The global obsession with short-form video-sharing platforms and their impact on African entertainment
The African space is still highly dominated by Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Reddit and a few others.
It’s the middle of April 2020 and lockdown measures have been instituted in Nigeria. Oyin, a 23-year-old social media manager at an integrated marketing company sits at home contemplating what she was going to do. Her boss, a nice 53-year-old woman “who looks 35” had always looked after her.
Once in a week, this boss buys Oyin a plate of chicken parmesan. But she sadly broke it to Oyin that if something didn’t happen by month’s end, Oyin’s salary would be slashed. A frustrated Oyin took to Twitter and kept seeing everybody get familiar with TikTok and OnlyFans.
She couldn’t expose her body, she “barely even wears short dresses,” so OnlyFans was out of the question. Enter TikTok, the video-sharing app that was launched as A.me in 2016 by ByteDance. She got into it to get over fears of losing her job and became obsessed. She introduced it to Chinaza, her 24-year-old Lawyer friend who was working hard from home.
But interestingly, Chinaza was way ahead of Oyin. Chinaza had been using Triller and TikTok - to a lesser extent - for weeks. “There was this cool thing about Triller that I found easier than TikTok. I’m kind of lazy and simple, so Triller was quite good for me,” Chinaza said.
Oyin was hooked on TikTok and found all these cool young influencers doing great routines to popular songs on the app. Oyin would create videos to Nigerian songs like ‘Know You’ by Ladipoe and Simi later as well as ‘Mi Casa’ by Korede Bello.
“It was more about finding explorative minds like mine. All these creative videos were also cool. Despite my troubled account, I kept burning data o [laughs],” Oyin says.
Challenge Culture, TikTok and Triller
What really drove TikTok ahead of Triller in those days was the cool of #Challenge Culture and its reported $1 billion marketing budget. Pulse Nigeria wrote about it HERE.Triller made a wild comeback after Afro by Sara danced to the song with her son and husband. The American video-sharing platform then started getting Nigerian celebrities to join its platform.
Soon after, it grew in popularity with some strategic positioning and boom, TikTok started having political problems. By August 2020, Triller became the No. 1 most downloaded app in 56 countries. At different times, it was also the most downloaded app in Nigeria on both Google Play Store and Apple App Store.
Every behemoth joins in
The growing popularity of TikTok and Triller meant they were revolutionizing video creation on social media. While in Nigeria and other African countries, videos created on TikTok and Triller mostly blew off Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, it was a worrying trend for all the tech giants.
In July 2020, TikTok then reported that its app had been downloaded more than two billion times. Already, it was the most downloaded app of 2019 and ByteDance had become the most valuable startup in the world. TikTok’s and Triller’s major selling points are their ability to retain the attention span of Gen Z across the world more than any app.
As reported by MRC, 52% of Gen Z between the ages of 13 and 23 used short-form video-sharing apps like TikTok and Triller. The biggest influencers on TikTok, for example are Charli D’Amelio, a 16-year-old with over 88 million followers and over 6.7 billion likes, and 19-year-old Bella Poarch has 25.3 million fans.
Then in the music industry, MRC reports that 48% of the Gen Z of TikTok are mostly interested in music-inclined content. K-pop groups BTS and Blackpink have over 20.1 million and 17.8 million followers respectively on TikTok. The platform had also created No. hits, ‘The Box’ for Roddy Ricch, ‘Old Town Road’ by Lil Nas X, ‘Savage’ for Megan Thee Stallion and ‘Toosie Slide’ for Drake.
For its part, TikTok has signed deals with publishing and distribution companies like United Mastersand Believe. Around June 2020, word on the lips of every tech person was that TikTok is the antithesis of YouTube. The entrance of these companies meant that the ad market mostly controlled by Facebook and Alphabet could be slashed significantly.
This has resulted in Facebook launching Instagram Reels and YouTube launching Shorts. It’s based on a simple need to level up with the competition and get some social capital. If text and pictorial social media platforms were the past, short-form video-sharing is the future.
How impactful have short-form video platforms been on Nigerian entertainment?
In Nigeria, as at June 2020, ‘Know You’ by LadiPoe had 233,000 creates and 45 million views. In the top 10 Nigerian songs on the platform at the time, the lowest song was ‘Of Lagos’ by Mayorkun and it had 7,000 creates and three million views in total.
For its part, use of music on Triller counts as streams on Apple Music, the platform launched charts with Billboard and TurnTable Charts respectively, partnered with several publishing companies to better influence artists. Nigerian stars like Burna Boy, Mayorkun, Davido, Tiwa Savage, Wizkid and more have all joined and teased their music videos on Triller.
The next phase for Triller could be the premier of Nigerian movies on the platform. You might want to watch out for that…
However, the questions remains whether Triller and TikTok truly have the power and usage to truly mark Nigerian entertainment. While those numbers on TikTok are valid, they are still a growing phenomenon in the Nigerian space. Our space is still highly dominated by Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Reddit and a few others.
According to Stats Counter, the August 2019 to August 2020 data of Nigerian social media usage is;
Facebook: 64.17% [of the Nigerian population]
Twitter: 17.73%
Instagram: 2.11%
YouTube: 2.98%
If Instagram is 2.11%, what will TikTok's/Triller's penetration be? Our guess is lower than 2% and growing fast - that's about 3.5 million Nigerians. Yet, Nigerian artists have been using TikTok and Triller as promotional tools for their music.
While Triller and especially TikTok worked as promotional tools for songs like Falz’s ‘Bop Daddy,’ and especially, Simi’s ‘Duduke’ and Ladipoe’s ‘Know You,’ the videos that were created on those platforms really blew up to Nigerians on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.
Aside from that, the September 21, 2020 installment of GetdotAfrica by veteran journalist, Chiagoziem ‘Chiaman’ Onyekwena discussed the power of social media companies in Africa.
It also notes that, “Africa is the youngest continent by population age, the continent also presents the biggest growth opportunity because internet penetration is 39.3%, a long way off the rest of the world at 62.9%.”
This is due to the level of poverty where people in numerous African economies live on less than $1 a day. The data that both TikTok and Triller require is high. Instagram Reels seem to consume slightly lower data, but they are all still in the same ballpark.
Even as music is arguably as big a commodity as social media, the ad-based version of Audiomack and Boomplay’s phone-based strategy are bossing the market. Several reports have claimed that Apple Music had under 90,000 users at the end of 2019.
How impactful can short-form video platforms be on African entertainment?
They can be impactful. Triller and TikTok seem to be on the same level of popularity at this time. However, Instagram Reels could steal the shine from both those platforms. Facebook is by far the largest social media in Nigeria. Instagram’s use is much lower, but it has greater brand equity than TikTok or Triller.
YouTube Shorts is on a similar level of brand equity. This year alone, Davido and Burna Boy have garnered one million unique views from Nigeria alone in one week from ‘FEM’ and Twice As Tall respectively. Nollywood also has a great following on YouTube as some producers release their movies directly to YouTube.
RED TV has numerous shows on YouTube as well. While YouTube Shorts is still in its experimental phase - primarily in India, Instagram Reels is taking off. The bad news for TikTok and Triller is that Reels is integrated into Instagram apps. From a promotions perspective for African entertainment, Reels and Shorts could really be the majors in five years.
However, Triller seems too strategic to not lead this market. TikTok is the platform that might have a problem. Already political tensions are besetting it, but ByteDance likes to throw money around.
Are TikTok and Triller already influencing the popularity of Nigerian songs?
Absolutely. While their usage is still under 2% of Nigerians respectively, those are still incredible numbers. More so, the promotional videos created for songs geared to TikTok and Triller have blown up on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. Directly and indirectly, they have impacted the growth of Nigerian songs.
45 million views for ‘Know You’ as at June 2020 is incredible for the song. It’s not like those who will be tempted to stream the songs off those videos have to be Nigerian for LadiPoe and MAVIN to make money. Equally, song use on Triller counts as streams for artists.
But what could really be interesting going forward is how TikTok’s troubles benefit Triller. Charli D’Amelio and some of the biggest TikTok influencers are already cross-carpeting to Triller. Some Africans visit TikTok because of those influencers. It will be interesting to see how those moves help Triller.
That will be a future topic. Stick with us… Listen Africa!
#ListenAfricaExtra - Here are additional bits of content from the past week;
Two days before this newsletter, Excel Joab had a conversation with Darey Art Alade, you can read about it below;
You can catch up with Motolani Alake’s work this week HERE.
Fu’ad Lawal, Editor-In-Chief at Zikoko starts a newsletter, Vistanium.
Veteran Culture Journalist, Ayomide Tayo launched the first installment of his newsletter, Naija Times.You can also get his podcast, 234 Essential HERE.
Veteran Journalist and Tech professional, Chiagoziem Onyekwena also manages GetDotAfrica, a weekly newsletter on happenings in African Tech.
Davido Adeleke, Head of Communication at Eko Atlantic started Communique, a newsletter.
Veteran Nigerian Journalist and Director of Marketing at OPay, Osagie Alonge is back with a new podcast titled, A Music In Time.
You can catch up with veteran Nigerian Journalist, Jide Taiwo’s newsletter History Made for some mind-blowing stories about Nigerian music.
You can get the playlist on all five streaming platforms HERE.
Here are the song on the Listen Africa! Playlist on Apple Music, YouTube Music, Audiomack, Deezer and Boomplay;
Langa Mavuso - Panther
Seyyoh - enough?
Shaykeh - Swegbe
Zick ft Loti - Magic
Dunnie ft Oxlade - Overdose remix
Tayc - N'y Pense Plus
Flexfab - Vituko
Darey ft Patoranking - Jojo
MFR Souls - Amanikiniki
Stonebwoy - Blaze Dem (Freestyle)
Kayode - Side Guy
Meji - 1995
Sarkodie - CEO Flow
Cassper Nyovest - Thoughts
Yaw Tog - SORE
Tems - Damages
BANTU - African Carnival
Paapa - Technical Difficulties
Sauti Sol ft. Soweto Gospel Choir - Brighter Days
Super Jazz Club - Till The Morning
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Shoot us an email for playlist inclusion or a feature: curatealisten@gmail.com
Until next week, guys…