Anita: Good morning, good afternoon and good evening. Whatever time you’re watching us. Welcome to the TDM podcast I am Anita and I am joined by Erastus and Anne. So today we are going to talk about our current favorite apps at the moment and the influence they have on our lives and the role they have in advertising. I think I’ll start with Erastus. What’s your favorite app at the moment? 

Erastus: Instagram because of the high engagement then. I think the app allows me to express how I feel about creativity and all that stuff and also in terms of learning and improving my creativity I think that’s it.

Anne: Erastus for a creative, you are very business minded. For me, Instagram is a place I go to look for a lifestyle and things are like fashion food. I like to eat out a lot and I just like seeing pretty pictures. So that’s the reason I go to Instagram or any social media app for that matter.

Anita: I think I love TikTok. It’s my favorite app. I spend a crazy amount of time on TikTok. Why  TikTok is my favorite app it’s because it does not have to follow a certain aesthetic. For example, she’s very specific that on Instagram, she goes for lifestyle content. 

I enjoy TikTok because someone can just be mowing his land or his grass and it gets over a million views. So I think TikTok allows you to be creative and you get to market like you get to sell your things just like that and you have your certain audience that appreciates a certain type of whatever you’re just giving them.

Anne: Okay so the question I would have is, yes we like all these apps we enjoy engaging with them and all that. But for businesses which apps do you think would be most relevant for them to be on and to at least maximize on the numbers on there, because well almost everyone has. I’d been surprised to find someone who’s not on a social media app currently.

Anita: So I think if for example the way you’ve said I will I’ll take the angle of Instagram. If I’m a company that is selling lifestyle products let’s say for example travel. If you’re selling if you’re a company that has packages on travel, I’m definitely your customer. If you’re going to convince me enough through the videos and the experience that other people have had then I’m definitely your customer. Because I mean travel is a lifestyle, so you’ll definitely sell to me through Instagram and it has a certain aesthetic of lifestyle. So that’s why as a business I will take that angle

Anne: I see that and I agree with you. But I’m imagining a business like a bank, a business that is not aesthetically pleasing that would maybe be more on a platform like Twitter where they can use more of the written word than uh and creativity per se. But that’s just my opinion. I don’t know if they can be on Instagram as well. Maybe the creatives can tell us, Erasters tell us, is it easier to create for Instagram than Twitter or what’s easy for you?

Erastus: In terms of creative creativity perspective creating an ad for Instagram is much easier compared to Twitter because Twitter is more limited in in-text typewriting. But Instagram allows me to explore more creativity. So definitely I’ll go with Instagram.

Anne: I think human beings are also very visual. Yeah, our reading culture is horrible. So I guess it’s easier for me to relate to something that is visually attractive; a video 0r cool poster than the written word. But then the question now that I would have then is why is Twitter so popular because most people are on Twitter more than they are on Instagram 

Anita: Well I think it’s a certain audience. If you carried out a survey well do you use Instagram or Twitter more, I bet the people who are on Twitter are mostly people who like to engage mostly like through words the visuals don’t matter and I think most men are on Twitter more than ladies and they use Twitter more.

Erastus: I don’t think so when it comes to their Twitter and Instagram audiences, I believe both share the same, similar audience in terms of age and location also. But if you start saying that men spend more time on Twitter definitely uh I can’t agree with you all that.

Anne: I think I agree with you, Anita. Actually just even in the office because even in our office most of the men, I don’t know if it’s new or if it’s been there for some time – Twitter spaces. I’ve not interacted with it a lot because I’m not a listener. I’m very visual. I want to see things I’ll not listen. So I don’t know and most of the men in the office will listen to the twitter spaces. Is that a place that we can use as a placement for an ad anywhere else as you always do on twitter spaces?

Erastus: When it comes to that so Twitter spaces mostly you can use twitter spaces more to make awareness on your products but when it comes to ads you can’t use twitter spaces

Anita: Is it because of the reach?

Erastus: No, spaces allow you to communicate. Maybe if you tweet, the host can post your ad. But definitely, the space is used for communication you can create awareness of that 

Anne: So it’s mostly like how I’d engage an influencer to talk about a product for example. So, the people who are famous on Twitter Spaces. That’s interesting.

Anita: I think now taking you back to my favorite app – TikTok. I feel like if someone was to market something, TikTok is mostly about a certain age bracket or a certain specific audience. But then it’s crazy how now even older people are creating content on TikTok. Because I saw some insurance companies now educating people on policies – if now we’re looking at an older audience- not the normal way of writing the big pamphlet or anything. 

Someone creating a video from an insurance firm explaining this and this, the difference between, like for example whatever they’re selling whatever policies they’re selling. So I feel like TikTok has a bigger audience through videos I can learn. They’re always teaching you unlike reels like for example Instagram reels which have to follow a certain aesthetic. I really don’t think it has more time to teach you what to do. So I feel like TikTok has a better potential when you’re doing advertising.

Anne: I think most if you’re talking about going viral and reaching a greater audience, TikTok would have a better chance of getting to a bigger audience if your TikTok challenge or something goes viral. 

Anita: Yeah, especially now the trend that we started seeing from Covid. Most musicians now have their careers are being successful out of a single challenge. People are getting to know oh this is your song from TikTok because everyone is doing a challenge it’s crazy. Even someone who’s considered to be in a low place in society, as long as they have a smartphone and they realize TikTok people call them the ‘kienyejis.’ So you’ll find them also doing that challenge it promotes you and it makes you have a wider reach. 

So I think if people move to creating content like the way you say your visual creating content in terms of their business and moving it towards that app, then I think the chance of blowing up is easy and it’s not 100% that will blow up but most chances like most people have blown up because that happened that’s why I like it.

Anne: Okay it looks like your app is winning. You’re pushing us towards your TikTok but if you’re thinking about it from a business angle, I can see where you’re coming from. I would be more inclined to go in that direction considering it’s a relatively new app compared to Instagram, Twitter or Facebook.

Anita: It just blew up after Covid recently. Before it was called I think Musically. Then now it’s changed to TikTok and then now the people who were there before they kind of felt like oh finally no our space is interrupted we don’t need these new people and then now people are coming to overtake them because you cannot be just a winner in one place other people have to come in and win like that.

Erastus: Just before we continue I think if uh if I was to engage in TikTok as a business mostly I definitely agree with you on that cause it doesn’t require a high budget because I think most of the ads or the videos that we can see are used by our own devices as mobile phones.  

Anne: Okay true I wanted to ask now that you’ve already agreed that TikTok is the way to go do you haven’t agreed you haven’t actually you’re being swayed in that direction but now that you’re being switched in that direction do you feel like uh with these new apps that are coming up that now me even as a brand I don’t necessarily feel like I will need you the creative to help me create a TikTok video if there’s a challenge going on already, the idea is already there it’s just for me to plug and play.

Do you think it’s taking away from what you creatives do in the sense of creating an entire concept of a campaign and all that because now I can just go online and look at what is what are people what do people like what are people doing where are people engage with an influencer and have them around the entire campaign how they run there if it’s a youtube channel if it’s an Instagram page with a TikTok page whatever it is wherever they run their page they have the creative direction already so just plug in my brand and move? Do you feel like it’s taking away from you?

Erastus: Not really because I think all social media apps are useful in some ways because of the audience I think there’s some particular audience uh that uh will engage more on Twitter Instagram uh even TikTok but I will not advise a let’s say a business company to engage only on TikTok because I think you’ll lose some of the audience.

Anne: So where do you come in where did you come in

Erastus: So as a creative uh for me using the apps seeing the apps analyzing the app, I think I’ll make ads, uh using particular course we have to we have Twitter TikTok we have IG.

Anne: so eras that’s because it seems like you’re being swaged towards now moving in the direction of TikTok abandoning your Instagram um I’m just wondering if creatives today are playing any role in advertising because if there’s a challenge already say on  tock and me as a brand I’ve seen the challenge has already gone viral so I want to jump onto this that’s really an idea so and I have employees in my office so we just take our cool smartphones nowadays they’re really really they have really good cameras we set out a time in the afternoon one to two shoot whatever we are shooting and post it where do you come in

Erastus: Anne, let me tell you the quality of that video will not be that uh that pleasing because of the audience that you want to attract. So where I come in is uh I come with professional devices, camera, all that stuff and then even the drones. You can’t tell me that you can use your phone to get a high bird view using your phone okay all right unless you’re spiderman.

Anne: Okay alright 

Anita: The next question as you finalize um what do you think is the future of that favorite app at the moment? 

Erastus: In Instagram, because the biggest competitor of Instagram is TikTok, I think Instagram will I will focus more on their video content for us to surpass uh TikTok 

Anne: Okay um for me I think Instagram is already a place where I’d go shopping, and more brands are getting onto Instagram. There’s even a page on your page. So you can actually shop for items on the app. So I feel like in the future it will be the biggest market like an onlcc