People are 20% less likely to trust political content being posted on TikTok than that being posted on YouTube.
This is according to new research from creative effectiveness platform Daivid, which analysed the effectiveness of digital content posted during the election.
It used content testing to measure people’s emotions and found that overall, the main parties TikTok channels generated more negative emotions than positive ones.
With online platforms including YouTube, Meta and TikTok being seen as an online battleground, Daivid found that people were also 21% more likely to find TikTok political content confusing.
Conversely, audiences were 7% more likely to laugh at content posted on TikTok.
Key findings from the research also included that the Lib Dems ‘Are You In Or Out’ video generated the most laughs online, with the TikTok video making 28.4% of viewers laugh out loud.
‘We Think The Punchbag Won This Won’ generated the most laughs for the Conservatives, with
Meanwhile, Labour’s TikTok is generating the most laughs overall, with ‘The Big Short: Rishi Sunak’ and ‘Rishi Sunk’ doing particularly well, making 18.5% of viewers laugh.
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“Our UK Election research shows how the use of negative emotions can really play a key role in driving people to action,” said CEO and Daivid founder Ian Forrester.
“Typically, we look at the use of positive emotions to drive memory and action for advertisers, but it’s slightly different with political ads, with parties such as the Labour and Reform parties using anger and frustration at the current government to motivate voters to act.”
He added that parties need to be careful as they risk voters becoming “disenchanted with the political system and feeling like their vote never matters”.
“With TikTok voters being bombarded with fake AI content and misinformation, it becomes even more important that parties don’t just use the social platform to attack their rivals, but also look to inspire people, providing powerful, strong messages of positive change.”
