TikTok is the new big social media player. With more than 1 billion users in over 150 countries, marketers worldwide are increasingly using TikTok as a marketing tool to reach out to their young audience.
What is TikTok?
There are still plenty of people (and marketers) who aren’t quite sure what TikTok is and offers. TikTok is a short-video sharing app and social network platform. The TikTok mission is to inspire creativity and bring joy. The videos are up to 15 seconds long and users can add songs, effects and filters before publishing them. TikTok is not only home to some standard lip-syncing, it’s also known for its act-out memes with music and other sound clips in the background. These clips get endlessly reproduced and remixed among the users worldwide.
Who is behind TikTok?
Do you remember Musical.ly? A Chinese company called Byte Dance acquired Musical.ly and rebranded it as TikTok. Musical.ly was also an app developed in China and very similar in style to TikTok. The app was launched in 2014. It created a strong following of over 200 Million users. In late 2017 ByteDance bought the app in a deal worth around US$1 billion. Byte Dance merged the two platforms in August 2018 and all Musical.ly users were shifted to TikTok overnight. This helped ByteDance to tap into the US market. Interesting Fact: In China, the TikTok App is called Douyin. It is China’s leading destination for short-form mobile videos.
What Audience Uses TikTok?
Every day, millions of young people are downloading the app that runs on all mobile platforms. ByteDance doesn’t share statistics on a regular basis. However, it’s no secret that monthly downloads in the U.S. overtake those of Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Snapchat. The app is available in over 150 countries, has over 1 billion users, and an average time spent per user of 52 minutes per day! The audience using TikTok is young. Start thinking about a TikTok strategy, if your brand’s target group is between the age of 13 and 30!
It Starts on TikTok
With the slogan “It Starts on TikTok” the short video platform starts the so far largest campaign of its history. Together with a selection of their most powerful creators (the are not called influencers on TikTok, they are called creators!), they will promote their success stories.
Read more about the campaign HERE.
Why TikTok Is On Fire
Reforge has just recently published a very interesting article to explain how TikTok moves a step further down the Entertainment Curve. “TikTok’s algorithm masterfully serves up a stream of content that is relevant and high quality (similar to Instagram’s Explore tab). In addition, TikTok offers a Following feed driven by the user’s social graph. In this way, TikTok reverses the emphasis of Instagram (topical content first, socially connected content second).”
Photo by Anthony Fomin