Tik Tok is on the move
Have you succumbed to the pressure of downloading TikTok yet?
I have, along with millions of others.
TikTok is a social media and video streaming platform that was created in China and launched in 2016. Since then, it has exploded in the social media world! From January 2018 to July 2020, TikTok grew from 55 million users to 689 million users. Currently, it now has 1 billion active users all over the world. https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2021/09/27/tiktok-reaches-1-billion-users-worldwide-growth-surges/5886506001/ TikTok is popular across all generations, but mainly with the younger generation of people between the ages of 10-29. Facebook has been struggling with keeping the attention of its younger users, so they created an app called Lasso to compete with TikTok. Lasso was launched in 2018 and allowed users to create short videos to popular sounds just like TikTok. However, the app did not do well and has since been shut down. Within the same time period, Facebook Lasso had 250,000 downloads in the US while TikTok had 41.3 million. It was clear to Zuckerberg that they would not successfully take on TikTok due to its increasing popularity. https://techcrunch.com/2020/07/01/lasso-facebook-tiktok-shut-down/
A huge aspect that everyone loves about TikTok, including myself, is that anyone can go viral for just about anything. You could post a silly video of yourself dancing or just talking and there’s a chance your video will go viral. I posted a video of myself on TikTok blasting music in an In N Out line while singing along into my carpool karaoke microphone and received 1 million views and over 360,000 likes. This proves my point that anything could grab the attention of users on TikTok. The algorithm also gets to know the user’s personality to show them videos they would enjoy which keeps them coming back to the app for more. Additionally, TikTok made the app where users have to swipe up to see new videos on their For You page (feed). This was done almost strategically to keep users on the app. You can get stuck on the app for hours just swiping to watch more and more videos.
There is a constant struggle with attracting more younger users to some of the most popular social media platforms, but TikTok will never have to worry about this. TikTok is popular among all age groups, even those who are 50 years old and up. Their target audience is hard to pinpoint because there are videos on the app for anyone. TikTok allows their users to just be themselves and post videos about anything they want. It encourages creativity and authenticity among every generation.
Once the COVID-19 pandemic hit the US and everyone went into lockdown, TikTok blew up and became a tool for businesses and individuals to market themselves. Businesses began to relize that this was the best way to communicate with their consumers and stay relevant in their minds. https://eternitymarketing.com/blog/why-you-should-be-using-tiktok-for-business-in-2021 TikTok has become an important platform in the marketing world and I believe it will continue to be integrated into marketing tactics. The algorithm offers businesses more exposure to consumers and allows them to tell their brand’s story in a short relatable video. The attention-grabbing aspect of TikTok is taking over the world in many different ways and is consistently growing all over the world.