TikTok’s New Featured Snippets Takes the Search Engine Fight to Google’s Door
Written by George Kelleher, Social Media Strategist
Being at the centre of attention means we’re always discovering new and exciting features that social platforms are putting out. This gives us great insight into how the platforms want to be seen, and how they’ll operate in the coming months and means we have new, unique ways to produce engaging and relatable work for our clients.
The latest of these notable platform evolutions is TikTok’s Featured Snippets, and it has our Intelligence and Research team chomping at the bit. Not only is it a huge step forward in the utility of the world’s biggest youth social media, but it’s also a direct challenge to the biggest dog in the online yard – Google. This is about to be big.
WHAT ARE THEY?
Let’s start with what Featured Snippets are for the uninitiated. They originally come from Google searches – when you search a question, an answer to that question tends to come up without you having to actually go into any link on the results page. That box that comes up with the answer is the featured snippet.
Now, TikTok has introduced ones that work in the same manner – with specific searches having written responses meaning you don’t have to click into the video results themselves. There's an example of the TikTok search 'how to express your feelings' in the banner image at the top. Neat, hey?
WHY ARE TIKTOK DOING THIS?
The million-dollar question – why is TikTok introducing a feature that exists on search engines rather than other socials? The new TikTok SEO feature allows users to receive the quickest answers to their queries, showing how quickly TikTok is moving in developing a new way of searching on the platform to compete with Google.
TikTok also knows the data is there to back this decision up. TikTok is already far ahead in the race to beat Google as the go to search engine, at least for younger audiences - it wasn’t long ago when it became the leading search platform for Gen Z. Nearly 40% of the Gen Z demographic prefers searching for information on TikTok and Instagram over Google.
What’s more, where there are searches, there are products to be advertised. With 37% of users discover new products and services on TikTok, having posts rank higher on search results can significantly increase a product's or service's visibility. Trying to capitalize on this opportunity, TikTok content creators are now learning how to incorporate SEO into their posts. This explains why videos mentioning “TikTok SEO” have gathered over 1.2 billion views on the platform.
This is massive for brands who’s offering revolves around (or includes) providing expert information towards a younger audience - just over 35% of TikTok users use the platform to follow and research brands, with these SEO features poised to take that number a lot higher.
TikTok is aware of its search potential, and so are its audience, so we can expect features like this to make their debuts going forward.
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR ADVERTISERS?
This is the time to start taking TikTok seriously as a search engine, especially if you’re targeting the 18–25-year-olds. It’s all about building brand salience – getting your brand to the top of the search results page will make your brand relevant and an expert in the minds of young consumers. (This counts for double if the content you produce is visually based.)
TikTok is here to stay, and features like this help raise it from just another social platform to an invaluable advertising tool to get customers on board with your brand. That’s why at Tangerine, we’re all about these features – they get our clients the best results in fresh and exciting ways the audience they’re targeting respond well to.
If you’re interested in what Tangerine can do to refresh your social offering, including how your TikTok offering can be optimised to boost your brand salience, drop us a message! We’re always happy to hear from people who want to be the centre of attention, just like us.
