Catch Blake Chandlee, TikTok's Vice-President, at the Global Trends Festival 2020 talk about ways to make TikTok win against Instagram

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In the social media world, where it seems that the cards have already been dealt and the hegemony of Facebook is unwavering, a few years ago a new player called TikTok appeared. The Chinese application has gathered 800 million users worldwide in less than five years, one in eight of them from the USA. TikTok’s aggressive market strategy is not only disliked by competitors from Silicon Valley, but also recently by the Donald Trump administration.

• Despite threats, Donald Trump did not block TikTok in late September.
• TikTok wants to launch a brand new purchasing tool, something similar to the one that already functions on Instagram today.
• Blake Chandlee will be a guest of the Business Insider Global Trends Festival in October. Join us!
• Blake Chandlee was previously associated with Facebook, where he spent a decade overseeing business cooperation in Europe, Latin America and the USA.
  

TikTok - victim of Trump's trade war?

In early August, President Donald Trump announced that he would outlaw the operation of TikTok in the USA because he “has such power”. A storm broke out in the American social media, because the application has around 100 million users in the United States alone and is extremely popular. According to information from the Reuters agency, Trump was supposed to come to the conclusion that battles with young influencers just before the November elections were a bad idea. He gave TikTok's parent company, ByteDance, an ultimatum to sell its company. TikTok itself was to be blocked at the end of September. However, Donald Trump withdrew from the idea as a result of an agreement between ByteDance, Oracle and Walmart. This deal will create a Texas-based TikTok Global in the USA, in which 12.5% of shares will be held by Oracle and 7.5% by Walmart. The rest will still belong to the Chinese company ByteDance. Approximately 25,000 jobs will be created and a fund will be set up, under which USD 5 billion will be allocated to education.

Blake Chandlee - fintech expert for difficult times

Blake Chandlee, TikTok's Vice-President for Global Business Solutions in Europe and the US, pointed out in August that Trump's charges discredited his administration and were unfounded.

TikTok is clearly an independent company. We have already given our customers many examples confirming this. We have built the company outside China. The data are also outside China: in the United States and Singapore," said Chandlee.

Blake Chandlee was previously associated with Facebook, where he spent a decade overseeing business cooperation in Europe, Latin America and the USA. Bloomberg recalls that he broke up with Mark Zuckerberg's company in 2017 and moved on to the Outcome Health start-up, which was sued by investors. Last year, he joined the Chinese company Bytedance – the owner of TikToka. Blake Chandlee was not the only manager poached by the Chinese at the time. Previously, the company acquired Vanessa Pappas, previously associated with YouTube, who was appointed general manager at TikTok. Prior to joining the Facebook team, she was the Sales Director at Yahoo in the UK.

Blake Chandlee - expert on new products

What is TikTok? Users of the application can record short videos in it and synchronize the video with music. All this can also be enhanced with video filters and various types of stickers. In conjunction with a crowd of nearly 800 million users, it gives a huge sales potential.

Blake Chandlee revealed a few months ago that TikTok wants to launch a brand new purchasing tool, something similar to the one that already functions on Instagram today. Users will be able to make purchases directly from the application level.

If we find that our consumers are involved in the content and want to buy the products they see, we will enable them to do so as quickly as possible - with one click," said Chandlee.

He also emphasises that TikTok advertisers offer deeply committed users who spend 250 to 300 seconds in the application during one session - twice as much as on Instagram. At the same time, TikTok offers less detailed information about who its users are. It is not a typical social media network.

Chandlee also believes that “hashtag challenges” can be an asset for advertisers, since they can turn a marketing campaign into a viral, thus encouraging users to make films on a particular topic.

TikTok - apolitical

Blake Chandlee wrote on his blog last October that TikTok does not allow paid advertising that speaks “for” or “against” any candidate, leader or political party. Chandlee stresses that advertisements and political content do not serve the application created for entertainment purposes.

Our mission is to inspire creativity and build joy. We want to make sure that we create a place where our community - users, creators and brands - can show creativity, create trends and have fun," wrote Chandlee.

The statement was issued during the ongoing protests in Hong Kong. TikTok critics pointed out that the majority of searches featuring “Hong Kong” indicated a rather positive picture of reality, while riots continued on the streets. Some also pointed out that TikTok censors content not only in China but also in Turkey. The application there prohibits users from making fun of President Recep Erdogan.

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