On the last two episodes, I discussed the collapse of Microsoft’s streaming platform Mixer and how you can grow your stream by using TikTok to reach a new audience.
Now these two topics are colliding. If you missed the news, the President of the United States wants to ban TikTok and has now issued an executive order to ban TikTok by September 20th . There is two fields of thought on why he wants it banned - that it has national security concerns, publicly expressing worry that the Chinese-owned company will share user data with the Chinese government. The other thought is it has to do with Trump’s Tulsa rally and how TikTok users trolled the president by rsvp’ing for seats with no intention of showing up. This led to the president’s team boasting about getting over a million rsvps to the event, when in reality, only 6200 people showed up.
After the initial threat to ban TikTok, Microsoft has become the front runner to purchase the app in the United States and has been laying the ground work for decades on this type of purchase according to a recent article from the Financial Times. Microsoft has had research labs in China since the 1990s which have functioned as incubators for local talent and many top Chinese tech executives (including the founder of TikTok’s parent company ByteDance) have worked for Microsoft in the past.
What does acquiring TikTok get Micrsoft and what does it do for gamers? The biggest thing Microsoft gets is D A T A, data.
In Q1 of 2020, TikTok had 315 million downloads worldwide. 130 million of that was from just the United States. In June, it was downloaded 7.5 million times. That is a lot of users that Microsoft can use to pull data from and it will help shape everything their company will be creating or selling which leads to the other point of buying TikTok, a platform that is made up of almost 50% of 16-24 year olds. This is a prime demographic for buying, oh I don’t know maybe a new gaming console that is coming out holiday 2020 or recent high school grades that need new laptops for college.
The advertising power the platform has to push Microsoft products is huge, but it can not become a shill for their own services as users will burn out on the promotion.
Here is where TikTok could get interesting for Gamers. Microsoft could easily integrates a clip system on Xbox or in PCs, which would allow you to directly upload to TikTok or maybe even allow streaming directly to the platform because they already have done and built that application. And yes, I know Microsoft just closed down Mixer, but the whole point of that platform was to appeal to a larger audience, ie why it was viewable on all xbox systems. With TikTok it would allow them to do that immediately. If we look at the numbers, TikTok had 7.5 million downloads in the United States in June which is the end of Q2. At that same time, Mixer had just over 5 million unique channels.
TikTok already had plans for gaming too. In January is was reported that ByteDance, parent company to TikTok, was setting up actual gaming studios. Their new CEO, former head of streaming at Disney Kevin Mayer indicated gaming and music as two possible expansion possibilities for the platform.
At this point, it is pretty radio silent on whether the app will be banned or purchased. But as a content creator, you can still be pushing videos to the app but you should also be funneling them to your other channels in case it does suffer the same fate of Mixer.
If you can’t live without short form content, there is alternative apps you can be posting to.
The big ones are Triller, Byte (created by one of the former vine creators), Instagram Reels just dropped, and there is another app created by a former viner called Clash Video which focuses more on the monetization side and gives creators more control.
At the end of the day, just make sure you aren’t putting all your eggs in one basket and be posting consistently.
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Again thanks for listening and I’ll see you on the next episode of The Marketing Stream.
17 mins