{"id":160400,"date":"2025-03-27T21:03:55","date_gmt":"2025-03-27T21:03:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/business\/marketing\/more-people-use-tiktok-as-a-search-engine-heres-why\/"},"modified":"2025-03-27T21:03:55","modified_gmt":"2025-03-27T21:03:55","slug":"more-people-use-tiktok-as-a-search-engine-heres-why","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=160400","title":{"rendered":"More People Use TikTok as a Search Engine. Here’s Why."},"content":{"rendered":"


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Have you heard about baked oatmeal? It\u2019s magical. I first heard about it on TikTok.<\/p>\n

I watched as the TikTok creator blended a few ingredients together\u2014oats, an egg, a splash of milk, cocoa powder, and a few other items. She popped the mixture in the oven and when she pulled it out, it was like one of those gooey lava cakes you order to finish off your meal at a restaurant. <\/p>\n

Baking oatmeal was the life hack I needed.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat else could I blend together and turn into a cake?\u201d<\/em> I wondered. I went to TikTok\u2019s search bar and typed in baked oatmeal<\/em> to find out.<\/p>\n

As it turns out, quite a few people use TikTok\u2019s search bar to find things they want. In fact, 40% of Gen Z<\/a> use TikTok instead of Google<\/strong> to get answers to their burning queries.<\/p>\n

Let that sink in\u2014nearly half of an entire generation doesn\u2019t <\/em>use Google. <\/p>\n

As someone who writes content for a living\u2014content to rank on Google\u2014I wanted to know more about why <\/em>people like myself were abandoning Google and turning to TikTok.<\/p>\n

To dig into the search preference of TikTok users, I decided to conduct a survey where I asked four open-ended questions to people who use TikTok as a search engine:<\/p>\n

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  1. What types of things do you search for on TikTok?<\/li>\n
  2. Why do you prefer using TikTok for these searches over Google?<\/li>\n
  3. What types of things do you search for on Google?\u00a0<\/li>\n
  4. Why do you prefer using Google for these searches over TikTok?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    I heard from 50 people of various ages and genders. And while it\u2019s certainly not a perfect survey, I gleaned some fascinating insight from it. <\/p>\n

    By going through this article, you\u2019ll learn what people are searching for on the various platforms, and how to create content to satisfy user needs. <\/p>\n

    What people search for on TikTok<\/h2>\n
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    The majority of people surveyed use TikTok to search for recipes. One respondent noted that the comments within TikTok videos are better social proof<\/strong> than the comments on recipe blogs; they trust TikTok videos more when it comes to cooking content.<\/p>\n

    Life tips is a broad segment that came in second. This segment includes things like business tips and life hacks. Think of life tips<\/em> as any bite-sized tip to improve your life (i.e., how to clean your kitchen sink, marketing tips for new businesses, getting tomato stains out of shirts<\/em>\u2026those kinds of tips).<\/p>\n

    No surprises there\u2014TikTok is fantastic for gathering quick information.<\/p>\n

    The next most popular category was tied between local entertainment and product reviews. People use TikTok to search for things to do, restaurants to eat at, and attractions to see in their home towns and<\/strong> places they plan to visit. They also enjoy getting first-person testimonials about products they want to buy.<\/p>\n

    The least popular searches were for health information and news. The people I surveyed don\u2019t aren\u2019t keen on receiving anything health or news-related via TikTok.<\/p>\n

    \u2b50Key Takeaway:<\/strong> People surveyed mostly use TikTok to search for recipes and quick tips.<\/p>\n

    What people search for on Google<\/h2>\n
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    When we compare searcher habits from TikTok to Google there is a stark difference.<\/p>\n

    Respondents said they don\u2019t use Google to search for recipes and it seems they gravitate towards TikTok for food-related content. But, as one respondent mentioned, they still Google recipes when they need additional instructions to help them prepare the meal. <\/p>\n

    Does that mean recipe blogging is obsolete? Not so fast. A quick search for the term \u201crecipes\u201d on Google Trends shows a very slight <\/em>downward trend starting around 2020, around the time TikTok became mainstream. <\/p>\n

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    Image source<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

    However, this doesn\u2019t necessarily correlate to TikTok. And it doesn\u2019t mean Google is irrelevant for food bloggers (the search term mac and cheese recipe<\/em> gets roughly 165k searches per month\u2026Google still gets plenty of action for recipe-related searches).<\/p>\n

    As for the most popular searches on Google, people say they turn to Google for news-related articles. People also enjoy using Google to find scholarly articles, long-form articles, and any information from the Map Pack (i.e., hours, address, location, or contact info for a business<\/em>).<\/p>\n

    \u2b50Key Takeaway:<\/strong> People surveyed mostly use Google to search for articles (news, scholarly, and long-form).<\/p>\n

    Why people prefer\u2026<\/h2>\n

    Here\u2019s where we get more context to the above numbers. <\/p>\n

    As I read through respondent\u2019s answers, I noticed plenty of similarities, making it easy for me to distill their answers into a few concise points.<\/p>\n

    TikTok over Google<\/h3>\n

    People prefer TikTok over Google for the following reasons:<\/p>\n