Despite security concerns, marketers still bullish about TikTok

This is despite the growing security and brand-safety concerns around the social media platform.

According to the research team, marketers acknowledge there are drawbacks and ambiguity surrounding TikTok, as evidenced from the following figures:

• 60% agree that concerns over TikTok’s data privacy and national security are justified.
• 47% agree that TikTok’s algorithm is not transparent.
• 45% believe that TikTok spies on US users.
• 31% rate brand safety concerns as a top challenge of using TikTok.

A national ban in the US seems unlikely

Despite these concerns and heightened scrutiny from legislative bodies, most marketers believe a national ban is unlikely:

• 56% say it is highly or somewhat unlikely that the federal government will ban or prevent TikTok from operating in the US.
• 52% believe it is highly or somewhat unlikely that their state or local government will ban or prevent TikTok from operating.
• 87% believe that TikTok is a viable platform for long-term marketing strategies.

Marketers would diversify into other platforms

However, marketers do believe a national TikTok ban would undoubtedly impact business, and most say they’d diversify their digital marketing strategy if a ban was enforced:

• 82% believe that a TikTok ban would have a moderate to significant impact on achieving their company’s social media marketing or advertising objectives.
• 70% think their company should expand their presence in other digital media channels excluding social media (e.g., email, video, etc.) if TikTok were to be banned.
• Facebook (80%) and YouTube (79%) are rated as the most popular social media platforms marketers say they’d use as alternate platforms.

According to Marketing Dive, a marketing news website, the Capterra survey “paints a picture of a marketing industry that is committed to TikTok, despite threats of a ban by federal and state governments, with many planning to increase spending on the platform in the next year”.

In the event of a TikTok ban, the industry consensus seems to be that Meta, YouTube and Snapchat could see spikes in revenue, Marketing Dive noted.