With the emergence of new platforms, mobile content consumption is evolving and showing differences between generations. While scrolling was the classic mobile consumption mode, it was challenged by the ‘swipe right’ introduced by the Millennials’ platforms (notably Snap & Instagram). But the arrival of TikTok changes the game for Gen Z, and swiping is now done upwards. A review of trends and consumption modes on the main social platforms.
☞ TikTok reverses the swipe
Snapchat, or Tinder to a certain extent, managed to introduce a new mobile consumption behaviour with stories and the swipe right that lets you move through content or profiles. It is a practice that then became widespread thanks to the spread of stories across the whole Facebook ecosystem (Messenger, Facebook, WhatsApp, then Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.) but also in certain non-social apps such as Le Monde’s La Matinale. But just as a popular consumption mode seemed to be settling in, the emerging TikTok has once again shuffled the deck.
Indeed, the TikTok platform seems to be imprinting new behaviours and new trends in the wake of its explosion. To consume content, you have to scroll from the bottom up on users’ post feed. Swiping up thus becomes the norm throughout the flagship app of 17-24 year-olds. Does the frenetic consumption of content come from this extra-simple UX? Potentially, and it is in fact what the other platforms are testing.
☞ Snapchat tests “Swipe up to skip” on part of its users
Snapchat is positioning itself to test the impact of swiping up on the consumption of its content. During the summer, Snapchat tested on some of its users a new feature allowing them to navigate users’ content with an upward swipe.
It even presented this mini-tutorial to help understand this consumption within the platform. It will be interesting to see whether this test is made permanent and then rolled out more widely across all markets.
https://techcrunch.com/2020/07/13/snapchat-tests-tiktok-style-navigation-for-exploring-public-content/?guccounter=1
☞ Instagram takes up and duplicates the UX and the swipe up on Reels
But the trend is not limited to Snapchat, as the Facebook ecosystem replicates it. There is of course the arrival of Reels, Instagram’s TikTok copy-cat, which presents similar features and UX. It thus offers upward consumption of content. Natively, as soon as you open Reels content on Instagram, you enter a swipe-up type of consumption. Again, it will be interesting to see these different navigations coexist within a single platform.
☞ Facebook also tests the Swipe Up within “Short Stories” launched in India
But Facebook also seems interested in this consumption, with a test being rolled out called “Short Stories”, currently being rolled out on the Indian market (where TikTok was precisely banned).
https://twitter.com/MattNavarra/status/1293886171072921602/photo/2
So what will remain of this trend and of the coexistence of these swipes? Potential rollouts remain to be seen in the coming months. What matters for brands is to properly understand content consumption contexts so as to divert them, for example in an advertising creative, or to maximise consumption time or the positioning of the call to action. This will be all the more decisive since, depending on the age of the target, and therefore its media consumption, the call to action may differ across platforms and organic and advertising formats.
Going further. This topic continues with tigrz’s strategic consulting support.
On the same topic: « End of the like counter, but consolidation of a new era of social » and « Clubhouse, the new LinkedIn? Audiences and opportunities for brands. ».
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