Instagram and TikTok are the social media apps that I use the most. First it was only about watching random videos to distract myself but with time these apps turned out to be more than just for entertainment. From survival hacks, online-shopping and cooking techniques – I learned to explore these platforms through a new lens which made me use them more diversely than ever.
The sentence ‘Oh I saw it on TikTok’ is probably the sentence I heard most this year. Whenever I saw my friends try new hacks, go somewhere or buy something- the answer to where they got it from stayed the same. It got to a point where my friends started uploading videos of themselves trying out new restaurants and got sponsored by companies. Without realising, the idea of posting videos for fun turned out to be real business opportunities to generate income.
So I asked myself:
‘How much work do I really put in on these apps without actively noticing?’
A HIDDEN TRAP?
At my job in Social Media Marketing, I realised how much strategy goes behind every post is. Videos and images that were posted and didn’t seem like ads at first, in reality were only shared for marketing purposes. Even the name of the account doesn’t tell that it is a business account to make it more appealing for users – because you would rather follow a site that doesn’t look like it wants to sell you things, right? Looking like an entertainment platform from the outside, it really covered a huge company which used the account for advertising purposes. That made me question my personal usage of Instagram and TikTok and how free they really are at the end of the day.
Scrolling through my apps, I realise that most of the content I watch, no matter what it’s related to, includes advertising to some extent. There’s more obvious ads from Influencers and brands that promote items, but even my friends advertise restaurants by posting their food or their local gym by tagging it without the ulterior motive that they’re promoting these companies for free. What’s being produced is user-generated content. Freedman states that type of created content as dual as it’s not only of cooperative nature in its form but also cheaper for the companies. My own archive is full of free advertising from branded products, restaurant recommendations or outfit pictures – Of course all of these brands and places are visibly tagged to raise the chances of brand recognition and acknowledgement.
WHO DOES REALLY BENEFIT?
The more we engage with a platform, the more likely we are doing something very cost-effective for those platforms. We often see it as a win-win situation, but who does really benefit from it at the end of the day? My friends who got sponsored for their content by brands, turned their fun activity into a job with the hope of making a name for themselves in the online economy. Erin Duffy calls this ‘aspirational labour’. We use social media, like and generate content, but we’re doing it for free. Cohen talks about a ‘double process of commodification’ that is taking place on social media as we are the product that is sold to advertisers. However we also give the platform its value by sharing our data, creating and posting content.
ARE WE WORKING FOR FREE WITHOUT KNOWING?
Every time we are on social platforms we come across advertisements, whether it’s content from implicit ads through friends or explicit sponsored ads through brands. Even if we don’t promote our work on social media, we’re still providing free digital labour because we’re creating value as Tiziana Terranova argues with her concept of network culture. We have the power to work as commodities, especially Instagram and brands profit from our usage and data to target advertising on our platforms more effectively. What seems free at our end, in reality is more controversial in terms of economic value.