According to new research, the majority of Gen Z women actually use TikTok for their search needs, not Google. This is based on a new survey from Her Campus Media (via Search Engine Land). That is a Gen Z media and college marketing company, by the way.
The majority of Gen Z women prefer to search via TikTok over Google
Just to be clear, Google still dominates search in the US with 77.5%. The same goes for global search with 83.5%. However, the company definitely sees TikTok as a threat, especially after the company introduced search ads.
This may be a bit confusing, as TikTok is not a search engine, not at all. It’s a short-form video platform. Still, people seem to be using it for search purposes, this is not the first time we’ve heard of this. The data that 51% of Gen Z women use it for search, that is surprising.
TikTok is filled with useful video content, far from it. You can find various news there, along with tutorials for whatever you need, pretty much, not to mention comedy relief, and so on.
Now, when we dive further into the data, things get even more surprising. According to the research, 74% of Gen Z respondents use TikTok search. 51% of them said that they use TikTok over Google.
There are three main reasons why that is
You may wonder why that is, we did the same. Well, they were asked that question too, and it seems like there are three main reasons.
Firstly, they prefer the video format of the results. 69% of respondents said that, one way or the other. 65% of them mentioned more reliable answers, and 47% of them quite “personalized answers”.
TikTok also makes people buy things. Based on the report, nearly 3 out of 4 Gen Zers bought something after spotting it on TikTok. To be more accurate the percentage is 72%. The platform also influences the decisions of Gen Z more than any other platform.
What’s also surprising is that 61% of survey respondents said that they trust influencers and brands more than family or friends for recommendations (to buy a product of some sort). 70.34% of them go to influencers, 62.31% to brands, and 61.17% to someone else they trust, presumably family or friends.
Gen Zers also prefer to watch videos on TikTok, even though Instagram wins on daily usage, it seems, as 95% of them use Instagram daily. That is also a 10% increase compared to 2022. 80% use TikTok every day, 14% more than last year.