Introducing new social media platforms to the world is a hard thing to do. Many come and go, but only few catch on and are able to sustain a good amount of users.
Without Vine on the App Store, similar apps have come to market and failed. Recently, I have seen many ads on my Facebook for TikTok, an app for “real short videos.”
“The fourth most downloaded non-game app for all of 2018, TikTok was the No. 3 app globally in terms of new installs across both stores during January, and was the No. 1 non-game app in the United States last month.”
– Founder at Sensor Tower
One way many new apps stay popular is by partnering with brands and having paid advertisements pop up on users’ feed every so often. According to Digiday, TikTok introduced its first app install ad from food delivery company GrubHub last August. This was expected as Musical.ly, before merging with TikTok, was testing out ad units as well.
Unfortunately, as much as in-app advertising helps the company, users are often very dissatisfied and annoyed when ads are displayed. It interrupts the experience and can make the user feel like they are constantly bombarded with marketing schemes.
Maybe this will prove to be true for TikTok as well. Users have gone to twitter to complain about the new ads.
Knowing this, we can only wait to see if TikTok will stick around, but it might just be the wrong place for advertising in the social media world.
JMC 367 Spring 2019 Blog 
Advertising is a constant battle of relevance and gaining interest. Even if TikTok can find advertisers that show relevant products and services to their audience they still face the issue of users not being interested in looking at the ads instead of the app’s content.
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We see this type of discussion quite often with popularized social media apps. I believe it’s because often times, users are uncomfortable with the merging of advertisements and promotions within posts that they feel are comfortable! We see this with Snapchat and Twitter all the time. Great post.
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I think the rise and fall of social platforms like TikTok is so interesting, and I agree with your observation about ads interrupting the overall user experience. I wonder if customer dissatisfaction, coupled with the recent scandal surrounding TikTok collecting data on minors, could be what brings the app down…
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No one ever likes ads interrupting their time on an app, but it is how people make money. I do not have TikTok, so I am not sure when/how the ads pop up, but I am sure they are annoying to viewers. I think people need to realize that this is how people make money, and there is always room for improvement on how the ads are displayed.
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