Are TikTok users losing interest in the app’s search engine capabilities?

TikTok, in its bid to become more than just a video app, has developed features that assist its function as a search engine. Despite that investment, TikTok’s search operation may be losing steam. New research from CivicScience claims that Gen Z’s usage of TikTok as a search engine has declined year-over-year.

CivicScience found Gen Z and Millennial consumers are more likely to search via social media platforms compared to their older counterparts. However, among those groups, TikTok search engine has declined between August of last year and the present. In 2022, 18% of Gen Z and 10% of young Millennials used TikTok’s search capabilities. Those percentages are now down to 11% and 5%, respectively.

“After reaching a new high point last year, June data show a decline of two percentage points in the usage of TikTok as a search engine,” reads the CivicScience report. “In contrast, Amazon has grown in popularity as a search engine from August 2022.”

To explain that downward trend, CivicScience referred to TikTok’s ongoing regulatory issues

in the United States, which could be pushing young consumers to other search platforms. Another potential explanation involves Google: The longtime leader in internet searches responded to TikTok’s challenge by making its own results pages more dynamic.

TikTok may be able to rebuild its search traffic if it continues to develop that part of its business. When it announced its plan to launch search ads earlier this year, the ByteDance-owned app premiered a series of ads that touted its utility as a search engine. TikTok’s decision to increase the maximum length of video descriptions also encouraged its users to employ more searchable keywords.

Some of CivicScience’s other findings seem less clear-cut. In its report, it claimed that more members of Gen Z turn to local or national sources (51%) rather than social media platforms (20%) when looking for breaking news headlines. Those data points contradict previous research from Reuters Institute, which revealed social media as Gen Z’s favorite news source.