As we can see the US Presidential Election is just days away, in light of that, TikTok’s Elections Guide is launched, and it will help connect its users with authoritative voting information, besides limiting the spread of misleading reports and updates via the app.

TikTok’s Elections Guide in 2020

As you can see in the following screenshots. TikTok’s Elections Guide will prompt eligible US users to register for the poll, and also provide official information on the voting process in each state via the National Association of Secretaries of State, BallotReady, SignVote, etc.

In light of the TikTok’s Elections Guide, TikTok explains: “As with our COVID-19 resource hub, the election guide can be accessed from our Discover page and on election-related search results. We’ll also be linking to the guide at the bottom of videos relating to the elections and on videos from verified political accounts.”

This is similar to the approach that Both Twitter and Facebook are taking with their election awareness pushes -even though you would assume that TikTok will have less of an impact in this aspect, given that more than a third of its everyday users in the US is 14 years old or younger.

However, it could have an impact. For instance, Snapchat, which also caters to a younger audience subset, recently reported that it’s already prompted 400,000 people to register to vote in 2020 via its in-app pushes.

TikTok’s audience skews even younger than Snapchat’s, but any more pushes in this aspect can have advantages, and also can help drive awareness of civic support.

Moreover, despite TikTok’s efforts, it has already been caught up in political controversy. Negotiations over the app’s sale to a US company are continuing, and it might still face a full ban in the US if it can’t arrange a separation from its Chinese parent company.

The rising tensions between China and the US have put the app in the middle of global trade discussions -so despite TikTok not accepting political ads and not focusing on news content, as such, it’s still involved in political messaging, in one way or another.

Given this, it makes sense for TikTok to align with the other social media platforms besides giving informational pushes. Moreover, if they don’t even end up having a major impact, it’s still worth TikTok, from a PR perspective, working to share timely, helpful, and accurate election information.