Trolling the TIK TOK-ERS: Really ?

I must admit I never really took to TikTok when it first launched. After a few miserable attempts at its predecessors – musical.ly and dubsmash, much to the amusement of the teens in my family, I was resigned to my fate of maybe being new-tech challenged. I installed, browsed and uninstalled TikTok several times, usually during the holidays when my nieces and nephews wanted to have a go at it. A couple of years ago, my teenage niece wanted to know more about my profession. I regaled her with stories from my experience but she wanted to know more about brands and target audiences. After listening to me for a couple of hours, her only question was why my firm was not on TikTok or not doing any collaborations with Tik Tok-ers since that age group was the target audience for a lot of brands and they were all on it. It was then that I started seriously looking at the platform from a business point of view. I was amazed at the creativity that it offered. Not only did brands benefit from it, but it provided every individual from every part of our country an opportunity to be creative and share their talent with the whole world. Think of it as a giant talent show.  

This year, we finally launched our own channel on TikTok and were probably the only PR agency in India to do so. The excitement in my team was unmistakable. We were pleasantly surprised at the reach, engagement and innovation it offered. We discussed collaborations, thought up creative ways of showcasing our work and just had fun! We finally understood the appeal of it. We had a blast for a month and a half before the govt of India called for a ban on the app.

That’s ok. We were sad to see it go. But there was nothing we could do about it. A lot of Tik-Tok-ers lost their livelihoods and millions more their source of entertainment. While we all mourned the loss of it and there were debates flying around in the media and all social media channels about the implications this will have on Indo-China relationships, one thing stood out for me: The trolls! ( Specifically those from my professional eco-system )

What was surprising that a lot of these trolls belonged to the communication, marketing, blogger and influencer community. I mean, really! Mind you, these are the same people who put up lengthy emotional posts on Mental Health following the demise of Sushant Singh but thought it is perfectly justified to publicly troll someone for wanting to express themselves creatively on a platform.  You might hate the platform, but do you really have to hate the people? Do you really have to troll them on public platforms? How does that not amount to cyberbullying? And will it not have an impact on their mental health?

There was a time when bloggers were all the rage, then came Facebook-ers and YouTube-ers followed by Instagram-ers and Twitterati. The communication and PR industry had to work double-time to endear them to brands as they were still second place to traditional media for a long time. There was a transition phase for each. For a short time, there was a steep hierarchy amongst them as well but over time communication and brands understood the importance of micro-targeting via them. Each was an influencer on a specific platform and for a specific audience. Each platform had its appeal and based on your brand you would look at collaborating with them. But reaching this sweet spot took time. The TikTok influencers were just about starting to make a dent with their revenue stream. Even though it was a smaller amount, they were way ahead of the platforms on reach and engagement. (See below Infographic and story from ET Tech)

In the last couple of years, influencers started showing a proclivity towards wanting to take up bigger causes - Mental health stood out and has become a sort of buzz word in that regard. A lot of brands and influencers have started talking about it as well. But somehow, they seem to forget the golden rule of credible branding: YOU NEED TO WALK THE TALK.

The amount of trolling that communication, marketing, and influencer community themselves is doing for Tik-Tok-ers is appalling and downright insensitive. The general audience might earn their 2 minutes under the spotlight by trolling someone, but I wanted to believe the branding community was better than that. They should understand that this could mean a loss of revenue or livelihood in some cases for influencers on this platform. Not to mention the thousands who found stardom based on their talent and never really did brand collaborations but simply looked forward to entertaining themselves.

Are they not worthy of your empathy? Or is that only reserved for celebrities? Is preferential treatment finding its way in the way you dole out your concern?  Or all those long posts on mental wellness / call me when you are down / you are not alone …etc a publicity stunt?

The community should ideally rally around them to support and possibly help them transition to other platforms. Wouldn’t that be worthy of being talked about? Maybe that is too much to ask. But can we not be respectful and just not a troll? Isn’t that a minimum task that can be achieved?  

Taking your audience for granted or thinking they are fools is the ultimate harakiri that an influencer can commit. So if not from within, do it for your audience, perform for them, use it as a PR stunt. But start learning what mental health is about. And yes, don’t be a troll.