Discover more from Pay Attention
The First 6 Things Microsoft Should Do
The US operations of TikTok are on the auction block, Microsoft looks like the only buyer. What do they need to do first?
Trump has set a deadline (Can he do that? No, but he has anyway.) If TikTok isn’t owned and operated by a US company by September 15th, they can’t operate in the US anymore. Why? Because this is all much more fun to talk about than the 150,000 people who have died fo COVID19 in this country.
But TikTok, while not more important than the largest pandemic in the last 100 years, is nonetheless important. And it looks like Microsoft isn’t just the likely buyer, it may be the only buyer. So, without judging whether or not this is a good thing (opinions are mixed) let’s talk about what Microsoft needs to do when it takes over.
First, Nothing
Of course the main thing you have to do in a situation like this is nothing. Do not integrate with your other platforms. Do not execute any major design changes (even if they were already planned).
But that DOES NOT mean freeze the app in stone. Keep the creative teams who make tools for content creation humming along. Give them raises. Give them bonuses when they make tools that are used frequently. But also give bonuses for tools that are exceptionally weird and cool.
TikTok is two different apps. It is both a video creation system and a video discovery system. The team that helps creators make smart, funny, weird stuff, they are just as valuable as the people who make the AI that recommends weird bean shit to me. Let them be free. They get the app better than you do. Love them support them, help them.
Monetize
Creators on TikTok have power. They do not have as much power as creators on other platforms, but they are starting to consolidate it a bit. And if creators tell their audiences things are good, audiences tend to believe it. TikTok is the most under-monetized platform by a huge margin, but if you don’t share that revenue with creators, they will not build stable, long-lasting relationships with the platform unless they are at the very very top.
So build your economic ecosystem. How? Three ways:
Grow the marketplace quickly and efficiently. sure.
Show Instagram who’s boss and share revenue from interstitial ads. This is a big ask, it’s gonna cost a lot of money. But the creators on TikTok deserve it. And if it’s one of the first think Microsoft does, it’s going to buy you a lot of goodwill.
Build crowd-funding tools that suck way less than the ones TikTok has now (and take a smaller cut). Take a page from Twitch and believe that, if you give creators ways to monetize their relationship with their community, that they will do that.
Distribute Attention Widely
Don’t forget that your creative base isn’t the people who currently have audiences, it’s the people who are trying to make something wonderful but haven’t been discovered yet. TikTok’s superpower is discovery. It can pull great content out of the deep pool of…y’know…less good stuff. That’s what keeps the experience unpredictable and fun for viewers, and it’s what gives people that taste of success that keeps them trying new things and building new genres.
Give Creators Moderation Tools
There’s a harassment problem on TikTok. TikTok should be working to prevent it, but it should also be giving creators tools. Let them turn off comments. Let them pause comments. Make blocking easier (creators should be able to do it right from the comment, not several clicks away.) Let creators choose what words they don’t want to have appear in their comments. Let bigger creators assign moderation privileges to trusted community members. Twitch is the best at moderation in this business…look at what they’re doing and copy it.
Care
Satya Nadella needs to find out what kind of TikTok he is on. Is he on straight TikTok? Cottagecore? Beans? If someone asks him what his favorite TikTok is and he gives some dodgy bullshit like “I think Charli is such a creative dancer” get ready for the fucking pitchforks. I know the CEO of Microsoft has more important things to do than watch TikToks most days…but not this day. Not right now. Right now, Satya needs to know in his bones that lip syncing isn’t something you do to music anymore. Not because someone told him, but because he spend the 10 hours necessary to get a grip on what’s great about this app.
I will say, this billion dollar fund (though, over several years) will go a ways in showing you care. But do more than that. How? Just…care. Care about the creative ecosystem by spending some time there. And if I ask Qi Lu who his favorite teacher on TikTok is, I want a fucking answer.
Give Creators Credit
When you implement a new idea, tell us where you got it…and have that be from inside. Because, regardless of who buys this platform, they will be seen as an interloper. And people are (and should be!) skeptical of ideas that come from outside. Thank the people who inspire new features, maybe even reward them somehow.
They aren’t going to be able to get away with the same kind of rapid iteration that Bytedance did because people will be thinking about where the changes are coming from now. So they’re going to need to get buy-in on big new features. That’s going to be a pain in the ass, but the alternative is very messy.
—
Any buyer will be looked upon skeptically by the TikTok community, and the assumed positive intent that TikTok has left (which is deteriorating anyway) will evaporate even more quickly with a big-name, big-money buyer. So Microsoft has to play this carefully.
Subscribe to Pay Attention
Attention is becoming the one true currency, and that affects everything.
In the words of Vito Corleone, Bytedance was just given an offer they cannot refuse. It's amazing that what is likely to be one of Microsoft's best acquisitions ever in terms of price/reward will be a company that has no fit whatsoever in their business model. Great post, Hank, you nailed the challenges ahead for Microsoft.
I wish it was culturally normal at CO level and above for owners/orgs to visibly give a damn about their platform's communities!