Ep 3: The Future of TikTok

This week’s episode of Off The Record: Marketing Deconstructed explores the speculation surrounding potential buyers for TikTok with the Chinese owners are forced to sell their stake to keep the platform operational in the U.S. The discussion touches on big names like Mark Cuban, tech companies, and venture capitalists as potential purchasers, considering the platform's target demographic and its influence on small businesses and influencers.

It also delves into the broader implications of social media ownership, privacy concerns, and the political landscape affecting such acquisitions. The 5 & Rise Team also discusses the importance of authenticity in marketing and the challenge of maintaining a platform's user base amid changes, emphasizing the unique value influencers and creators bring to platforms like TikTok.

00:00 Exploring Potential Buyers for TikTok
00:57 The Intricacies of TikTok's Sale and Potential Buyers
02:42 Speculating on the Future of Social Media Platforms
04:01 The Impact of Social Media on Small Businesses and Creators
04:50 Considering LinkedIn as a Potential Buyer for TikTok
07:37 The Role of Influencers in TikTok's Success
10:09 The Importance of Diversification for Creators and Businesses
11:06 Government Influence and the Future of TikTok
18:02 Speculating on High-Profile Potential Buyers for TikTok
23:27 The Evolution of Social Media and Its Impact on Marketing

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Transcript

0:00

From an ideal client standpoint, that who would stand to be the best purchaser? You know, I hadn't thought about Mark Cuban with him stepping away from his role. Speculation! No, no, no. I, I, at the, at the Facebook and Instagram, like, met a shutdown a few times over the last few years. Like the importance I think Jeff Bezos is living a pretty enjoyable life at the moment, not dealing with most things Amazon. Welcome to today's episode of Off the Record, Marketing Deconstructed. On the podcast today, we are diving into the world of TikTok. It's been a trending topic lately, whether it's going to stay in the U. S., whether somebody is going to buy it. What should I do with my growth, my advertising, my channel? We dig into all of that today. Enjoy. In our last podcast, we were talking about iDubbbz Client. And I was thinking about this in regards to what's going on with TikTok in our country. And again, you know, this can go, this conversation could go in lots of different directions because of the political and the social and, you know, the harm that is being talked about around this particular platform. But I was kind of curious about if TikTok The Chinese have to sell their stake in TikTok, which it sounds like if we want to keep it, I believe it was signed yesterday. It is official. They, they do have nine months to sell, right? And then I think there's like on top of that nine months, there's like a three month extension. If there's a, if there's an agreed upon sale that is going through all the, you know, all the process. Yeah. Yeah. I would be curious from an ideal client standpoint that who would stand. to be the best purchaser of TikTok based on who's on that platform. And should it be a company? I mean, most likely a lot of this is like venture capitalists or, you know, people that want to invest and whatever. But, um, if you look at who TikTok targets, um, who would be in line to maybe be a purchaser for that based on that demographic? Thoughts on that? I don't know this offhand, but I'd be curious, was when Elon was in the market for Twitter, were there other people who were interested in, in buying that? Because if not, if it's somebody who is not specifically trying to get TikTok, but they're just trying to get in social media with an established name, I feel like that could be a heavy favorite. Once again, I don't know. I, I can. I, my guess is that with the way Elon lobbied, For buying Twitter for so long that the answer is probably no, I don't, but maybe that's why his bid to buy it was so astronomically higher than what their, what their stock valuation was because there was a competitor. I don't know. I, I don't remember the timeline, but there was talks about this when TikTok was relatively new about this idea of having concern over, over, over the Chinese government's ownership and what access and information and security and all that. And I believe that Oracle was, uh, which is, uh, California based, right? Tech company. I believe that the, the, they had kind of stepped up. And we're considering. When it came up the first time. Yes. And this is, this is a few years ago, but I believe, I believe, uh, President Trump was still in office, but, but since then, I don't know if they would, I mean, I haven't heard any rumblings of anyone considering it now. I do think that it would be very unwise of any of like Google. I would not recommend it. I would not believe, I would not recommend Meta get into it. Say Elon, like any of the big ones currently, I wouldn't recommend it just based on. that we've seen social media platforms kind of trend and evolve over the course of time. I know Facebook did it with Instagram and Instagram is fairly well stuck around, but I just, I, I think based on the way that the user trends work, the content is kind of so vastly different there that I, I think that there would be concern from the user base of the platform if there were significant changes from, you know, from, you know, from You know, Mark Zuckerberg, You know what I think is interesting is that you've seen some of the, um, the commercials or the, like, people talking about don't, don't ban TikTok, don't do this because I'm a small business and my, yeah, creators and small business owners and, um, things like that. And I was thinking about that and I was like, from that standpoint, like, And those are the people, like, they're not talking to the teenagers that are using it, right? That are spending eight hours a day watching the videos and things like that. They're not talking about some of the content that, um, is being posted by influencers that is influencing decisions and things like that on the economy. Um, they are focusing on people that it was going to directly hurt their pocketbook if it was banned. And I was thinking about that, I was like, well, all of these small businesses. What if something like a LinkedIn, who you wouldn't think would ever go on a TikTok? Because it's completely, you think from that standpoint, it's a very different environment. But if you think about creators, influencers, you think about small business owners, a lot of our clients have a TikTok presence, even though they don't do much with it, because they were able to build an audience really quickly. in, you know, the thousands, hundreds of thousands in some of these cases, right? And then you can take the audience and push it to different platforms. And so I'm wondering if something like a LinkedIn, who could promote some of these smaller businesses, um, if, and turn it into more of that type of a, platform. I don't know. I was kind of thinking about that. I do think it'd be very tough for them given just the current constraints of what they do with Facebook, with Instagram, even with Twitter to an extent there was video elements and they did have large, you know, Facebook and Instagram specifically did have large Uh, portions of their, you know, their, uh, their content being video and there is no story aspect to LinkedIn. There, there isn't, uh, as far as I know, I don't think there is, is there live? Yeah. You can do LinkedIn live. Uh, but it's just very limited. So I just feel like it'd be a very, it'd be a very different kind of acquisition from what they're, they're used to doing. And it would just be, they wanted to turn it into something more educational and more business focused. You know, I think that would be great, but I think that'd be a major change from what they're currently doing. They did for a while. LinkedIn was experimenting with the creator side of things. And you could, you used to be able to go and record a video and put that like in your, Profile picture, it would be a video, um, and you could click on it and you could tell, talk like almost a video sales letter, right? A VSL about what you do and how you do it. Um, I don't know if that would be something that they would want to go back and experiment or something. It would be a pretty major acquisition though, I think for LinkedIn, but I just was thinking if somebody wanted to maybe use the platform for good or for business development or something like that, that that might be. But it's probably going to be some, you know, venture capitalist tech company or something like that that ends up buying it and, uh, turns around and sells it for a bazillion dollars. I think it's got to be somebody with the capital to support the influencers. If the influencers leave, TikTok, the consumers will too. The everyday users will too. There's a large competition for those people and for, to have their, Twitter is trying to do it a lot, you know, trying to get more compensation toward people. I know, I mean, the, the obvious ones like with like YouTube and Twitch and stream, everything like that, having them, those influencers be there, On their platform mainly and only on their platform. I, there's a huge competition. So yeah, it has to be somebody who keeps in mind that that's a huge value that that gets added. Well, and what did you say the other day, like TikTok started with like a$50 billion creator fund or something? Yeah, there's, and I don't dunno if those are the things exact, yeah, I, I don't have the exact numbers, but they prioritized influencers, right? They were. They created this fund, and I don't know where their funding came from, or how they gathered it, if it was advertising, or if they had some, again, some type of, you know, VC type situation, or whatever it was, but, uh, yeah, I mean, they had a fund that was just for, um, creators, and I don't know, I think they hand picked creators, even, or maybe there was an application or something like that, but, um, yeah, I mean, they, they basically said, Come, come create, move from Instagram to, to, to tick tock and we'll give you money for the content you create on top of the deals that they did on their own. Right. Yeah. Like if you just get, you know, this, this, these amount of eyeballs to our platform, we will pay you on top of whatever you're making and, and it worked. Right. Like it was, it, it, it works. And my understanding is there has been some cashflow issues kind of. Um, I don't know to, to what extent, um, I know that, that, you know, Advertising on there is, I mean, at least I'm not an avid TikTok scroller or whatever, but my understanding is a lot of the advertising for in terms of paid, right? You're talking about smaller brands. It's a lot of it's organic, right? But the paid things, it's, it's, it's the big brands, right? You don't see people like, like we, without Facebook ads, you know, that we would have to shift entirely the way that we advertise, right? Because that's for. Businesses of all sizes. My understanding is that's not how TikTok is typically operated. Um, so, so, yeah, without, without the influencers, um, and without being able to compensate those influencers appropriately, I don't, I don't know how TikTok Stays on the same path that they have been on for the past handful of years Well, I feel like the creators like going back to the small businesses influencers creators like this Is just another example, you know We've seen facebook and instagram like meta shut down a few times over the last few years Like the importance of not keeping all of your eggs in one basket Like yes, the platforms are so wildly different content wise You So I know that it takes more time to create for like YouTube versus, um, Instagram versus Tik TOK. But like having, you know, whether that is your newsletter newsletter list of like email subscribers, you own those emails. Like that is like, So important to have in your back pocket and on the other side of it like yeah You might be predominantly tiktok but getting in on instagram or youtube shorts or trying to branch out Especially with this kind of deal on the table. That's just So important. I kind of wonder Sometimes, you know, how our government, you know, passed the bill on it because of it being, you know, a whole, I don't know if it's wholly owned or mostly owned by Chinese. I'm not sure if it's Chinese government or not Chinese government, but Chinese corporation or something like that. The question is, did these developers, when they develop TikTok, did they develop this or, and, and build it? And then the Chinese government stepped in and said, Oh, we can look at it and use it and get information, all of this stuff. Or did the. Was it developed for that purpose? I don't know. Maybe this is on on us, right? I don't know the involvement the Chinese government has. I don't even know that they are involved, right? I don't want to say they are or aren't. I think it's more so just the fear that they could be, right? And we know that, that, you know, just in, in other parts of the world, not just Asia, right? Not just China, but in other parts of the world, the way that the government operates is, is in some ways very similar, in some ways very different than the way we perceive our government to operate. And, and so I, I don't, I don't, I don't, I think it's more so the threat of, right? I think it's more so. I think there are already countries too that have already banned it. There have been, right? And, and, and the Chinese government has banned it. It in a different format. Yeah. Well, in China, , I, I, I, I don't think it's unfair to say that this probably has a whole lot less to do with TikTok itself than it does with, you know, some of the other political, well, just the other, the other political kind of topics Right. That we talk about. Right. And I don't not, I don't wanna make it political. I just think that. That it's one of those things that we can control, right? We can't control, uh, uh, you know, certain elements of, of who China does dealings with or any country does dealing. We can't control that. And it would be impossible for us to assume we can. But if, but if, if it makes, uh, I think the perception is that if it makes people feel a little bit better about their personal security or personal data, whatever, be by, by controlling this, then, then we should take that opportunity when we have it. I don't know. I'm not a politician. And I don't. I'm not going to pretend to know everything about the world's kind of socioeconomic involvement with other countries, but, but I, I, I, it feels, it feels based on fear, whether or not it's warranted is for all of us to make our own judgment on. Yeah. I just think it's going to be interesting for whatever company potentially decides to do it, um, or purchase it or purchase a, you know, a minority or a, what is it? Majority. And then how the platform changes. And then do we go into what's going on in social media right now too, is Do we control the content that's on there? Do we control, um, How it's viewed, what it's, how it's seen, you know, and there's states, I think, that have passed laws now. Florida passed one on what age people can get on to social media platforms, too. And how does that, I mean, there's just so many different nuances and things that go in it, but I will say that if you look at, and I brought this up, and you guys, earlier, I brought this up, and you were like, but if you look at the situation that happened with Grindr, which is is An LGBTQ dating app, right, that was started. By a Chinese developer and the U. S. back in 2019 Made the suggestion that it needed to be I don't think it was a bill But it was this has precedent right what we're talking about a tick tock this has precedent And they basically said that it needs they can't we're gonna ban it unless Somebody that in the U. S. buys it or has a stake in it. And so somebody bought the company. It was a, I think, a VC tech firm that bought it. And then, and that was back in 2019, 2020 for like 608 million or something like that. And then in 2022, it was valued at 2. 1 billion. went public. And so is that something that's going to happen with TikTok too? Like it's a money game too. It's a money grab. It's one of those things. And does, I would think, and I don't know this, but I would think that TikTok probably has a significant value. If not the same as what happened with Grindr or over and above it, right? Like, is that something that would, um, appeal to somebody to actually buy it from a, an investment standpoint? Well, and knowing that it's happened before, like I didn't, I didn't know that that happened before. So like that, I thought this was one of. You know, this was a big thing, you know, um, so knowing that our government has that kind of sway and in this climate, you know, um, but knowing like, you know, grinder is now doing above and beyond what it did in 2019. So will that be the case for TikTok or? I think it depends upon the buyer, um, what they turned into, how they take the consumers into, um, effect. And yeah, it's very, it'll be very interesting. I think it's an interesting climate that we live in. It'll be interesting to follow this story and see what happens and what changes on the platform happen and it's going to unfold here in the next year. And it's going to affect everything that we do from a marketing standpoint. You know, we do social media for some of our, Um, I don't know, it'll be interesting to see how it all unfolds and how much money is made in the process. This is that, that, like, this is that point where TikTok either becomes, Culturally relevant for the foreseeable future, right? I don't know. I won't go as far as saying it's Facebook or Instagram, right? Just in terms of the longevity. Um, but, but this is the point where it kind of makes or breaks it. Right. And, and maybe even like, let's speculate a little bit, right? Cause, because you're right. I think tick tocks. Valuation and impact right now significantly higher than than grinder in 2018 or 20 or whatever. I mean significantly, right? I think 2. 1 billion could be I don't know I'm not the expert here, but I wouldn't be surprised if you told me It was maybe time. Double, double that at least. Yeah. Yeah. So, so the the, the pool of, of people that can even entertain that idea, even if they were to go in with all It's small. Yeah. It's very, very small. Right, right. So we're gonna know the name or the company. Yeah. Um, and I don't, you know, again, like I have, this is just me totally making things up. Right. But you look at the people who have. Um, an interest in like the societal impact of things, not necessarily social media, but just things. Right. And again, if I'm speculating, like the first name that comes to mind to me is someone like a Mark Cuban esque, right. Who has his hand in so many things, has ample amount of, and is in that tech space, is in the tech space. There's, you know, he's a, he's a political guy in terms of he's very. going on. There are rumblings of a political career of some kind, right? Like, again, complete speculation. This is not, you know, we're in Indiana. Mark Cuban is, you know, well known around here as being a, but, but, but I guess my point is, is that that's the significance, right? Like, like the Mark Cuban may, might have no interest, right? He might think it's a terrible idea, but we're talking about someone with that type of name recognition. That has to be at, at the front of this line. Because if they're not, I don't know who the option is, what the options are. I mean, it's the same thing with Twitter. It was like, Elon was like, I didn't hear any other names. It was, I looked it up. It did not look like there was any particular people. And part of it was how much Elon bid. He said, you either sell it to me or you sell it to no one. You know, it's interesting though. Um, Jack Dorsey, who owns Twitter. Yes. It was interesting because at first, I think he was a little bit on the fence about whether they wanted to sell to Elon or not. But then after the transaction happened, Jack Dorsey totally endorsed it. It was very interesting. I think. Well, it's his product. I don't think in any way he was going to do something where without good reason he was going to do it. Admonish anything that still had his stamp on it because he started it for a long time And I think at some point there was talk of him coming back into the organization after it was purchased. Well What's so that's a I what's so interesting about his situation is That, I mean, Elon has basically, not him specifically, but Elon has thrown pre Elon Twitter under the bus in so many different ways. And I'm not saying right or wrong, I'm saying he has done it. I know. And who was, that's Jack Dorsey, right? So, and I don't think he's gotten a ton of flack necessarily. I'm not, he's not necessarily in the public limelight, you know, the way he was previously. Yeah. But I think that's, that's an interesting comment because, Because, at the, at the, at the surface of it, he should be getting some flack if what Elon is suggesting is accurate and correct, and yet, I don't see it. And also, because of your point about him coming back in, like, I don't know how much money he made in that whole acquisition, but is he a person that could come on TikTok and is that good or bad based on the impression that we're getting from Elon? You know, I hadn't thought about Mark Cuban with him stepping away from his role. Speculation. No, no, no. At the Mavericks, you know, he kind of stepped away and sold his bid. Wait, and he stepped away from Shark Tank. And he stepped away from Shark Tank. Obviously, complete speculation and just coincidence on there. I don't know. I don't think he had any inside information to know that this was for sure going to happen. Uh, but that is an interesting person given his, you know, tech background and the fact that from an outsider's perspective seems to be a billionaire that has at least a little bit of a conscience with the health plus drugs. He's philosophical. He, at the very cost plus drugs and stuff like that. Yes, I would agree. I, I, you're right. he believes on his sleeve. Yes, exactly. And, you know, there's, doesn't seem like there's ulterior motives that he's working toward. He, he seems very outward with the Yeah. His thoughts. And, and willing to at least have discussions and not hide behind the fact that he, uh, he doesn't have to. Yeah. There's also the Amazon side of things with Jeff Bezos, who has said and has made moves to get into the media world. Yep. And so, and he has the money to do it too. I don't know that that would be a good thing or not a good thing. I just think that that's a possibility. Seems like to me, Jeff Bezos is living a pretty enjoyable life at the moment, not dealing with most things Amazon. Flying in his rocket ship. I have to think, uh, you know, if Amazon was a headache for him, that TikTok would be a, uh, a migraine. I know, but he did step in when he bought, when he bought the Washington something. The post. Is it the post? I wasn't sure. I didn't want to say the wrong thing. There's a lot of discussion, I mean, as with any media outlet right now, you know, a lot of politicizing of that, right? And whether information skews one way or the other, and I think that's That's the problem. Yes, yeah. That would be a knock on Jeff Bezos. I think that would, I think, I think in terms of the optics of Jeff Bezos buying it, I think that would be a knock on him. Yeah. I would too. I, and I, the way that our Politics are right now going. I feel like there would be a lot of conversation around that purchase. So, um, I don't know. Maybe we should contact Mark and see if we can broker that deal. We can get something out of it. Too bad. Basketball season passed. Otherwise we might be able to find him after the game. He was in not that long ago. We just gotta hang out and one day he'll come back. Yeah. Yeah, very interesting. I think our whole climate is going to be very interesting, especially how it relates to the marketing world and how people put their messages out on all these different social media platforms. And, you know, are we ever going to get back to neutral territory as far as. what gets posted, what gets shared, what gets flagged, what gets allowed, what gets, you know, it'd be really nice to live in a more neutral climate, but at the same time, it probably wouldn't be very exciting. Seems like you want to go to a time where people don't longer have opinions, and that seems like that will be never. But I, okay, but, sure, yes, but like, as from the agency perspective, like, we're all about storytelling, right? And it's, and it's our job to make stories interesting, not because they're not interesting and we have to find a way to make them interesting, but it's all about, it goes back to the target audience, right? It goes back to the, the audience. To the, to the content types. And it goes back, you know, the way that TikTok, the sale could impact video, right? Like, and the way video is utilized is, you know, maybe short form goes to the wayside, or maybe it becomes the only type of content, you know, whatever. But so like, I, I, I get that, but, but social media was a thing just by being personal, right, by storytelling. Right. That's how, that's how social media, I mean, that's what it used to be. Share the story of their life. They wanted to connect. It used to be like your, your captions on like Facebook whatever was like, Sean, like it started, like you had to start everything with Sean. It was about you. It was about Cassidy. It was about Kirk. Eating lunch right now. Like about my dog. You have to say, do you want it to be like that where it is personal, where it is, you're just. You're actually keeping it like the idea of what social media was is I want to know where the people that maybe I don't live By but I know them. Yeah are doing but I mean like most things It transitioned from what it started to and there's a way to make money out of it Well, now we can advertise now we can use the data now I don't want it to be so personal because now people aren't gonna post as much people aren't gonna do that I just think it's hard to put the genie back in the bottle After you I mean It's asking a bunch of companies to Stop making a bunch of money off of something that they rightly, you know created and transformed from Hey, how are you doing? I just had pizza for lunch today I think that I think the biggest thing that I mean, you know, I tell this to my kids and And even we say it to our clients is that you have to understand that social media is what people want to show you, not necessarily what's actually happening. But I do think from a brand perspective and a marketing perspective, I want everybody and every thing that we do to show the most authentic picture of what we're marketing for our clients. Because I think that that's how in the end they end up relating to their ideal client as we go back to that. And how they best market, how they best relate to somebody that they want to bring into their universe. I think being authentic and showing who you are, what you do, why you like what you do, what you love about what you do, um, in, in a storytelling perspective, I think becomes the most important thing that we do for clients is help them put that together and share that with the world through all of these social media channels and opportunities, right? And hope that the authenticity doesn't get you banned. Thank you for listening to today's episode of Off the Record Marketing Deconstructed. For more information on the FiveandRise Marketing Group, visit our website at five, the number five and rise. com or follow us on social media at FiveandRise. We would also appreciate it if you would subscribe to our podcast on your favorite podcast channel. We will see you next time.