Nearly Half Of Gen Z Are Using TikTok And Insta instead of Google

[Brett_Tabke]

[ladbible.com...]

[tangor]

Yah ... g and fb and all the other stuff are "old fuddy duddy".

Just one more new fad and a way for the "kids" to rebel. Nothing has changed since that "ancient Greek fellow" complained:

The children now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise.

Reality is this quote was from a 1907 essay by a college student, but the thought holds true, even to today.

[Dimitri]

Kids and Teens began migrating away from Facebook, when they realized their parents were also using it.

The same way Facebook and Google were representing a new breath and innovation, and took over previous giants, it's not their time to face the new wave.

Microsoft is never really annoyed, from generation to generation, because of their strong position in the B2B and B2C world. Then, when Microsoft realizes it has missed an opportunity, they just use their big money, to buy someone. (when Microsoft decided to enter the video game industry, they wanted to acquire Nintendo, but it didn't happen).

[Brett_Tabke]

This one sentence drop by Google:

"In our studies, something like almost 40 per cent of young people, when they’re looking for a place for lunch, they don’t go to Google Maps or Search. They go to TikTok or Instagram," -Prabhakar Raghavan Google Senior VP

generated like 12 stories.

[thehustle.co...]
[tubefilter.com...]
[wbj.pl...]
[forbes.com...]


Remember: 5 out of 6 people agree that Russian Roulette is completely harmless and 40% of people need trusted reviews of friends to eat food. (which is a no brainer).

[ronin]

5 out of 6 people agree that Russian Roulette is completely harmless

Hah! The sixth person didn't submit their opinion.

[ronin]

When you search Google for a “cool bar in Boston,” for instance, you’re greeted with 125m results.

On TikTok, the same search will return quick, fun clips of Boston bars. What would you rather: 125m results, or a catchy 12-second video?

For that kind of query, I wouldn't reach for TikTok (as far as I know Tencent has zero data on me) but - for years now - I wouldn't reach for Google Search either.

For a geographical search like "cool bar in [city x]" I would search on Google Maps.

I'm trying to think when I switched wholesale to map based searches for that kind of query - I'm guessing around eight years ago (and occasionally for around 2-3 years before that).

Sooner, rather than later, I won't even be using Google Maps. I'll be using OpenStreetMap instead:

[openstreetmap.org...]

[Brett_Tabke]

Exactly, the maps results for 'cool bars' is useless. Not only useless, it is drastically incomplete. I had a screen shot on twitter, that searched for 'restaurants' in a very small area (2miles square) - they missed atleast a dozen restaurants.

[tangor]

Just curious ... anyone know the percentage of Gen Z users compared to the total of users on the web?

[RedBar]

Not only useless, it is drastically incomplete.

Is it only me ? I find it incredulous that people use The Net to find / locate decent bars and restaurants.

What the heck happened to personal recommendation between friends etc and towards guests staying in their accommodation?

I have lived and worked in many countries in the last 50+ years, not once since 1993 have I ever, ever had the neccessity to use The Net to have a good night's entertainment and this includes many "non-open" countries.

I use 1993 as the commencement of the www in case anyone wondered.

[ronin]

What the heck happened to personal recommendation between friends etc and towards guests staying in their accommodation?

A good question.

I can only speak from personal experience, but if Mrs Ronin and I are "on the road" to somewhere (on the way to, on the way back from or during a holiday together), we might decide we want to stop in an unknown town or village for lunch (or afternoon tea, if Mrs Ronin is feeling fancy). If it's a multi-day journey, we might be overnighting in a Travelodge or a Premier Inn, again, in a town unknown to us. If we already have a holiday "base" it's more than likely going to be self-catering and there might not be any other guests around (or at all).

At this point, friends in West Yorkshire, London, Cambridgeshire, Cumbria etc. are not immediately available and (likely) not knowledgable about whatever part of Pembrokeshire or Country Durham or Inverness-shire we're passing through, anyway.

So, we generally resort to Google Reviews (via Google Maps) and TripAdvisor to find a venue that fits what we're both looking for.

We might do the same if we're in the Neckar valley or Istria or Burgundy.

I don't disagree that, if we're exploring somewhere on foot, or if we're staying in a Youth Hostel, it's definitely the best option to ask people.

But that's not always possible if we're en-route to somewhere (and deciding which village or small town to stop at) or else, perhaps, in a relatively remote self-catering place, deciding on which direction to head out in for the evening - off the top of my head, I can think of several times this has been the case: in Snowdonia, in East Lothian, in Cheshire, in the Vale of York...

These are times when, in the absence of face-to-face local knowledge, it's useful to be able to turn to a pocket-reference.

[tangor]

Information is information ... just vet the source before acting!

[Brett_Tabke]

Also consider that the oft-quoted '40%' is probably down from it's high during the Facebook/Twitter height.

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

Personally I find the "information" available on Google and TikTok to be entirely different. Sure, people who like TikTok might use it to make menial decisions like where to eat or what to wear but these people are not content creators of the sort Google will index well.

As far as in-depth information, Google would be your well-written guide and TikTok more the tabloid or fad reporter. To each their own.

I'd be more interested to hear the percentages of what the ad spend is chasing, perhaps there's some SEO lessons to learn in terms of content type to generate. If your model is Google-oriented avoid the TikTok fodder and vice versa?

Also, just a thought. Is Google complaining about TikTok? If so, it's a bit like webmasters complained when Google offered up their content in new features right in the serps.

Follow the $$ I suppose.

[brotherhood of LAN]

I don't use TikTok but have an older brother who professes to it over Youtube (40+). Maybe it's less ads, maybe it's better content.

It definitely seems like a fundamental shift that Google will have to deal with.

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

Exactly, for the type of content I create TikTok is not a competitor.

Perhaps they are a new type of intent for Google to consider, though. Informational, transactional... and TokTokTainme?