Major Brands Seek Support to Deal with ‘TikTok Threat’

Image credit: Solen Feyissa via Unsplash

Major brands are looking for social media support to deal with the impact of TikTok on their businesses, a new report suggests.

The latest Marketers Most Wanted report found that social media was the top priority for chief marketing officers in June and that they were on the hunt for people and agencies with specialist skills in the area. 

The report, which monitors the actual briefs posted by chief marketing officers (CMOs) and brand owners on the Studiospace platform, found that social media and content made up 15% of briefs for agencies.

"Brands are grappling with the emergence of TikTok as a prominent channel and what this means for how they are engaging with customers,” said Pete Sayburn, CEO of Studiospace.

“TikTok is a topic on everyone’s lips and it is seen both as an opportunity but also potentially a threat. It means many CMOs are changing their social media and content strategies as they want to ensure they are on the right side of the influencers.”

According to Pete, the demand for social media support also reflects the difficulty many brands are experiencing in gaining access to top quality social media support on a long term basis.

“It’s a really rapidly evolving area and so it’s a battle to stay current and on top of things. Major brands are struggling to attract and recruit top social media talent into their businesses on a permanent basis,” Pete said. 

“Marketing departments are now coming to us and asking for access to specialist agency talent, adopting an on-demand, outsourced talent model.”

Social media overtook user-experience (UX), which was down from just under 17% of briefs in May to 13% in June.

“UX is still high on everyone’s list,” added Pete. “Customers are cash strapped due to the cost of living crisis and so are not spending their money easily. This represents yet another tough test for marketers and the year ahead looks challenging, too.

“But there’s a new breed of marketers emerging who recognise it’s impossible to be an expert in everything but who are learning to work with a wide range of specialists, while managing a high quality team in-house.”

The survey also found that demand for creative and production increased from 11% to 12%, coming in at number three for the second month running. Meanwhile, brand strategy remained fourth with 8%. 

The Marketers Most Wanted survey is published monthly and is based upon the actual briefs posted by CMOs and brand owners onto the Studiospace platform.

You can read the full report and further analysis by visiting the Studiospace blog.