In this session, Dr. Markus Rach, a digital technology lecturer, marketer and TikTok creator with over 540’000 followers, will give unique insights into the good, the bad and the ugly of the TikTok platform for brands, marketers and even educators. TikTok, a platform with over 2.6 billion app downloads, understands to capture user attention like no other platform on the planet. The app made headlines for its rocket-like user growth in 2020, but likewise its conflict with US politics and its ban in India and Pakistan. The app is mostly known for its Gen-Z skewed user-base, or dancing teens, as many refer to the content on TikTok. However, the app has much evolved, both in terms of its user demographics as well as its user driven content categories. This makes TikTok not only the playground for Gen-Z oriented branding efforts but opens the door for an array of commercial applications. In this session, we will debunk some TikTok myths and answer some of the most prevailing questions around the app based on Markus’s experience as a TikTok creator, marketer and academic. What opportunities does the platform provide for both B2C and B2B brands. Using best practice examples and platform insights, this session will also look at likely future developments on the platform, driven by one of the most sophisticated behaviorally oriented algorithms on the planet. These include visual search, algorithmic commerce and metahuman influencers and their impact on the brand to marketplace interaction and the stance of platforms in the digital ecosystem.