When you’re scrolling on TikTok or Instagram and you see a video that says “sponsored” on it, you probably scroll past it. It’s not the ad’s fault, it’s not your fault, it just happens. With the increase of advertising through social media, companies are usually required to add the sponsored feature or often add links to make it easier for viewers to access the product. Instead of responding in a positive way, most viewers find these videos an interruption to their scroll.
There actually were studies at the University of Twente and Ruhr West University of Applied Sciences where they had tracked a number of participants’ Instagram feeds by looking at analytics and conducting interviews; The results confirmed that sponsored ads have much less watch time and overall less engagement compared to organic content.
This raises the question of how companies will move forward in marketing through social media, and who will actually even respond.
While I don’t have the resources these Universities have, I have a microphone and an iPhone, so I have conducted a series of short interviews with social media users of different kinds of demographics.
I asked,
“Why do you scroll past sponsored ads on TikTok, and why do some of them catch your eye?”
This video is of an interview with my coworker and friend Kianna expressing her opinion and answering the questions above. Of the 10 people that I interviewed, all the answers were generally the same. Viewers response to authentic content is significantly better than their response to ‘hokey’ sponsored content.
Thank you for reading, and I hope that this article urges you to consider why you avoid certain ads, and why others attract you.
VC Social 