TikTok election: leaders have ‘work cut out’ to appeal to Gen Z

Sean Topham: Both leaders, Keir and Rishi, have have got their work cut out for them to appeal to Gen Z in a really accessible and authentic way. I’m sure they’re both nice guys and they’ve got friends and family who obviously like them. So revealing who they are is going to be a bit of a challenge for them over the next few weeks, too.
Minnie Stephenson: Do you think that our mainstream politicians are natural TikTokers?
Sean Topham: I wouldn’t have picked them out to be natural TikTok influencers, but there’s a bit of time for them to lean into those sorts of qualities the influencers who have built up followings on the platform do do. So maybe we’ll see them giving a cooking class or a get ready with me at some point. You need to talk to voters where they are. And there’s a lot of voters on TikTok, and yes, they do skew younger. So Gen Z deserve to be part of the conversation in this election. TikTok is the battleground for Gen Z and increasingly for older demographics, too, who are joining the platform.
If you take a clear look at it, you can’t spend a dollar as a political party to advertise on TikTok, but you can reach millions of voters, particularly in that Gen Z group and in others, without spending a dollar, with good content. And that’s why they really need to be on it. It is the biggest platform for reach, I think, in this whole election campaign, and that’s why it’ll be really interesting to see how the parties leverage it and lean into it over the next few weeks.