TikTok clicks with Instagram as US co looks to up signups

Mumbai: TikTok’s closest rival, Instagram, is advertising on the short-video platform rather aggressively, even as ByteDance’s flagship company deals with controversies around misogynistic content on the app leading to a clamour for its ban and the biggest drop in its Android ratings in recent times.

Experts in digital advertising call it a move to acquire new users to sustain advertiser interest, as Instagram’s user growth shows signs of slowing – at 4.5% in 2020 as opposed to a previous forecast of 5.4% – as per eMarketer’s data published in January 2020.

Since December 2019, the platform has been putting “in-feed native video ads” that show up on a TikTok user’s For You Page (video feed customised per user’s liking). These video ads, across languages like English, Hindi, French, and Japanese, have steadily grown in number, from just 16 in January 2020 to around 70 in March, and to four times as many at over 300 in April. Almost 200 such videos were released in May so far, 40 of which went live last week itself, fetching close to 5 million views for Instagram.