Tiktok’s Quest For Hyper Locality
By
Sascha Morgan-Evans
After rising through the social media platform ranks since its explosion in popularity in 2020, TikTok has posed itself as quite the challenger to the established platforms; largely due to its innovative and unique offering of features that has revolutionized the space. Now, TikTok is bringing out another of these such features, the ‘Nearby’ feed.
Across the board, the social landscape is now being driven by niche communities and subcultures. TikTok has led the charge in this shift, with its interest-based algorithm showing preference to, and therefore fostering, niche content. The discovery of content and users that appeal to your particular niche has been made much more possible by TikTok’s algorithm.
However, a place where TikTok has perhaps slightly lacked in comparison to the likes of Instagram and Facebook is the ability to reach users on a hyperlocal level, or at least, not with ease. TikTok can certainly figure out where you are, but there isn’t a wealth of evidence that hyperlocal communities have formed as easily as through Facebook Groups, as an example. The only notable examples of hyperlocal communities that have formed seem to be on near viral level, like Bama Rush TikTok, where sorority pledgers in Alabama went viral for sharing their ‘Rush’ outfits and experiences.
This contrast could be due to Instagram and Facebook’s social graph algorithms that serve users content based on their connections, thus making it more likely that you’ll see content from people who live near you. As much as the interest algorithm has served TikTok well generally, it may not have served the platform particularly well in this instance.
I believe that the introduction of the ‘Nearby’ feature will bring TikTok to yet another level against its competitors, particularly from the perspective of a marketer. For smaller local businesses, or franchises of larger brands, this feature will be a gamechanger. Brands may no longer need to gain massive view counts in order to be noticed by potential customers, and it would seem that they may not have to rely on paid ad spend either, a godsend for smaller businesses with tighter social media marketing budgets.
On the converse side, there is a chance that this feature could be quite unpopular amongst the platform’s general user base. This feature is likely to increase the probability that friends, family, acquaintances and colleagues will come across the videos you post; and this will be the idea of a nightmare for many users. Why? First and foremost, some don’t see TikTok as a social media platform, rather, an entertainment service, or even a search engine; these people aren’t using TikTok to be connected to people they might know. What’s more, many enjoy the escape that TikTok offers, the ability to reach like-minded individuals, and to truly be your authentic self, and this feature has the potential to take that away from many who rely on TikTok and the communities they belong to on the platform to feel themselves. There’s also dangerous potential here for outing LGBTQ+ youth to prying parents or fueling bullying in schools and workplaces.
To summarize, the ‘Nearby’ feature will be a great tool for people who use TikTok to discover local places to eat and drink, and events, and for marketers within those businesses. However, I’m not sure this is enough to placate individuals who may suddenly find themselves without an outlet to express themselves without prying eyes and may lead this user base to look elsewhere.
Sascha Morgan-Evans heads up OK COOL TikTok Studio, a division of OK COOL specializing in offering brands 360 support on TikTok. Sascha has spent the last 3 years defining how to market on TikTok, having pioneered marketing on the platform in the UK in 2018, initially working within the music vertical to launch hashtag challenge campaigns. In the years following, Sascha has worked with brands across a wide range of verticals, like Zalando, Taco Bell, Public Health England, Atlantic Records and ZURU to name but a few.
