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India’s decision to ban TikTok and 58 other Chinese apps was taken to protect national security of India. The news that created a storm on the internet, has raised debates of all sorts one being its impact on how Influencer Marketing works. TikTok was one of the top three platforms for businesses to promote their product or service but it could also be transformative!
India is TikTok’s largest market with more than 200 million active users in the country. India was its biggest contributor by April 2020, when it crossed over 2 billion downloads globally. The decision to ban TikTok has affected the users whose livelihood depended on it. But we believe that talent isn’t platform bound and the creators will definitely bounce back. This could help India be more secure and would urge the development of more apps - the latest is YouTube’s short video format, REELS and IGTV.
Campaigns that heavily invested on TikTok are most likely to distribute their investments to other apps like Chingari, Mitron, Roposo to name a few. This is the best time for Marketers and Social media giants such as Facebook, Youtube and Instagram to cash upon the opportunity and launch their already pivoted products SHORTS and REELS, respectively, in India.
Speaking of the same, YouTube’s short-video format that is all set to launch in the end of 2020 and IGTV or REELS could be the next stop for creators and influencers. The new format of YouTube called ‘Shorts’ will exclusively exist in YouTube’s mobile app and is currently available to limited users. The YouTube short-video format is positioned to be successful as YouTube is a bigger platform for video content and has a growth of 2.9% since the prior year. Secondly, YouTube has an ecosystem of content creators that are highly active and looking forward to YouTube’s short video format.
Instagram is also all set to roll out a new feature, Instagram Reels, a new way to record 15-second clips set to music on Instagram. Looking at this we don’t think that the impact of the TikTok ban will affect Influencer Marketing for long as marketers can now invest on other large platforms.