“It may sound harsh, but it’s not my attention span’s fault if your content is boring…”: Why Gen Z Prefers TikTok as Their Search Engine
I use TikTok as one of my main search engines. At this point, it’s probably on par with Google. When I drop that into conversation during meetings it shocks people, but it shocks me that it shocks people.
Despite TikTok’s huge rate of adoption — the social media app has over one billion monthly active users, making up more than 20% of the total number of internet users — people still perceive it to be an app for children and dancing videos, yet it’s far from it.
In fact, 18.2% of TikTok users are women aged 18–24, while men of the same age bracket make up another 18%. A further 16.3% of the app’s users are women aged 25–34, with another 16.6% being made up of men of the same age.
As many marketers or business owners will now be thinking, these demographics make up a core part of their brand’s target customer demographic. So, with so many Gen Zers preferring to use TikTok as their search engine over Google, it’s critical to understand why.
I’ve broken it down into the reasons why I, among many others, use TikTok to find the answers to my many questions, as well as the lessons that marketers and business owners can learn. I’ve also included an example of the difference between searching something on TikTok vs. Google, to help visualise it.
3 reasons why TikTok is used as a search engine
Here’s three top reasons why TikTok makes a good search engine, both objectively and from personal experience.
1. It gets to the point
Because of the nature of TikTok’s platform, most of the content currently lasts anywhere between a few seconds up to a minute. The app’s creators have had to adapt to this short time frame and learn how to share as much information as possible in a concise way.
Why would I want to watch a 15 minute YouTube video that tells me exactly the same information that I could get in less than 60 seconds? On TikTok, I could hear it from 15 different perspectives in that amount of time.
2. It’s engaging
What TikTokers have learned over the last couple of years is that both audio and visuals are critical in engaging viewers. It’s not enough to just have a compelling script, or fantastic visuals — to truly hit viral status, you’ll need to do a good job of both.
Some creators have learned to be doing something while they’re telling a story or sharing information, like making a coffee, or doing their makeup. When this is done well, it can engage users for much longer than just a minute. I don’t wish to brag, but I have stuck around for full 10 minute videos on TikTok before.
While some argue that our attention spans are decreasing, I disagree. If anything, I can give my attention to that app for hours and hours at a time. Rather than our attention spans going down, I think our standards for entertainment are going up. We’re no longer impressed by any old content on the internet. In order to keep my valuable attention, you’ll need to have great visuals and compelling audio.
It may sound harsh, but it’s not my attention span’s fault if your content is boring…
3. It’s democratised content
One interesting point that I’ve just considered while writing this article is the diversity of the users and therefore the content on TikTok, compared to Google. Understandably, Google ranks websites with a higher domain authority in its search results, as well as websites that generally get a lot of traffic. This is a safer option in terms of guaranteeing that the content you show to your users is reliable and useful. So, when looking up answers on Google, you can expect to see the same big names dominating the search engine results page (SERP) — e.g. Vogue for fashion, BBC Good Food for recipes, Statista for statistics, and so on.
On the other hand, TikTok has democratised content. The videos you see aren’t necessarily shown to you because the creator themselves has been favoured in the algorithm, it’s down to each individual piece of content. Sure, some creators will pop up more often, but that’s because their content remains popular and engaging with a community of followers that they’ve built up over time.
This means that regardless of the creator, if a piece of content is really good and engaging, it’s discoverable. This gives smaller creators the chance to get their content seen on TikTok, which is a much tougher feat if you’re trying to be found on Google. As a user, I get to see the best relative content each time.
The search showdown: TikTok vs. Google
Here’s a case study into the experience of search on TikTok versus Google.
Let’s imagine you’d like to look up a Vodka Pasta recipe.
On Google, you’re served a ‘Pasta alla vodka recipe’ link from BBC Good Food as the top result — as I predicted earlier in this article — as well as 2 alternative recipes, and a bio of the dish by Wikipedia. It has visuals, but they’re not dominating the page.
On TikTok, you’re immediately presented with stunning visuals that occupy most of the page and the top result even starts playing automatically.
Next, let’s click the top result on both Google and TikTok…
Google presents us with a very crowded, ad-heavy landing page. You can just about see the title of the recipe, but you’ll need to scroll down to even get started.
On TikTok, the video continues to play from the first few seconds you already watched on the SERP. We’re already halfway into the recipe by the time you’ve scrolled down to your recipe on the BBC website. It got to the point.
Plus, thanks to creator Tom Smallwood’s great angles, snappy sentences, and quick editing, we’re hooked. Within one minute and three seconds, I’ve seen how the whole dish is prepared and how everything in the recipe should look as you cook it. On Good Food on the other hand, I’m left guessing what exactly ‘well coated and glossy’ is actually supposed to look like.
Thanks to TikTok, I was able to find Tom’s superior content and excellent vodka pasta recipe. If he had put the exact same content on Google, I doubt that I would have ever found it.
Although BBC Good Food is a reliable source for some pretty good recipes, it’s probably not guaranteed to have the best recipe and method for vodka pasta out there… sorry Good Food fans.
5 lessons marketers can learn from TikTok
Here are some of the key lessons that we can take from TikTok and apply to content universally, whether it’s copy, imagery, audio, or other kinds of video.
1. Start with a great hook
Never underestimate the importance of your hook, or the first thing that your audience will see when they look at your content.
Through Google, users are a little more lenient. You’ve got a huge 10 seconds to convince someone to stay before they give up and leave. “Only 10 seconds? That’s nothing!” I hear you cry into your screens. I use the word huge because for video content on social media platforms, you have just two seconds.
And that’s just the beginning.
2. Get to the point
Take this section with a pinch of salt. Being succinct is critical, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t have any fun with it. Convey your information without unnecessary fluff, but it doesn’t mean that your content can’t be longer. It just means you need to be intentional about what you say and why you say it.
3. Be entertaining
This section was key to include after ‘get to the point’. Because you can definitely get to the point while still being entertaining and engaging. For instance, you could sprinkle in a little bit of humour, use compelling scripting, engaging visuals, and so on.
4. Use visuals
Speaking of engaging visuals, it really does deserve its own dedicated section. It needs to be stressed that to have engaging visuals doesn’t mean that you need to put on a cinematic production with all the bells and whistles. After all, TikTok is known for it’s down-to-earth, authentic, unpolished content. It just means that I need something to look at that will keep my attention.
5. Put your viewer or user first
Whether you’re writing a piece of content or you’re creating a video, the viewer or user should always be at the forefront of your mind. You want to ensure that you’re delivering them as much value as possible, centering them within your content.
I know, I know. Value is one of the worst buzzwords around. So many people use it, but what does it even mean?
Simply put, it just means stop thinking about yourself and what you’ll get out of the content. Because you won’t get anything out of it whatsoever unless your audience does. Are you helping them to answer a question? Are you giving them inspiration for something? Make it all about them.
This one is particularly hard to do. It takes practice.
Is Google dead?
In short, no. Remember when YouTube’s search engine was rumoured to be the end of Google Search? Well, it didn’t happen then and it won’t happen now, either.
Google isn’t dead and it isn’t going to die, neither will written content. After all, you made it to the end of this article.
However, consumers are changing and it’s important for brands, marketers, and businesses to keep up. There are lessons to be learned from the surge in use of TikTok search and Gen Z’s preference for it — 5 lessons, to be precise — and those that can learn and adapt will reap the rewards.
Here’s my LinkedIn if you’d like to see more of my content.
