What the heck is TikTok
You may have heard of the newest social media platform creating significant buzz – TikTok. With 1.5 billion downloads as of November 2019 it’s quickly gaining popularity particularly among a 16-24-year-old audience.
So, what the heck is TikTok?
At its very core, it’s a video app. Users can share vertical, looping videos between 15 and 60 seconds, often set to music. The app has an extensive video editing toolkit with filters and effects, letting creators get extremely creative, and comical, with their productions. Viewers can then “react” to a video by liking, commenting or sharing.
For many video creators, the ultimate goal is landing on the “for you page.” TikTok has not released information that specifies what it takes to land on the “for you page,” but it likely has to do with engagement and retention rate. Landing on the page means the video has the ability to go viral. I believe this is one reason why 16-24-year-olds are obsessed with the app because “Gen Z” has grown up in a digital era where views and likes are everything.
Unlike other platforms that show content from the accounts that you follow, the main page on TikTok is the “for you page.” This allows the app to constantly push new content your way. As New York Times columnist John Herrman put it, “Imagine a version of Facebook that was able to fill your feed before you’d friended a single person. That’s TikTok.”
A little historical background on the app
TikTok is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, which previously launched a similar app called Douyin in China. In 2017, ByteDance purchased musical.ly, a social media video platform that allowed users to create short lip-sync videos, also popular among a teen market.
TikTok is a blend of what once was vine and musical.ly. The app is heavily run by trends driven by a particular song. We’ve seen challenges such as the Ice Bucket Challenge take over the internet in a similar way. A dance to a particular song becomes popular and thousands of people jump on it, creating their own video.
Growing in popularity
In February 2019, TikTok exceeded one billion downloads from the App Store and Google Play. Of which more than half occurred in 2018.
To provide a comparison, the Facebook app was installed approximately 711 million times last year and Instagram 444 million times. Clearly TikTok is on to something.
Who is on it and how to make the most of it
If your target audience fits into the “Gen Z” category it might be worthwhile to consider making a TikTok account. According to Mediakix, 60% of the app’s monthly active users are between 16-24 and 66% are under the age of 30. With 3.7 million 18-24-year-olds, just over 1 in every 8 young adults in the U.S. are on the app. That’s crazy!
However, with an ever growing audience of tech savvy youth they’ll be quick to call out content that doesn’t feel authentic. TikTok offers the option to purchase ad space, but some of the most successful accounts are creating organic content that fits with the app. Because TikTok is trend driven, this means branded videos must also be “on trend” to be successful.
There are a number of brands utilizing TikTok extremely well. One brand that gets a lot of praise for its creativity is the Washington Post.
I also really like the approach that local sports teams the Carolina Panthers and Carolina Hurricanes take on their accounts.
I encourage you to download the app and spend some time in it. Some of the videos are funny, some are pretty stupid, but overall I’m constantly impressed with the creativity happening in a 60 second video.
I’m personally really excited about the new platform. I spend more time than I’d like to admit on app. It’s entertaining, easy to digest and pretty addicting. I think it’s a space with a lot of potential for brands to have fun.
Want to chat more about TikTok? Send me an email!