There is no question that TikTok is a powerhouse app, which alone has impacted the perception of other apps in the social media space.
I think the right question, however, is whether TikTok is replacing or growing the time spent on social/entertainment.
App engagement data supports the view that TikTok is growing the overall consumption pie with social and entertainment.
There are many ways to infer this view.
The first is measuring the time spent inside these apps, and the survey says time spent is flat or growing for most of these apps.
Another way is growth in daily active users. Recent data from SimilarWeb, WorldWide Data, and Android show indicate that daily active users for Instagram grew 5.8% year over year in September, which compares to TikTok’s growth at 5.2%. Keep in mind Instagram has outgrown TikTok for five straight months. Furthermore, Instagram is an older and more mature app, so this should not be the case logically, in my opinion.
How about Facebook? Well, it is flat year over year. That is a big win for a company with 2B users on the platform and is an increase from January-February-March of 2022.
Again, there are several ways to think about this data.
First, monitoring the health of Meta/FB is really around the engagement they get from users. Advertising (ie revenue) will ebb and flow with the economy and consumer preferences. Instagram and Facebook seem to be in very good shape on the engagement front.
How about TikTok? Engagement and downloads are robust. However, they are seeing pressure from businesses using their ad portal. In March-April, visits to their ad portal were +200% year over year. That number is now at +50% year over year, a strong number but the lowest growth rate in multiple years. Something to keep an eye on.
Twitter: @_SeanDavid
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