A study conducted in 2021 found that the average human attention span fell from 12 seconds in 2000 to 8 seconds today. This is one of the many reasons why Tik Tok has become an increasingly popular social media platform for many around the world over the last few years, being the most downloaded app in Q1 of 2022 and being the most popular domain towards the end of last year (more popular than Google).

Tik Tok recently tested a new search feature on the platform, which raised the question of whether it can be used as a search engine.

After a tweet was posted posing the question, many users claimed that they’re already using Tik Tok as a search engine and prefer it over Google. One user tweeted this just a few weeks ago – a post that went viral, receiving over 110k likes and 14k retweets:

While, according to the comments, not everyone seemed to have agreed with the tweet, there was a large portion of the comments that appeared to agree; which begs the question, does Tik Tok have the potential to become a Google competitor? Especially seeing that many are already using it as a search engine.

What does this mean for marketing strategies?

If you’re a business owner or marketing manager and haven’t yet thought about it, should you start to consider using Tik Tok as a marketing platform? Although this largely depends on the industry you’re in, we definitely think that it’s something you need to start thinking about.

Tik Tok is no longer used only by Gen-Z’s, as more and more (older) people are starting to use it (and the infinite scroll seems to be addictive). Here’s a breakdown of age by gender as of April 2022 according to Statista:

Tags: google, Tik Tok