Over the last several years, TikTok has rapidly evolved from a digital oddity with a cult following among young North Americans to a media juggernaut, the newest addition to a social pantheon that includes Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. If its trajectory is to be trusted, the next step in TikTok’s evolution is to become a social media advertising titan; last week, eMarketer shared data that suggests that shift is underway.
eMarketer’s reporting predicts that TikTok will bring in just shy of $6-billion in US digital advertising dollars in 2022, accounting for 2.4% of all US digital marketing spend. That’s ‘just 1 percentage point less than YouTube, and more than Snapchat and Twitter combined,’ the publication reported.
And while $6-billion is practically pennies beside Google and Meta’s otherworldly revenues – combined, the two giants account for roughly 50% of the $250-billion US digital advertising market – TikTok’s growth is the real story. If the company hits eMarketer’s projection, that will represent a roughly 184% year-over-year increase.
“The app’s ad revenues will settle into a double-digit growth trajectory starting next year and top $11 billion in 2024,” eMarketer predicts.
That doesn’t mean you should be moving social media advertising budget out of Facebook and into TikTok. But what it does mean is:
- TikTok itself will continue to attract new users from different demographics, making it a more viable advertising platform for businesses of all kinds, and
- The social media landscape, and indeed the wider tech landscape, is always changing, welcoming new platforms, users, and innovations daily.
With those shifts in the tech landscape come new digital marketing opportunities. The tried-and-true methods that have worked for years – SEO, Google Ads, Facebook Ads, etc. – remain critical. But there’s always room to explore innovative new technologies and tactics. Indeed, that sort of exploration is the foundation upon which the tech sector is built.
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