldwide. Interestingly, In 2020, the top five countries with the most users are (from most to least) India, the U.S., Brazil, Japan, and Russia.

Use by age, gender, environment, and education

Overall, it seems that user percentages seem to be surprisingly equal across groups, with mostly a difference of a few percentage points between categories. A majority of people in all the locations - urban, suburban, and rural - all use YouTube. A majority of people with some college or complete college degrees also use the platform, though the percentage of people who have a high school degree or less is lower. I’m wondering if this was asked exclusively to people over high school age or if the same people were polled for all the categories because it’s understandable that a portion of children may not have their own accounts or use it that often. While this is likely becoming less and less common, as someone whose TV was severely restricted to 3-4 hours a week and to channels like National Geographic, I think it happens.

Age of users: It’s notable that the use of YouTube by age bracket is pretty diverse, with a maximum difference of 6 percentage points between the top three: 91% for 18-29, 97% for 30-49, and 85% for 13-17.

Gender: while the study does not address non-binary users (which is disappointing, to be honest), it does seem that people who identify as male seem slightly more likely to use YouTube, but overall the percentage of people who use it and identify with one of the genders are both high.

Income: the platform also seems to be used pretty equally across income brackets. As mentioned earlier, it’s free to use to upload content, so I do think this is at least a contributing factor for why it is so equally used by different socio-economic groups.

Users by race

I had some trouble finding user statistics by race specifically for YouTube, but I did find the below graph from Stastica.com useful from a general digital communications perspective if you’re looking at multiple platforms. Facebook remains the most popular platform, but YouTube is a close second for African Americans and Asians. The largest gap between the two platforms is for non-Hispanic Whites, with a gap of 25 percentage points.

Content and on YouTube

At first glance, and from the Explore and Trending Now pages, the main categories seem to be music videos and gamer streams, which is pretty much what I expected.

I did really like that in the Explore section had the option to explore by specific categories. Users that are interested in Music may have no interest in Gaming, so I appreciate that you can explore by your preferred category rather than having to scroll through an entire feed of random topics. If you do want to see everything, you can use the categories Trending Now or Hot to see what is most popular at the moment.

My feed has overall been overwhelmed by election news, though that is probably because I’m doing this analysis during the week of the last presidential debate before the 2020 election. On a personal note, while I was browsing for this assignment I found a video that was really interesting. It was on why public transportation is set up to serve mostly suburban populations, and how it contributes to the overuse of private vehicles. The video was possibly suggested to me because of my browsing history since I do a lot of work in the DEI space. However, it took a few clicks for it to appear on my screen and I was pleasantly surprised and interested.

Format of YouTube content

I debated whether or not to put my comments on this topic under their own header, because I feel like it’s pretty clear that the format of content on YouTube is videos. I don’t really see it being used for other formats.

However, I decided to make it a separate section because I wanted to highlight the varied success of different types of ads that Sprout analyzed. I think this is helpful for companies if they want to do paid advertising on YouTube. I was pretty surprised that non-skippable video ads were not the least effective, because I personally find them pretty annoying...

I also found it worth noting the difference in video lengths for different types of videos. While the average length is a little over 11 minutes, that average varies greatly by category with gaming videos being the longest and music videos the shortest.

Companies that use YouTube

There is a huge range of companies that use Youtube, so I decided to search for the most successful ones. From an analysis by the Social Media Strategist Summit, there seems to be a pretty significant variety, although a good amount are in the retail industry. The top 10 listed in the article are, in order, Lego, Disney, BMW, Google (note: they own YouTube), GoPro, Nike, RedBull, Victoria’s Secret, Chanel, and surprisingly WWE. I honestly had no expectation that WWE would be that popular considering the international usage of the platform.

Interestingly, some big companies in the financial industry are very active on the platform, although they can’t and don’t try to compete with retail brands. Goldman Sachs has a variety of different playlists, ranging from market news or commentary to daily check-ins from employees. BNP Paribas’ page seems to be more international with a majority of content in French or English and playlists about the different regions in which they operate.

Final Thoughts

Overall, I think I definitely gained insight into useful aspects of Youtube, including the diversity of users, the success of different formats paid advertising, and the average length of videos by topic. I also learned more about navigating the platform to see new content and discover other users. In the future, I would like to look further into the use of this platform within the finance industry. It would be interesting to see what content is most successful, who the main followers are, and who engages with their content and how often. I personally don’t use YouTube to find information related to my job, but it’s worth looking into. I don’t think that it will become one of the main tools that I use for employer branding, but it is worth looking into if we want to share long videos publicly.

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jess-dw-sherman · 5 years ago

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Media Switch-Up: Instagram

Why I picked Instagram, and how it is new for me:

To preface this analysis – I have had an Instagram account for over 9 years. However, I very rarely post and stopped using it regularly at least 7 years ago. I’ve posted maybe one or two photos per year and am following essentially only my friends. Since this week’s topic of study was video, I thought it would be interesting to look at some of the newer functions of Instagram. When I got an account, it was a photo-only platform, and I don’t use the Story or IGTV functionalities. Additionally, I’ve never made an effort to look at what companies use Instagram or followed any that inspire me, so I wanted to analyze the platform’s users and the corporate presences that are the most successful.

In terms of usage, I maybe look at Instagram a couple of times a week. I am also notoriously bad at answering Direct Messages from friends (to be honest, I really don’t look at them at all and currently have 17 unread messages…). I thought it would be interesting to see how it is used by people outside of my group of friends, contacts, and occasional content I see from companies and public figures.

Wide range of content and some interesting functionalities

I thought I’d look at the discover section to see what would come up. It seemed mostly influenced by what I follow or have watched already, like a lot of cat videos or LGBTQ-related topics). There was also a selection of very random videos that I don’t completely understand, including one I forgot to screenshot but it seemed like a guy pretending to be a column in the NYC subway.

Author’s note: I do love cats and seeing people be confident in who they are, so I enjoyed these adorable posts.

Looking further into the different functionalities on the platform, I liked that Instagram has new options for content.

Shopping

I had no idea there was an entire shopping section, as it hadn’t occurred to me that that was a regular thing people do, other than the sponsored content you can see on your newsfeed. Looking at it, it is actually well organized and easy to use. This is a really interesting option for companies that sell products that appeal to a large range of consumers, especially since the headlining content on the Shopping homepage is titled “Buy on Instagram: shop without using a website.” It’s convenient that companies can link products to their account, so it would be easy for users to find them either through the shopping page or if they follow the company page.

IGTV

Instagram TV looks like it’s similar to YouTube. You can post videos that are up to 10 minutes long, and many of them seemed to be from companies or public figures and less personal content. It looks to me like a way for users to post longer videos (rather than the short ones available in regular posts).

Reels

I also had no idea what Instagram Reels were. Upon further inspection, it is a new functionality that was released only a couple of months ago and allows users to post shorter videos than IGTV. Honestly, this seems like a way for Instagram to compete with TikTok but it hasn’t been around long enough to see if it really makes an impact, although it is nice to have so many content format options (photo, clips, full videos, shopping, and more) all contained in one platform.

Who is using Instagram?

While I knew it would be interesting to do what - I hope - is insightful and useful analysis of Instagram since it is so widely used and has been around for a long time, one positive was that it was really easy to find clear statistics on many different demographics (much easier than for my previous Media Switch-Up on Medium!).

By Country

One thing I found interesting was the number of people who use Instagram by country. According to statistica.com, the U.S. is by far the country that uses Instagram the most at 130 million accounts, followed by India at 100 million. Considering the difference in population size between those two countries, a much larger percentage of Americans use Instagram than Indians. Europe also seems significantly less interested in Instagram, with the top EU country (at least until December of this year) being the U.K. at 27 million users, Germany with 25 million, Italy with 23 million, and France with 21 million.

Leading countries based on Instagram audience size as of July 2020

By Age

The age breakdown of users was less surprising. The largest categories of users are between the ages of 25-34 (33.3%) and 18-24 (29.3%), and the smallest group are users over the age of 65 (2.2%). On a personal note, I was a little bit happy to see that only 6.9% of users are ages 13-17 because I am still on the fence about how I feel in terms of young kids posting photos and videos of themselves without a full understanding of the permanence of their posts.

By Gender and Race

In terms of gender, usage seemed essentially equal for men and women, varying only by a few percentage points for each age category (see chart above). However, I think that in terms of the racial breakdown of users, it’s important to note that the Black and Latinx communities are more likely to use Instagram versus White people

On demographics

All of these factors would be important for a company to consider when developing their strategy and their content. Usage by country was most surprising for me – I thought the app was much more popular around the world. When considering Instagram in a corporate digital media strategy, it would be important to know that your reach with content on this platform may be very effective in the U.S., but much less so outside of America.

Most popular accounts on Instagram

Instagram’s account is the most popular on their site. While this may seem unsurprising – I thought that it was some sort of automatic follow situation, an easy account for new users to follow, or one of the first suggestions that new users see when they create their account – the company has actually marketed their account in an interesting way, by using it is a platform to promote for interesting accounts. A lot of the topics in their Story sections are social/cultural topics, such as Share Black Stories, Latinx Heritage, Pride 2020, Juneteenth, and their 2020 vision. There was also an assortment of positivity topics, such as Made us Smile, Guides (on a variety of subjects), Try This at Home, and Self-Care Tips.

The most popular accounts after Instagram are all celebrities, with the top five being Christiano Renaldo, Ariana Grande, The Rock, Kylie Jenner, and Selena Gomez. I’m not sure what I expected, but I did find it interesting that there are no other companies or organizations that fall in the top 20. While those 5 are all celebrities and these are their individual accounts, the variety in those 5 personas was also remarkable, and I feel reflects the diversity of users and interest that the platform includes.

Companies on Instagram

I don’t use Instagram to follow companies, although I have bought a couple of spontaneous (possibly ill-advised and unnecessary) products through sponsored content. Statistically, companies in the fashion industry are the most successful Instagram. Considering the style of a lot of photos that users post on Instagram, and the popularity of style influencers, this was not surprising. The top 5 companies on Instagram are Nike (by a large margin), Victoria’s Secret, Huda Beauty, Chanel, and Gucci.

From my research online, it looks like Lego is one of the most popular corporate accounts. I do love Lego, so I decided to follow them and was excited to look at their content.

Lego account contains mostly fun content (though I’m not sure what serious content people would be expecting in relation to Lego) and posts at least once a day, if not more. Their content is mostly video content and they have really taken advantage of the longer video format that IGTV offers. I am a big fan of Lego (and am now following them) because I found some of their content to be delightful, like how they stress test their Duplo products and a cute video on sustainability encouraging users to pass on their Lego sets to others.

I work in finance and banking and I was not surprised to see that my industry is not even included in the graph above, probably because these are not topics that people think of when they’re using Instagram. Most banks and large financial services companies do have an account, although they vary in the degree to which they take advantage of the platform’s different features. One account that I do like is Goldman Sachs and I discovered a new feature when I looked at one of their stories: apparently, you can link content directly to Spotify! This is a great feature if you want to promote things like podcasts or music, and it did make me wonder if you can do the same things with other platforms like linking things to YouTube (Answer: not yet, but maybe soon?).

Final thoughts

Overall, this analysis has changed the way I view Instagram. I thought it was mostly photo-based, but they’ve adapted to changing interests from consumers and seem to be focusing on promoting videos, making it very easy to edit them and post your content in multiple formats. I know that companies that I’ve worked for in the past tend to only post photos, but I think they need to expand into video content if they truly want to engage their followers. Videos of these things would be much more engaging. I also think that the videos seem much more real – you only post the best photo you have, but a video shows your followers feel like they are at the actual event. Clips of people speaking lets viewers feel closer to the person, rather than just reading something they said and seeing a headshot. I’m actually really excited to start thinking of ways that I can make videos for my current job (Employer Branding) because it seems like a great way to showcase things like events, speeches, and our employees.

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jess-dw-sherman · 5 years ago

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Media Switch Up 3

For my third Media Switch Up I decided to try Medium. I had essentially zero prior knowledge of this platform and the types of content and people that use it. It was really interesting to try a completely new, especially from a corporate communications standpoint. Normally I don’t spend a lot of time reading blogs or opinion pieces. I probably would never have thought about Medium for corporate communications, but after using it and gaining a better understanding of the benefits and content, it is something that I would like to use much more in the future.

Choosing topics that interest me (or not, in some cases)

At first glance, the app was a bit hard to set up. The initial suggestions were random and I followed a few that interested me to see how that would affect my news feed.

Scrolling through the different posts, it seemed like most of them were users expressing their opinions, and less like a presentation of facts or information.

The targeting algorithm did become a problem initially – I was only following a few topics and read an article on suicide in the Trans community. Following this, every article suggested to me was related to murder, suicide, or death. Mental health in the LGBTQ community and the profound inequalities in our criminal justice system are both subjects that I really care about. For example, I found the articles “Dear @BenShapiro RE: trans suicides” and “The 13 Year Old Sentenced to Life in Prison for Murder: The story of Lionel Tate” both to be very impactful and insightful. However, I feel like there is a huge difference between those types of articles versus detailed descriptions of crimes with no larger social commentary (for example, “Father kills mother, blames daughter”). True crime was not a topic I’d chosen to follow, and yet, frustratingly, I was seeing mostly this type of story and nothing on the topics I had actually chosen. I eventually had to resort to manually searching key words and users to change the recommendations I received.

What are people talking about?

Despite my initial (accidental) foray into the spaces on true crime reporting, Alexa reports that the main topics discussed by users are votes, blockchain, and investments:

Medium has expanded on that, reporting the top 20 most used tags in Feb 2020, the first 10 being: Startup, Life, Life Lessons, Politics (American, mostly), Travel, Poetry, Health, and Love. IT and Business are also included in the top 20. As someone who has predominantly worked in communications for financial institutions, this shows me that while Medium may not be the main platform for discussing our services, there is still a base that we could reach on topics like innovation in banking.

It was easiest to find articles from personal users versus companies. In the beginning, I was a bit put off by articles that (at first glance) seemed to be fact-based but then contained no citations or supporting links. I think this is dangerous – it can blur the lines between opinion versus fact. What I found the most impactful were articles that shared a point of view but used links and sources to support their arguments. Photos were also a useful addition as examples to underline a statement or claim made by the author.

I did find that once I started reading on certain topics, I was exposed to a new source of views and experiences from people of different backgrounds. One article I found very interesting was “Offend Easily? Keep Scrolling, Then, Friend.” by Catherine Pugh, Esq, part the series TOWN: Two Americas in One White Nation.

The author used a combination of personal feelings and experiences supported by concrete facts and examples (with extremely detailed sources, such as the transcript of a speech given by Abraham Lincoln in 1857) told in a format that felt like a conversation while also being very informative. It was a truly an amazing and poignant piece to read - I plan to follow the TOWN series while also looking deeper into other series by the author. Articles and stories like this one are the main reason I will continue using Medium in the future.

How are companies using Medium?

I was very interested to see how companies use Medium – are they trying to reach clients? Other industry professionals? The first companies I found were startups, tech companies, and entrepreneurial focused companies, such as Kickstarter and AirBnb. Their posts seemed to be an intriguing mix of service-related articles and stories and information on important topics.

For finance and business, it looks like a majority of the more active posters were individuals who work (or previously worked) in the industry.

Some of the large financial companies, like BNP, did have company profiles but they seemed mostly geared towards their tech and innovation teams. Other, like JP Morgan, had an account but no posts.

Because of the lack of presence from certain industries, I think this could be a new platform for companies to start using to foster discussions on related topics.

Analytics

The platform does provide interesting data for journalists and companies. You can track not only how many people are opening your articles, but also how much time it is taking them to read it and if those readers reached the end of the post. In a time when readers tend to prefer short snippets of information, it is helpful to know the average time in minutes that it takes to read your posts and if people are actually finishing them.

Who else is using Medium?

It was difficult to find concrete user statistics for Medium. From a personal perspective, it seemed to me that it is a mix of professional and personal users between ages 20-40. An article from the Search Engine Journal reported that 70% of users are under 50, which makes Medium an interesting platform for targeting a younger generation of professionals. Additionally, 95% of users have a college education and over 45% make over six figures. This significantly narrows down the audience that a company can reach with Medium, but with 85 and 100 million monthly active users it could be ideal for large corporations, especially in industries where people fit that profile. With the main user populations being located in the U.S. and India – notably, countries where English is a native language – the strategy and tactics being used should be targeted to those groups.

The lack of data on users and apparent diversity is a problem for me.

If I am going to use this platform in a professional sense, I would like to know more about who is reading articles on Medium. My industry is making an active effort to be more inclusive and appeal to a larger audience, and I feel that content needs to be adapted to different cultures. Are most of the readers female or male? Are they predominantly White or POC? Is there a large Veteran base? Is this a space where LGBTQ+ people from different backgrounds feel comfortable sharing their stories and opinions?

I could infer from some of this by comparing the data with income and college graduation statistics, and the results are not in Medium’s favor. Women and men are almost equally likely to have a college degree, but for other groups the are huge differences.

Whites and Asians are overwhelmingly more likely to have a college degree, and the gap is equally pronounced in income statistics.

Does this mean that a majority of users on the platform are White and Asian? If I want to learn more about the Queer experience, am I hearing from diverse voices in that community, or just a few? The same questions arise for veterans and active service members who have or are currently pursuing college degrees and the average salary of that population, both during and after their service. If I want to start a discussion on the support that veterans need to adapt to civilian and office life, am I going to be getting as many points of view as possible?

Without concrete statistics to review, it’s concerning. As a user, it can be hard to tell, especially since so many of the articles I see are based on topics I chose to follow or past articles that I read. Especially considering these statistics, it worries me that the user base skews so far towards a highly educated and upper-middle/upper-class backgrounds. I think this creates a risk of discouraging readers from other backgrounds. Even if someone themselves does currently fit in these categories, they may not be exposed to the site if they are not from a similar environment.

Final Thoughts

Overall, I think that Medium could be an interesting platform for companies to use to engage in conversations about specific topics with their customer base or other people in the industry. I appreciate the fact that articles are often told as stories and express comprehensive points of view. I would like to know more about who is using the platform, and I would like to have suggested stories that are not as based on whatever I just read. I think it is a great way to open yourself to others’ experiences and opinions on a large variety of topics, and I like that you can do a Series of posts on a specific topic.

From a corporate perspective, I think it would be interesting to do series dedicated to topics like Diversity & Inclusion and Innovation. It could be a good way to get an outside perspective and break down barriers for both corporate and personal use. I plan to continue to explore the platform to continue to educate myself on topics that are important to me, while also looking for more ways that I could use it in my work.

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jess-dw-sherman · 5 years ago

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Media Switchup 2 - TikTok

For this week’s media switch-up I chose TikTok. Personally, I’ve never really used the app before this week. I downloaded it around a month ago, but only because one of my best friends kept texting me videos and it was annoying to be redirected to a site each time I wanted to watch them. Overall, this was going to be essentially a completely new app for me. Before starting the assignment for the week, I asked that friend why she used the app so much and she responded, “I like TikTok because it distracts me from all the stress around us…and I can tune out for just a second and don’t get trapped watching things for hours like I would a TV show I’d have to binge.” Almost exclusively based on her comments and videos she’d sent me in the past, I expected a fun app with quick and funny videos.

This was the first time I’d opened the app without being sent there, and I quickly realized I wasn’t following any accounts or topics, so my feed was essentially random. The content format is only videos, with the option to some text in the description or certain parts of the video.

Diversity Among Users

After going to the Discover section, I was able to scroll through different topics and their related videos, and the diversity in users was immediately clear. While on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram I really only see videos from people or brands that I’ve already chosen to follow, it was great to see such a variety of topics and people.

Racial Diversity

On platforms like LinkedIn and Facebook, people tend to follow others who look like them or come from similar backgrounds, and this unconscious choice leads to much less diversity in the information and opinions that they see. While I was able to choose categories that interest me on TikTok, I was presented with a much more diverse selection. I also was able to follow #DiverseVoices to ensure that I continue to see content from different backgrounds and cultures.

A wide range of ages

One thing that did surprise me was the range of ages that I saw in users. From an age perspective, most users did seem to be between the ages of 15-30 something, but also a large older population aged between 45-60. This reflects user data reported as of March 2019, which shows that 50 percent of users are ages 18-34 and over 26 percent of users are between 45-64. This is similar to Facebook in some ways – the main users are the same age range – but a much larger percentage of users on TikTok are between 45-64, while only around 8 percent of Facebook users fall in that age range. I quickly found some really cute accounts from people in the older demographic, like @yourkoreandad and @grannycoybundy that had really positive and wholesome videos covering a range of topics, from cooking to advice with dancing.

General Content

The overall content was as I expected: fun, funny, and cute videos. There seemed to be a lot of videos on specific topics, like cooking, makeup, and opinions. It was fun to see opinion videos on really obscure topics, like using Oxford commas. That one was personally appealing to me because I can’t stand it when people don’t use Oxford commas and the video completely embodied my (strong) feelings on the topic.

Risks in this type of video clip sharing

One thing that did come to my attention during my research on TikTok (and as mentioned by @grannycoybundy) was the difficulty of regulating content, especially for younger and vulnerable users. There have been multiple instances of videos of suicides being shared, and the platform has been unable to completely block the spread of these videos. Because of the way the clips are formatted, even if the explicit video itself has been deleted, there are users who have been inserting clips of the video into their post, so viewers see it unexpectedly while they are watching a normal video. This is actually a huge detracting factor for me; one of my family members committed suicide a few months ago, and it is still something that is hard for me to deal with and think about, even to write it in a post like this. Unintentionally watching a real video of someone harming themselves could and likely would have an immediate and detrimental impact on myself or anyone in a similar situation.

Companies using TikTok

It was surprisingly tough to find companies that are using TikTok. I did see some ads from the NFL and Cheerios when I first open the app, but I wasn’t sure how to find others besides searching names of every company I know and seeing if they have an account. It seems like it is relatively new for companies, and I ended up searching online to find some that used it. After looking at a few different corporate accounts, I did find that the most successful ones are using the platform for mostly up-beat, fun videos. A good example is Calvin Klein (CK) versus Vineyard Vines (VV). I’ve always thought of VV as a more niche, preppy brand, while CK seems like it has more widespread appeal. However, VV has been much more successful on TikTok, in large part because their videos are fun and cute (like a giant dancing pink whale, which is their logo) versus CK’s more serious content. VV has also run campaigns that directly involve their followers, such as #vvcheck, in which users can post a video of all their VV apparel.