The Impact of Social Media and Advertising Policies on the Art and Culture of e-commerce and Social Media, Revealed by TikTok Shop
Now less than six months after entering the US, the platform’s initial policies are expected to change. In January the Information reported that the company will increase seller fees for most items from 2% to 8% in July, as well as bring back free shipping and coupons.
“You have an advertising message coupled with something that’s very pleasurable, rewarding, satisfying and fun. This emotional part of your response to an advertising message is activated by it. It’s happening in a different way.
This combination of facts and the fact that ads are integrated into the experience makes it hard to comprehend the differences between entertainment and advertising.
The impact of advertising and social media on young people has been studied by a University of Michigan associate professor.
“You can definitely see how hard they are pushing for creators to start using TikTok Shop from an affiliate point of view,” she said. Everyone is an advertiser.
TikTok Shop: One viral video at a time for a girl’s convenience? A case study of a user’s struggle with consumerism
“I know a lot of people around me use it to kind of unwind, relax at the end of the day or when they’re taking a break,” she said. “So there’s not a lot of … During that time you are trying to relax after a long day.
She acknowledges that she is not very common when it comes to her frustration with consumption. For many young people online, shopping has become not just a hobby but a distraction from the daily stress of life.
A user who decided to try to cash in on this new frontier was rewarded with a boost in views.
“Instead of seeing videos that I liked or anything funny, it just turned out to be more and more advertisements of some things I needed, but a lot of the time it was stuff I just didn’t need,” she said.
Student and content creator Maia McCormick says that the marketplace has worsened her experience and that she has been spending less time scrolling as a result.
In one instance, she said her orders were canceled after she dropped them off for shipping because the labels from TikTok were printing incorrectly and were so faded that the post office was unable to scan them.
Biggers-Stewart said in her video that their inventory got backed up because they don’t allow for their own processing times. TikTok Shop is not a good location for small businesses.
The shipping time frames were put in place to make sure buyers received a good experience and sellers could appeal unfair decisions on the platform, a TikTok spokesman told NPR.
TikTok is unique in its ability to hold people’s attention for a long time. The average user of the app spends over an hour scrolling daily and the app has one of the youngest user bases of any major social media platform.
TikTok Shop is taking on Amazon — one viral video at a time: A case study on the business side of social media
She told NPR that she thought Amazon would have a competitor they’ve never seen before. She said the social media powerhouse may have to be more careful with their expectations, especially with small business owners who have built loyal followings on the app.
We want things today. We have been conditioned with Amazon Prime. Caban- Oberst thinks that TikTok launched their TikTok Shop with the same expectations as their sellers.
In just a short time last year, Mushamel said, she made about $20,000 more on TikTok than Amazon — helped along by an algorithm that boosted her videos, which then translated to product sales.
And just who is doing the selling has also shifted. Instead of an ad coming from a brand’s social media account, it’s increasingly common to see an individual content creator selling their own products.
A TikTok spokesperson declined to share any revenue figures with NPR but said more than 5 million new users made a purchase during the Black Friday and Cyber Monday period last November.
It sold about $7 million worth of stuff a day in the U.S. in the beginning, according to The Wall Street Journal, and Bloomberg reports that it aims to rake in as much as $17.5 billion this year alone in the United States.
The idea is for it to be like a full-service, integrated marketplace where people can buy things with only a couple of taps of the screen.
Source: TikTok Shop is taking on Amazon — one viral video at a time
A Video from an Instagram Account that I Don’t Follow About Fashion: Hunter Schafer’s Afterparty Shirt and the Clothes
“I have used every eyelash serum under the sun. … About a year ago I tried it, and it has completely changed the game, says the author of the post with more than 370,000 likes.
The breezy TikTok is captioned “i will never use another serum!!” and shows a young woman holding a small tube and telling her followers how amazing it is.
A person inquired about where I bought the art on the wall behind me in the video, but they didn’t know it was in the picture. The mind goes to shopping even if it has nothing to do with the content of the video. In the end, perhaps TikTok’s automatic matching doesn’t need to match, either.
TikTok feels like an endless shopping list to me. Calming, ASMR-ish journaling videos eventually devolve into a list of all the brands that make washi tape and pens. Fashion content on TikTok is largely influencers unboxing gifts or recommending products instead of talking about the actual items.
Other TikTok users have also seen the bad shopping recommendations. A shopping link overlaid on Taylor Swift’s Grammys evening gown returns a few dresses that didn’t resemble the outfit in the slightest.
Apparently, nothing. The shoes TikTok pushed me toward looked nothing like what was in the video. The shopping feed took several left turns because a pair of black patent leather slip-ons and yellow and brown platforms were not even shoes. I was served a 10 pack of socks for $11.39 and a chair that I had been looking at on Amazon, as well as cooking sauces, a Scrub Daddy sponge, and nylon handbags.
As I was scrolling through my feed this week, a video from an account I don’t follow popped up discussing actor Hunter Schafer’s Grammys afterparty outfit. The account has a modest 43,000 followers, and the video has less than 8,000 views. It followed the typical outfit breakdown format: identifying the designer of Schafer’s dress, showing a few different angles, and adding close-up shots of her shoes.