Every few years, a new app alters the way we interact with social media. TikTok, a video-sharing platform, became the most popular app in the world in 2022. It's a hit among kids. Adults are baffled, yet its appeal cannot be ignored.
Like it or not, there is a mass migration to social media as new platforms adopt the tactics of this culture. They offer new and unique ways to communicate.
Mass adoption of new social media platforms goes through a series of cycles. It moved from MySpace in 2005, to Facebook in 2008, and then to Instagram (soon followed by Snapchat) in 2014. Switching to a new social platform is always a reluctance, but in the end the popularity of the platform compels us all. to join In 2022, the mobile application TikTok rules.
What is TikTok? Combining music, synchronized videos, comedy content and microblogging, TikTok is a difficult platform to understand at first glance. This led to the development of a rival website, Thriller, which planned to take some of the attention away from the show. TikTok is still unknown to people over the age of 25. Popular with Gen Z, TikTok is a representation of what it means to grow up in today's communication rich world. While Instagram is most popular among users in their 20s to 40s, the majority of Facebook users today are over 40s.
In this article, we will discuss the history of TikTok, the owner of TikTok, and how users and advertisers benefit from this platform.
TikTok Statistics to Know in 2022
- As of January 2022, TikTok has over 3 Billion downloads and over 1 Billion monthly users
- TikTok was the most popular app downloaded globally in 2020 and 2021
- 60 percent of TikTok users are between the ages of 16 and 24
- Almost 50% of TikTok’s global audience is under the age of 34
- The TikTok app reach is worldwide with users in over 150 countries
- The average user spends 52 minutes per day on the TikTok app
- Bytedance the company that owns TikTok is valued at $140 Billion, making it the world’s most valuable startup and making the company worth more than Twitter and Coca Cola.
- TikTok reports that it has over 80 million monthly active users in the United States. 60% are female, 40% are male.
Who Invented TikTok?
TikTok is a social media app where people can share short videos of themselves. It was invented in 2016 by a company called ByteDance.
In 2014, a social media app named Musical.ly (pronounced Musical-ly) became incredibly popular with the 13-18 year old demographic. Musical.ly was a video sharing app where users could create short videos set to popular songs. The app was used to make videos of people lip-syncing and dancing. The Musical.ly app had over 200 million users by mid-2017.
In 2016, Chinese app developer ByteDance created an app named Douyin, a rival to Musical.ly. The app was first only available in China, but was renamed and rebranded to TikTok to be more appealing to users internationally. The TikTok app became very popular within a year, with over 100 million users. People continued to enjoy watching lip sync videos on the app.
In late 2017, Musical.ly was acquired by ByteDance for a fee of $800 Million. In 2018, Bytedance consolidated the user accounts of Musical.ly and TikTok, merging the two apps into one under the name TikTok.
The app became more popular because it had a unified brand and user base. TikTok is an app where people can watch short videos. It became the most downloaded app on the Apple App store in early 2018, which means more people were downloading it than any other app at that time. TikTok has been downloaded over 500 million times from the Google Play Store as of July 2019.
TikTok is a social media app where people can share short videos of themselves.
TikTok is a phone app where people can watch short videos. It is named Douyin in China, and currently has a userbase of over 250 Million users. The app is called TikTok and is available in 154 countries worldwide.
More than half of TikTok users are located outside of China. India has a lot of people who use apps and 25% of all app downloads have come from India. As of March 2019, the number of people using TikTok in the United States was around 14 million.
This means that people in China spend a lot of time watching short videos online. As of 2022, the TikTok app is continuing to grow in popularity and is a dominant force in the social media world.
Short Form Video Entertainment
When you open TikTok, you are greeted by a whirlwind of amateur and professional videos. Most of the videos are music, comedy or some content related to the TikTok challenge. Many users use the video sharing platform to express themselves and share a part of their personal lives.
For people over 20, this content is irrelevant. But for the demographic, it can have millions of views and followers.
Perhaps the hardest part to understand about TikTok is the limited content. TikTok contains mostly 15-second video content.
Although there is an option to share videos of up to one minute, there is no video format and no option to share images or text. These limitations make it difficult to understand the program during the first use.
Caring for diversity
As of 2022, TikTok has been downloaded more than 3 billion times. As the platform continues to grow, it is gaining attention from brands and celebrities alike.
In late 2020, dancer Charlie Damelio became the first person to reach 100 million followers on TikTok and currently has over 141 million followers. Other influencers, such as entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk, have also embraced the platform and are re-sharing content more relevant to their demographic.
The biggest appeal of TikTok is the ability to post anything. Comedy, Entertainment, Sports, Travel, Music, Photography, Dance. Each category is open and attracts a lot of attention. Each section provides access for those who can adapt their content to the short video model. While entertainment seems to be the main focus now, there is an increase in educational, desirable and commercial content.
What is the advantage of TikTok?
When a new program appears on the market and begins to gain popularity, it is difficult to understand why it is needed.
For years, Instagram looked like a simple photo filter app, but it gradually became a social platform and branding tool. Snapchat Stories seemed fun at first, but with its popularity, Instagram actually caught on to the idea, and Instagram stories now dominate the social network. Thanks to its confusing system of hashtags, Twitter has finally become the new way to keep track of news and current events. For TikTok, there is a huge market of people looking for some entertainment and entertainment for a few minutes during the day. If the video is interesting or attractive, the For You page algorithm will quickly repost it and get millions of views.
How does TikTok work?
Anyone with a TikTok account can create video content, including music, custom filters and visual effects. The goal is to create a video that grabs users' attention in the first few seconds, making them stop and take notice.
The more time a user spends on a particular TikTok video, the more viral it becomes. The TikTok For You page is the most popular part of TikTok, where users find new content curated by the TikTok algorithm. Whenever a TikTok user opens the app, the first page they see is your page. Similar to apps like Twitter and Instagram, most of the TikTok platform is powered by hashtags that allow users to find trending content and content.
 |
On most popular TikTok videos, you’re likely to see hashtags such as #Foryou, #ForYouPage, and #FYP. These particular hashtags tell the TikTok algorithm that this content is intended to be shared with others.How Safe is TikTok?
Using any social network can be risky, but it’s possible for kids to safely use the app with adult supervision (and a private account). When you sign up for TikTok, your account is public by default, meaning anyone can see your videos, send you direct messages, and use your location information.
Parents should make sure to turn on all privacy settings for accounts kids are using, so only people you know can interact with your videos or message you on the app. That means either opting for a private account or changing the settings for comments, duets, reactions, and messages to “Friends” instead of “Everyone.” You can also turn those features off completely.
What Are the Dangers of TikTok?
As the social media platform has grown, there have of course been concerns about the dangers of TikTok.
The overwhelming majority of TikTok users are identified as Gen Z, between the ages of 14 to 24 years old. Because of this, many parents feel a responsibility to understand the dangers of inappropriate content on TikTok and to teach their children to be safe and aware online.
According to TikTok’s community guidelines, the video sharing app is “deeply committed” to child safety and has “zero tolerance” for behaviour that could lead to child abuse or sexual exploitation. In February 2020, TikTok announced a new set of parental controls, called “Family Safety Mode”.
TikTok’s Family Safety Mode is designed to let parents set limits on their children’s use of the social media app. The parental control features include limits on direct messages, screen-time management, and a ‘restricted mode’ that limits the appearance of inappropriate content.
The restricted mode on TikTok allows an active user to switch to a private account you can approve (or deny) new follower requests. A private TikTok account only allows an active user you’ve approved to see your content. By default, your TikTok account starts as public. This allows TikTok to share your videos, other users post comments, reactions, or create short video duets with the content you’ve created.
Why Was TikTok Almost Banned?
The TikTok app is the first Chinese app to gain massive popularity in the United States. This huge growth in popularity led to concerns that the data collected by ByteDance was being stored by the Chinese government.
In January 2020, the U.S. military banned TikTok from government-issued phones. In August 2020, there was a growing concern from U.S. President Donald Trump that the Chinese Government was gathering user data that could potentially threaten the national security of the United States.
The President then signed an executive order that would potentially ban TikTok if the Chinese app was not sold by ByteDance to a US company with 45 days. Trump also then signed a similar order against the WeChat application which is owned by the Chinese company Tencent.
The Trump administration then issued a new executive giving ByteDance 90 days to sell or spin off ownership of the U.S. TikTok business. Initially Microsoft was in the running with an offer of $50 Billion to take ownership of the US TikTok business.
In September 2020, ByteDance made a tentative $12 Billion deal to create a US subsidiary called TikTok Global. This new TikTok subsidiary would be part-owned by the US companies Oracle and Walmart. With the new deal in place, Oracle and Walmart will own 20% of the new company, ByteDance says will still own 80%.
Although it appears that ownership of the US business will give control of the data collection for the TikTok content, the actual process is still unclear.
How To Use TikTok for Marketing
While the average TikTik creator is part of Gen Z, TikTok is now beginning to attract a wider user base. According to recent studies, nearly 38% of TikTok’s users within the US are above 30.
If you own a business, TikTok marketing could potentially be a great channel for your brand. Even in 2020, there is relatively little business competition on the social platform among small to medium-sized companies.
You might think of TikTok for business as similar to using Instagram Stories. They are not meant to push for sales, but rather show the personality of your business.
A great first TikTok video for business owners is to introduce yourself and your business. Remember that the more personal your business feels, the more people will relate to it. Tiktok Marketing is not about trying to sell, but about building brand trust.
Simply sharing fun facts about your team and a little about your business helps people become familiar with you. Another excellent tactic is to share your brand missions, what’s most important to your small business. This helps your potential customers understand what drives your business.
Another way to market your business on TikTok is to partner with an influencer. The rise of the TikTok influencer shows that people on the platform value the content they are creating. Every regular TikTik user will have a favorite content creator.
You can look at the current hashtag challenge that is popular and see if there is a TikTok influencer that you can partner with. These are often known as a branded hashtag challenge, where a business will sponsor a hashtag and challenge users to create content around the theme.
According to data from TikTok, over 50% of creators have participated in at least one hashtag challenge. The average engagement on a branded hashtag challenge for a TikTok influencer is 8.5%. Considering a user base of over 80 million people in the US, that is a considerable TikTok marketing opportunity.
How Brands Are Using TikTok
The NBA has always been an early adopter of online content and joined TikTok early. With over 13 Million followers, the NBA share highlights of games and celebrity player cameos. The NFL is following suit with 6.5 Million followers and growing.
Fast food restaurant Chiptole has been another early adopter on the platform. The majority of their content celebrates the foods they serve, but they also run popular competitions for TikTok users to submit fun videos at the locations.
Media companies such as The Washington Post and NBC are using TikTok to give previews of their content and to showcase their reporters’ personalities through behind-the-scenes videos.
How to Advertise on TikTok
In early 2019, TikTok began rolling out advertisements to some viewers on the platform. And it’s proven to be a big success for the company. Reports from TechCrunch/Apptopia show that TikTok’s Q4 2019 revenue grew over 300% from the same period a year earlier.
A TikTok ad is a pre-roll (similar to the ads before a youtube video) and last for between 10-15 seconds. Similar to youtube, the ads can be skipped within a few seconds, and advertisers pay for impressions.
There are currently three types of ads available on TikTok:
Brand Takeover Ads
Full-screen five-second static or animated ads that appear when a user first opens the TikTok app. These brand takeover ads direct the users to a webpage or TikTok account. This ad type has a limited number of advertisers per day in each country and can reportedly cost up to $50,000 per campaign.
In-Feed Native Video Ads
Auto-playing full-screen ads that show up between videos of user-generated content. Similar to Instagram story ads, these ads will link the users to a landing page or an app store.
Branded Hashtag Challenges
These are themes generated by brands or businesses associated with a promoted hashtag. The goal is to entice users to create videos around the theme and share. These videos are part of a brand takeover ad or in-feed native ad packages.
Running ads on the TikTok app requires applying as the service is still being tested, and for this reason, there is no accurate data on TikTok advertising rates. Some agencies report that TikTok in-feed ads are sold at $10 cost-per-impression, and require $6,000 minimum campaign spend.
According to TikTok, over 90% of users on the platform visits several times a day, making it appealing for companies whose demographics match the TikTok audience.
Can You Make Money on TikTok?
Currently, there is no direct way for TikTok users to capitalize on their popularity through the app. As the volume of views is incredibly high, most users will ask their audience to visit other platforms or websites to monetize.
TikTok creators are able to share their Instagram and Youtube links in their profile, which makes it easier to gain crossover followers.
For TikTok influencers, the main goal is to gain enough traction and followers to partner with brands and other media outlets.
The main goal for brands on TikTok is engagement and attracting a new audience. While legacy brands do this well, it is not clear whether smaller companies can draw the same following on the platform.
The evolution of mobile marketing on platforms such as Instagram and Snapchat has shown that anything is possible with the right audience.
For anyone with a business or personal brand that produces video content, TikTok is worth joining and experimenting with. Every TikTok statistic points towards its continued growth into 2022 and beyond. As the TikTok app grows towards maturity, its ability to offer advertising and promotion opportunities will likely become a bigger part of the ways companies market online.