TikTok’s Fate, LinkedIn’s Content Pivot, and Why Reddit is a Sleeping Giant | Behind the Numbers
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Hey gang, it's Monday, May 19th. Minda, Jasmine and listeners, welcome to Behind the Limits, a new marketing video podcast made possible by Giphy. I'm Marcus and today we'll be discussing TikTok, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Reddit, maybe Snapchat, we'll see. Join me for that conversation. We have two people with, let's meet them. We start with our senior analyst with a residence in New York. It's Minda Smiley. Hi, how are you? Hello. Good, thank you. How are you? I'm doing well. She's only asking because when I asked, the group...

Stewart runs a team and Lance in production. And then these two, no one said anything. And then Stewart piped up because he's a kind person and he responds to questions unlike some people. Marcus, we said we're sorry. We apologize. Not good enough. VP and principal asked who also didn't say hi to me with living quarters in California. Jasmine and Doug. Hi, Marcus. And hello. I'm good. Thanks for asking. Today's fact.

Finland, of course. This is the last one, Finland. All right. There are no more. Finland hosts some of the weirdest world championships in the world. So we unfortunately already talked about hobby horsing last week. It's crazy. You have to go on YouTube or wherever, Vimeo, wherever you want to go, TikTok perhaps, any platform and look this up.

You didn't explain, Jasmine, how insane. It's people with literally with sticks and a horse's head just running around. It's very difficult to put into words. You have to see it. It's a real, they have a website. It's official. Anyway, they also in Finland have the World Berry Picking Championships. You knew about this? Good God. Swamp Soccer. It's just soccer in the mud. Which actually sounds pretty fun.

and then world mobile phone throwing championships yes that's a classic classic what is that exactly what it says on the tin when I said last time we need things to do apparently I don't know whether I'm impressed that people have these kinds of imaginations or disappointed that someone's let this get this far we're

We're also quite competitive and a very proud people. And I think all of that kind of just creates this environment of everything turning into a competition. Yeah. Yeah. Foraging for berries. But don't America before you're like, no, okay. You've got some crazy stuff to the national avocado launching championships in Nebraska. Wasteful. Also in this economy, okay.

these prices? It's maddening watching this. There were like three people. I saw a video online. There's like three people in the stands. And I'll be frank, there's three too many. America also has a lot of different food contests, like hot dog eating. Oh, that's true. Yeah. Pretty gross. Yeah. Do better. Anyway, today's real topic.

What the other social players not called Meta are up to. All right, we'll go in order of their slice of the digital ad market. Talking about some of the other social players. We talked about Meta, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, all that earlier, maybe last week. And we wanted to give some attention

to the other people who also play in the social space. And there's no real reason as to what order we should go in. So I thought we'll go in order of size of how much of the digital ad pie do they have. And TikTok is the biggest of the ones we're going to be discussing today. It's the fourth biggest overall in terms of US digital ad spend behind, obviously, Google, Meta, and Amazon with 4.3%. And Satna Maheshwari of the New York Times was

was writing about TikTok saying, facing a US ban, TikTok tells advertisers we're here and confident, explaining that the company's execs trying to reassure potential advertisers about the app's future in the US without directly addressing a looming ban under a federal law. Jasmine, what's the most likely outcome at this point?

I think if there's no deal or solution by June 19th, which is the new deadline for TikTok to find a buyer, I imagine that Trump will just punch the deadline again. What's interesting this time, though, too, is that deadline actually coincides with Cannes Lions, where TikTok historically has had a really big presence.

So I'm going to be there along with a few other analysts, and I'm going to be very curious to see what kind of tone they strike there and if it's similar to what we heard at New Front, like you just mentioned. But ultimately, I think, you know, status quo.

whoa, they seem very confident that they're going to escape this ban. And we're also really not seeing users, advertisers or creators behave any differently. And you and I and Marissa talked about this quite extensively on a podcast a few weeks ago. Yeah, yeah. So go and check that out for much more detail on this. But I mean, Minda, it...

It seems like, as Jasmine was saying, President Trump saying, hinting at whatever you want to use, if we don't get it done by June, I'll push it. It seems like he'll just keep pushing it. And so then the question, if it's not going to come to the point where, oh, we've gone past the deadline, then the question becomes, all right, it's going to be sold. So who's going to be sold to? And what does that look like? What would you make of that piece of this?

I think it's really unclear still around who it's going to be sold to. I mean, Jasmine, jump in if you've heard anything recently. But I know last time when we were coming up on the deadline, Amazon's name was being thrown into the ring about a potential buyer. We're kind of seeing these little groups come to, well, they're not little, but groups of investors coming together saying that they are interested in buying. But I think it's

it still remains pretty unclear, especially as we see Trump's administration kick the can down the road. Um, it does remain somewhat unclear who, who's going to be the ultimate, um, buyer in all of this. And I think, um, at least from the advertiser side, as Jasmine said, we are seeing, um,

Brands and users mostly stick with the platform still. I do think there's a small subset of advertisers that are kind of holding back a little bit still until there is a little more clarity around the situation. So TikTok is being affected to that extent. But again, I would say it's a pretty small subset. Yeah, and it's been pretty slow on the news front when you think about TikTok. I think everyone's focused on the other big T, which are tariffs.

And so I think, you know, there's not been as much information about it, which is why I ultimately just think we're going to be in a similar situation come June 19th. But whoever buys them, whoever it is, is it going to be the same experience? Can they do...

with TikTok, with the brand, with the platform, what ByteDance has already done? Is it going to be the similar experience? I mean, there was a lot of different times. I mean, for everyone from Amazon to Microsoft to Walmart at one point. I mean, there's a whole host of a plethora of people and companies who say, want to take this over. Will it just continue being the same experience?

experience? Or can you see these different companies maybe taking it in different directions and maybe the experience gets better, maybe it becomes even more popular, but isn't there a world where it kind of starts to degrade the experience to a certain extent? Well, that's the big question, right? I think the experience will depend upon who buys it and what that deal looks like. I mean, one of the deals that was on the

the table reportedly was potentially licensing the algorithm from China, because that has been, you know, one of the biggest factors that people have been considering about, you know, how this deal will form. And the question has been from day one, is TikTok TikTok without the algorithm? And then, of course, you know, to your other point, is it an Amazon or a Walmart who buys it?

Is it going to become even more shopping oriented? Will they integrate some of that TikTok like technology and user experience into their own channels as well? Or is it going to be, you know, I think Alexis Ohanian was thrown in at one point as a potential buyer. What is he going to do with it? How would he transform it? So there are so many different questions and we really won't have answers to them until we know what a deal looks like. Yeah.

But that's TikTok. Let's move on to LinkedIn, another social platform. They are seventh overall in our list of US digital ad spend. They get the seventh biggest slice, 1.4% in the US, which is $5 billion. So we've gotten down to the very low single digit percentages, but there's billions of dollars being made here. The professional social network, which is a touch older than Facebook.

It used to be simply a contact network, but is increasingly becoming a content channel. As an article from The Economist was noting this, they were saying comments are up 37% year over year. Video uploads are up by nearly as much. This presents LinkedIn with an opportunity in advertising, but at a risk to its professional identity. Minda, do you agree?

I don't know if I would necessarily use the word risk. I mean, I think for quite, I mean, we wrote about this around this time last year, actually, a lot of the momentum around LinkedIn and the fact that it kind of has become this, its identity has really changed. It's not just kind of a platform for job updates and, you know, networking anymore. It's really a social platform in and of itself. And there's a whole

push into the creator economy that I'm sure we'll get into as well. So yeah, I mean, I think, I think for ever really, ever since really, the pandemic, maybe even earlier, we've kind of seen LinkedIn shift in this way. And people certainly have their opinions around like, how much people should be sharing on LinkedIn, especially when you get into people's

personal lives and that line between work and life and all of that. But I think in terms of in terms of LinkedIn's identity, like, yes, it is certainly a social platform, in my opinion. And I think advertisers are definitely treating it that way. Yeah. Jasmine? Yeah. I mean, I think the article misses the larger point that Minda was just alluding to, which is the lines between personal and professional have blurred.

And so our personal life is increasingly intertwined with our careers and with our work life. And building a personal brand has become vital to the career path. And the place that people go to do that is online.

And there was actually a really great piece by Leah Haberman, who writes a really great newsletter called In Case You Missed It. And there's this new trend on TikTok that she was talking about where young women are really trading LinkedIn profiles to encourage each other to go onto the platform, follow each other and help build their personal brands there. And I think there's no better example of just how much our work and personal lives have become intertwined. And there's really no escaping that.

right if linkedin wants to keep up with the way that the professional sector is transforming it needs more personal content and it has really started to cater to this you know just i think it was last week that it rolled out ad revenue sharing for example on for creators on its short video feed and so i imagine we're just going to see a lot more of this personal content i still think that it's

it strikes a different tone than say on TikTok. And part of that is because even if it is personal, it's still somehow connected to the business world in some way. And also because most people understand that their bosses or their future bosses are on the platform. So there may behave a little bit differently than they might on an Instagram or a TikTok. Can it hold on to that professionalism? Just because, I mean, you mentioned tone, but yeah,

The piece was saying as well, the flood of content risks trapping LinkedIn into quagmires. It has thus far avoided more news and debate could politicize a platform that strives to stay above the fray.

Absolutely. I mean, I think that is a valid point that the article makes for sure. One of the things that LinkedIn has been avoiding, or at least not promoting, is political content, and it's for that very reason. But as any platform scales and becomes more personal, inevitably, that's going to enable more bad actors, more toxic content.

And so that is a challenge that LinkedIn is certainly going to face. I will say, I mean, I've been using LinkedIn regularly since about the end of 22. It still feels much safer and more welcoming than most other platforms. However, there has been a market shift in the tone too of some users. But again, that's an inevitability when you have a platform that is growing, right? And bringing new people into the experience. Yeah, I agree.

And I think that even when you talk about politics or more personal stuff, there's always that risk for it to, you know, just for the content to become less brand safe, as we would say. But I do think there's still even when you compare it to a TikTok, to a meta platform, like I think someone described it to me once is like people just tend to play nice on LinkedIn a little bit more. Like even if they are talking about touchier subjects, they do understand that like their colleagues and their bosses are on there. They're not going to maybe phrase things the way they maybe would. Yeah.

on different platforms. So while they are becoming more exposed to some of that, I still think just the nature, the tone of the platform is going to protect them from some of that a little bit. Do we think this is more, finally on LinkedIn, do we think this is more to do with the facts, as the piece was saying, that Meta's decision to reduce visibility of news on its platform X with its troubles, like other places where people would have got that news and pushed content

has kind of gone away and so LinkedIn has benefited? Or do we think that LinkedIn specifically working on things, promoting that side of it has gotten them to this point? I mean, both things can be true, right? And I suspect that they are. I think LinkedIn got an initial boost from all the troubles at X. I was going to say Twitter, I still can't get out of that mindset. And we wrote about that extensively back then, right? People were moving away from X and joining LinkedIn. A lot of them

were doing so begrudgingly. LinkedIn still does have this reputation for being more cringe than other platforms, but it really leaned into that and helped facilitate engagement. And now we're seeing that Gen Z, for example, is one of the fastest growing user groups on the platform. Part of that is because they're entering the workforce, but they're also spending more time there and helping transform the content that we see there as well, including this short video push that we're seeing from LinkedIn. Yeah.

I also think it's worth noting that LinkedIn has done a really good job of investing in their editorial and their news division. They have a pretty robust division focused on news curating and whatnot. I'm sure you know when you log on on the top right, I believe it is, they kind of curate headlines that are related to business news and larger news. So I think, yes, what's going on in the other platforms has had an effect, but I think the

they've certainly invested quite a bit in becoming a leader in that area. The last thing I will say about LinkedIn, I promise, is that what I've heard from a lot of creators on there too, is that content tends to have a longer shelf life. And I've noticed that myself as well. So I can post something and even a month later, it will still be generating engagement. And I think a lot of that has to do also with LinkedIn's algorithm. And, you know, I,

will be honest and say that I haven't looked into it as extensively as, say, some of the other technology from Meta or from TikTok. But from my understanding, they've invested heavily into AI to help improve their content recommendations initially to kind of demote those work anniversaries that LinkedIn is known for and boost more relevant content. But I think it's also helping to impact the shelf life of a lot of this content. And, you know, creators, of course, really

Really love that. Yeah, that's a good take. They've gotten themselves to a good position. A lot of work to do. The piece was noting that not much time is spent on the platform yet, but it's still early days. Sensor Tower was estimating that Android phone users with the LinkedIn app spend an average of only 48 minutes a month

TikTok is around 35 hours. So time spent is something they're going to be focusing on. However, Microsoft, the owner, heck of a purchase. The piece was also saying that they bought LinkedIn eight years ago for $26 billion and has grown revenue from $3 billion to $17 billion. So a heck of an investment and a turnaround in a relatively short space of time. Let's move to Pinterest. Ninth overall, just under a percentage point of digital advertising in America. Eric Hal Schwartz of TechRadar was noting that Pinterest...

has some new AI tools that will help you shop by visuals and vibes. He explains that a growing number of pins on Pinterest will have specific pieces of an outfit or aesthetic highlighted with a shimmering animated glow.

Click on, say, the plaid skirt or the blue jacket and Pinterest will show you some of the words to describe the item and help you find more like it without you needing a fashion dictionary. Jasmine, how much does this move the Pinterest is the shopping app destination needle?

I think what's always set Pinterest apart from the other social platforms is that people who come there tend to already be primed for shopping or in a shopping mindset, right? They're doing things like renovating their house, or if you're like me, trying to find inspiration for a summer formal wedding in Italy. If anyone has any tips, I'm...

i am taking them tough life and i think that the more pinterest can streamline that path to purchase and make it easier to go from inspiration to conversion the better it's going to be for their business and i love the idea of being able to find more similar products quickly

And hopefully at varying price points, right? I mean, we talked a little bit about the tariffs and all the economic uncertainty, and I think people are going to want a little bit of flexibility in terms of what they can buy. And so, you know, it remains to be seen exactly how all of this plays out. But I think it's a good move on their part, especially as their user base continues to grow, as we saw in their earnings just last week. Yeah. Minda?

Yeah, I mean, I think investing in search makes sense for them. Investing in visual search, it definitely plays into this larger trend of social search, which we're seeing its bigger counterparts invest in. I was looking at their social shopping numbers earlier, and it looks like out of people that use Pinterest, around 23% of them are social shoppers, meaning they purchase something on Pinterest in 2025, according to our figures in the US. That is lower than other platforms in terms of Instagram,

Facebook, they have a larger portion of people being social shoppers. So I do think it kind of speaks to the fact that even though they are positioning themselves as a shopping platform, they might be lagging a little bit. But that also just could that could be for a lot of different reasons. And they're still seeing growth in that area. We're clearly seeing them come out and invest in shopping in big ways. It's been part of a transformation for them that's been going on for a few years now. So they certainly have momentum, I think.

Yeah, and I think one of the reasons, Minda, to your point about Pinterest being lower than other social platforms in terms of social commerce is that one of the challenges that it's had is the technology to power shopping on the platform. So yes, it's always been a place where people go for inspiration, but it's not until recently really that they've been focused on lower funnel ad formats, right?

And at one point they were trying to roll out, if I remember correctly, a native checkout process that never fully panned out. And so they haven't had the same types of social commerce integrations. And I don't know if we've specifically talked about this, but

I don't think it's necessary to have a native integrated checkout within the social platform, but it is really important to be able to drive people to a point of purchase directly from the content. And so if this is something that the new tool will enable, I think this could be really powerful for Pinterest going forward. For sure.

We end with Reddit. Last social player we're talking about today, 0.3% slice, lands them in 23rd place. So quite far behind. However, Jeremy Goldman points out that Reddit kicked off 2025 with a blowout quarter, reporting a over 60% year-over-year revenue jump and a return to profitability per its latest shareholder letter, going from nearly $600 million in the red to $30 million profit.

Minda, when we were talking about who to talk about and preparing for this episode, when we were discussing Reddit and what the big question here is, you'd said that really it's about Reddit and tariffs and why we think Reddit is well positioned right now to navigate tariffs, even though it's one of the smallest social platforms.

Yeah, I mean, Reddit certainly isn't immune from all the uncertainty happening right now in the economy. But I do think out of these smaller platforms, it does have a little bit more momentum right now, to be honest. There's just some excitement around it. And a lot of it has to do with Google. The fact that when people are searching for stuff within Google, Reddit is coming up quite a bit. That's something they've talked about a lot in their earnings. And it's a big reason why they're seeing more users flock to Reddit. These are logged out users, but they're still users. And so I think it's a big reason why they're seeing more users flock to Reddit.

And then a lot of people are actually putting, like people are searching on Google and just tacking on Reddit at the end, hoping to actually, you know, proactively trying to find Reddit threads related to, you know, different stuff they're searching, products they're searching, which is obviously something of interest to brands. So, and even in addition to Google, the platform just, it went public last year. It's investing in its advertising business quite a bit now.

Um, we actually wrote, I actually wrote a report on Reddit earlier this year, um, about all of this stuff that you can read. But, um, but yeah, the platform alone is just kind of having a bit of a moment. People are excited about it. So I think that will help it in this time of uncertainty. And also just the fact that people do often go to Reddit for, for product recommendations, for, um, reviews. And in a time where people are maybe being a little bit more discerning about their purchases, uh,

they might go to Reddit to say, hey, I'm really looking for a coffee maker, but I don't want to spend this much money and blah, blah, blah. And people will respond. And so it's well positioned in that way, too, since it is such a hub for, you know, product and service reviews. Mm hmm.

Yeah, Jeremy Goldman, I think I mentioned earlier, was writing, Reddit is starting to shake off its image as a quirky internet forum and is making a credible case as a performance-driven ad partner. Its AI investments paired with growing advertisers of trust suggest that Reddit isn't just growing, it's maturing. Jasmine, what's your take on this? Yeah, I think Minda's right. I do think the Google platform

reliance that Reddit has is a little bit of a double-edged sword, right? So it has certainly helped it drive more traffic to its site, but being too reliant on any third party is never good for any platform because if that third party makes changes to its business or its operations, that could ultimately impact traffic that is going to Reddit in the case of Reddit and Google.

But yes, I mean, I think, you know, it is a platform that a lot of advertisers are excited about. I think people just want information about everything that's going on in the world as well as

products, right? And Reddit has put itself into a prime position to get a lot of that activity. And if they can capitalize on it with new ad formats and strongly performing ad formats, I think it's in a good position to navigate a lot of this turmoil. This stat blew me away. So Reddit, according to SEMrush and Data Reportal,

Reddit, so they tracked the world's most visited sites as of November 2024. Reddit is sixth. Of all the sites people visit, sixth. Google, YouTube, Facebook, Wikipedia, I think is in fourth, and then Instagram. They're the only ones that's behind. It's ahead of Bing, ChatGPT, Netflix, X, all those. And nearly twice as many people visit Reddit

Reddit as visit Amazon. And it's real people, right? I think that's the thing that sets Reddit apart. And if you think about, I mean, this is really thinking more philosophically about what's going on in the world, but the lack of trust in media and institutions has made people just turn to real people more. And I think Reddit is in a good position from that as well. It's real people giving real recommendations. Yeah.

Yeah, I agree. I was going to say like, I think it's anonymity is also kind of a double edged sword, or at least has been in the past. But I think that's something people are really craving right now. Because since the users are anonymous, like they're just offering real advice, there's no bias, there's no, you know, no pressure to kind of present this perfect life, as we see on Instagram or other platforms. It's just Yeah, like, I mean, I belong to so many, like,

parenting subreddits and it's just parents like venting and talking and sharing advice. It all feels very raw, very real. And I think we are in a moment where people are just like really craving that kind of content. So that's another reason why we're seeing it have a lot of momentum right now. Minda, in your conversations with advertisers about Reddit, does brand safety still come up? I mean, that was such a big concern a couple of years ago, but I feel like the noise around that has started to quiet down.

From advertisers I've talked to, I think Reddit's done a pretty good job of coming out and kind of making it clear that they've made some big changes in the space and that they are addressing it, that they're taking it seriously and kind of giving advertisers some comfort and ease around like, we know this is an issue we're dealing with, but we're working on it. It's getting better. And so I think advertisers are slowly but surely getting more comfortable with being on the platform. If anything, the thing I've heard is I think there's still this idea that like users hate

ads. I think on Reddit in particular, it's kind of been an issue of like this is anti-advertising, you know, attitude. And so a lot of advertisers that run paid ads on Reddit do turn the comments off, which we'll see if the tide changes there. But there's still, I've heard that from a lot of marketers being like, we're getting our clients on there, but they don't want the comments on. They don't want to know what people are saying. So...

I think that speaks to something that you wrote in the report about Reddit not being a set it and forget it platform where, you know, you have to be a little bit more creative about how you're showing up there as a brand. Yes, for sure. Yeah, exactly. So.

Yeah, Reddit in a very good position it seems. We expect strong ad revenue growth as well this year, 35%. Next year, 27%. For context, the four players we talked about, TikTok, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Reddit combined are...

you could say only a third the size of Meta or you could say impressively they are the third the size of the giant that is Meta so that's some context for you as to where they sit that's all we have time for for today though thank you so much to my guests for talking with me today thank you first to Minda thank you and to Jasmine

Thanks for having me.