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TikTok’s Explosive Cascading Behavior Effect

As an avid makeup lover and user, I’ve grown to genuinely fear a product I like to use going viral on TikTok. At this point, I can name a dozen makeup products that went viral on TikTok that consequently became sold out at every store for months to whole YEARS. Before TikTok exploded in popularity, the only real fad I can remember is the Sillybandz craze from grade three. But now, it feels like there is a new viral product taking the world by storm every month, whether it be a food, book, song, or makeup product.

 

So what is it about TikTok that can cause feta shortages from a viral recipe, or sell out a single mascara for months? The answer is (huge) cascading behaviour in our social networks. Consider the social network that existed in middle school. Before TikTok, your direct links might only have been your friends, family, some classmates, and maybe a few celebrities you follow. So, if you wanted to adopt a new behaviour, you would have needed a certain number of people in your immediate network to have already done so. Specifically, if the overall payoff of sticking to your old behaviour is b, and the payoff for purchasing a new product is a, you would need at least b/(a+b) * 100 percent of your neighbours having this product. 

Figure 1: A very simplified version of the middle school social network (blue is me). If the payoff for keeping old behaviour was 5 and switching was 5, I would need at least 50% of my links to have already switched. Depending on who the early adopters of the product are, I might not switch. Similarly, me being the only early adopter is not enough for any of my friends to switch with me.

With TikTok, your direct links now include all the TikTok accounts you follow. And with TikTok’s highly personalized algorithm, your feed will include similar content to what you enjoy from your following, giving rise to several TikTok “realms” like BookTok, FoodTok, BeautyTok, etc… Because of this, you will frequently see TikToks of different people cooking the same recipe or reviewing the same product. I argue that this increases the chances of cascading behaviour because: 

  1. It increases the payoff of switching, therefore decreasing the number of people you need to see who have already switched; Seeing TikTokers RAVE about It Ends With Us by Colleen Hoover or the Maybelline Sky High mascara will persuade you to purchase the same product to derive the same satisfaction.
  2. If you see enough TikTokers who have adopted this new behaviour, it will eventually meet the number of people you need for you to switch as well even if the payoff for switching stays the same. 
Figure 2: Middle school if TikTok existed (focused on my closest friend group), with TikTok influencers as the green nodes. If all green nodes are early adopters, I will switch as well without even needing my friends. Friend 5 and 2 will then switch, and finally 3 and 4 will switch.

There’s no denying that TikTok has become the origin of all viral products nowadays. Knowing about how TikTok increases the chances of cascading behaviour surely feels like gold to advertisers; If you can pay a few TikTok influencers to rave about your product, and bonus points if you strategically pick a range of influencers (e.g based on race, location, occupation, or the “realm” of TikTok that they belong to) that can infiltrate different dense clusters of the network, you can spark a chain reaction and ultimately get someone’s TikTok feed flooded with your product. And as much as I might fear TikTok’s explosive cascading behavior effect, it is this same concept I have to thank for introducing me to so many new products over the past few years that I wouldn’t have discovered otherwise.

 

Sources

Ganz, S. (2021, December 14). The viral TikTok recipes causing food shortages. Eater. Retrieved November 15, 2022, from https://www.eater.com/22832651/viral-tiktok-recipes-food-shortages

Harrington, J. (2021, June 25). TikTok has changed the game for beauty brands, but how – and why? POPSUGAR Beauty. Retrieved November 15, 2022, from https://www.popsugar.com/beauty/tiktok-impact-beauty-industry-48392650

Hatchett, C. (2021, April 21). The Tiktok School of Cooking. The Spruce Eats. Retrieved November 15, 2022, from https://www.thespruceeats.com/tiktok-s-influence-on-food-culture-5179274

Jennings, R. (2021, July 6). Tiktok Made Me Buy it. Vox. Retrieved November 15, 2022, from https://www.vox.com/the-goods/22555723/tiktok-viral-products-cerave-sky-high-mascara-amazon-leggings

King, M. (2021, March 4). Viral tiktok video recipe prompts feta cheese shortage. FOX 5 New York. Retrieved November 15, 2022, from https://www.fox5ny.com/news/viral-tiktok-video-recipe-prompts-feta-cheese-shortage

Matsakis, L. (2020, June 18). How TikTok’s ‘for you’ algorithm actually works. Wired. Retrieved November 15, 2022, from https://www.wired.com/story/tiktok-finally-explains-for-you-algorithm-works/

Ryssdal, K., & Hollenhorst, M. (2021, July 16). How Tiktok is becoming a powerful consumer marketing tool. Marketplace. Retrieved November 15, 2022, from https://www.marketplace.org/2021/07/16/how-tiktok-is-becoming-a-powerful-consumer-marketing-tool/

Yahoo! (n.d.). Maybelline New York’s new Mascara sold out four times after going viral on TikTok. Yahoo! Retrieved November 15, 2022, from https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/maybelline-yorks-mascara-sold-four-140000538.html 

 

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