TikTok, Instagram posing a threat to Google. Here's why
1 min read 17 Jul 2022, 08:01 PM ISTA senior official from Google said, younger people are generally interested in more visually rich forms of information discovery
PremiumYoung people today prefer social media platforms over Google services for search activities. For example, an individual between the age of 18 and 24 would prefer to go to TikTok or Instagram when they are looking for places to hang out than Google Maps or Search. And this trend is highly impacting the core Google services.
“We keep learning, over and over again, that new internet users don’t have the expectations and the mindset that we have become accustomed to. The queries they ask are completely different," said Google's Senior Vice President Prabhakar Raghavan as reported by Petapixel.
“These users don’t tend to type in keywords but rather look to discover content in new, more immersive ways," he adds.
“In our studies, something like almost 40 percent of young people, when they’re looking for a place for lunch, they don’t go to Google Maps or Search," he continued. “They go to TikTok or Instagram."
The comments are based on internal research that involved a survey of 18 to 24 groups in the US. Data, which is not public yet, might be added to Google’s competition site, alongside other statistics, a Techcrunch report said.
Why do younger people prefer social media over Google services?
Answering why the trend is growing, Raghavan said, younger people are generally interested in more “visually rich forms" of information discovery and that in the future, their demand for visual content will change Google Search.
Last year, Google told The Information that they were working on deals that would allow them to index Instagram and TikTok videos in Google Search. At present, a user can input a search for a keyword followed by the word, “TikTok," and the Google search engine will return rows of results of TikTok videos before any standard web pages.
Meanwhile, TikTok is turning out to be a threat to Meta’s Instagram too. And this competition has led to Instagram focusing on video and adopted more TikTok-like features
This week, Instagram demonstrated a continued emphasis on video when they revealed the app was testing a new Live Producer tool that allows creators to go live from a desktop using external streaming software. While last month, Zuckerberg announced that Instagram is testing a full-screen feed that strongly mimics the company’s rival TikTok.
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