In today’s rapidly changing internet era, fully committing to the TikTok platform is no longer a wise choice for entrepreneurs. To succeed, entrepreneurs must keenly recognize the risks of dependence on a single platform and strive to establish a diversified channel strategy for sustained growth. Below is an in-depth discussion of the challenges faced by different roles in the current TikTok ecosystem.
Firstly, TikTok as a platform is experiencing a crisis of resource exhaustion. Whether it’s the number of daily active users (DAU), user retention time, video views, or profitability, all show signs of fatigue and are unable to grow further. For ecosystem participants within the platform, large enterprises (KA) still have budgets to continue attracting traffic, but small businesses struggle on the brink of survival. For content creators, maintaining influence on TikTok feels like an endless hamster wheel, which is why I have decided not to regard TikTok as my main channel anymore.
Secondly, user fatigue is not to be ignored. The bombardment of advertisements is increasingly troubling users. TikTok’s simple swipe-up recommendation mechanism can only rely on increasing ads for profit, and this has not brought other solutions to the platform. Users feel that TikTok has lost its former vitality, and even the performances of influencers seem to have lost their spirit, entering a vortex of involution with no new volume. Platforms like Xiaohongshu are able to rise precisely because of user aversion to TikTok.
Finally, the golden era for WeChat video channels and their live-streaming feature is dawning, and while it’s still small in scale, it has been able to attract user attention and support tens of millions of super individual entrepreneurs. My success is due to the effective utilization of private domain traffic, not my performance on TikTok. Moreover, amidst the intensifying competition between TikTok and video channels, we shouldn’t just be onlookers, but should actively participate and maximize the tremendous benefits these two platforms offer.
In today’s intense commercial environment, numerous businesses are eager to showcase their financial achievements, meaning they need to invest more marketing resources. This results in an increase in various marketing activities, such as an increase in available advertising resources, officials actively holding briefings, and business sales entering the arena.
For those involved in private domain marketing, IP operations, and businesses serving high-value customer groups, this undercurrent of marketing warfare is crucial and not to be overlooked.
Analyzing the current situation, e-commerce companies need to develop new growth channels to balance the risks brought by TikTok; the knowledge payment field needs to fully embrace the private market and video channels, exploring their own profitability models; for offline and service industries, it’s essential to tightly focus on the private domain and the long-term lifecycle management of customers.
For teams operating IPs, seizing the opportunity to capture traffic and operating flexibly across multiple platforms is an important strategy at the moment. We should not be limited to TikTok; under the current circumstances, the key is how to agilely divert and convert traffic between various platforms.
In summary:
- There is a competitive relationship between platforms and small businesses within the ecosystem. Each company needs to vie for user time, and with the cost of traffic constantly rising, this is true for both WeChat and Douyin.
- Xiaohongshu and Video Accounts have become significant growth channels, enhancing the ability of businesses to withstand risks.
- For small companies, prioritizing profitability should be a top consideration, as survival itself is a process of constantly competing for profits.
For newly developed individuals and teams, it is time to sprint with full effort. We can fully discuss and critique these points of view to reach a consensus.
So, in this year, what are your strategic plans for Douyin? What are your thoughts on Video Accounts? Let us discuss together. Every day, insights on travel, case analysis, flow management, and entrepreneurial resources are shared with everyone — join the discussion to expand our horizons.
