Time starts... now
What you might not know is TikTok bears a startling resemblance to two former popular apps. It could be argued that their disappearance paved the way for TikTok to emerge from the ashes, a flaming social phoenix:
Vine was an American app that allowed its users to create 7-second videos. Unlike TikTok it lacked in effect features, but you'd be surprised how much goodness can fit into 7 seconds. The users took the time frame as an artistic challenge and primarily based their creativity around stop motion, looping and micro sketches. It had the same addictive qualities as TikTok but not the same mesmerising scroll forever formula. The app was shut down in 2016 when Twitter bought it and remoulded it to its demise. You can still find Vine compilation clips on the internet. Many current Youtube Stars and influencers such as Logan Paul owe their fame to the former nifty app.
Musical.ly was an app that allowed users to lip-sync and prepare dance routines to their favourite tunes. It had over 100m active users a month, that's a lot of people singing into a hairbrush. It helped artists get recognition for songs that may have otherwise been forgotten with time or slipped under the radar completely. Unlike Vine, Musical.ly was owned by ByteDance the masterminds behind TikTok. All former accounts of Musical.ly got shifted over to TIkTok once it launched, along with the user content, meaning the show can go on.
TikTok boasts over 800 million active users, of those users 68% simply watch, and 55% provide the content. The videos are made up of things such as mini-tutorials, life hacks, shopping tips, dance and lip-sync routines, trend, challenges, micro skits, even just life observations. The potential of what can be posted is limitless. The apps focus on an ever-changing array of special effects and easy editing tools gives the app drive and inspiration to those who are new to the world of short video creation.
The main audience and contributors to TikTok are under 34 years old. With 41% being between 16 and 24. it might surprise you that 56% of TikTok users are male, leaving the other 44% to the ladies. Males dominate the app across all age groups. But if you were to scroll through TikTok right now, a majority of the videos to pop up would be from women posters. This could mean that female produced content is more favoured among the viewers. TikTok has a feed called "for you", it shows the most popular videos and what the algorithm thinks you'll want to see.
Among those videos, you might spot the D’Amelio sisters. Charlie and Dixie make an excess of 5 million from the app, currently, amongst the highest-paid TikTok stars. Charlie originally launched to 'fame' on former mentioned app Muical.ly and her subscribers followed her over to TikTok and then multiplied, a lot. So much so that she is now known as the queen of Tiktok with over 48 million subscribers watching her every dance, duet and sketch. This overtook former heir to that throne, singer and actress Loren Grey who has 34.8 million loyal subjects and ironically a song named "Queen".
TikTok is lucky 7 on the most downloads this decade. Despite only being launched in 2016 it's download totals are way ahead of apps like YouTube and Twitter. It sits at 738 million downloads globally and that's just this year. You'd think Facebook would be king on this list but it's actually communications mogul WhatsApp with 860 million.
TikTok is also one of those most often used apps amongst its users. At an engagement rate of 29%. 90 percent of its devoted users check to see what's trending multiple times a day, sometimes up to 8. The users between 16-24 spending an average of 82 minutes a day perusing. The rest of the under 34 year olds aren't much better sitting at an average of 52 minutes a day viewing time.
Perhaps the most impressive accolade for TikTok was the unspoken race to attain 500 million users. It took TikTok a meer year and 10 months to rack up that many users. Meanwhile the land we call Facebook took nearly 7 years to occupy that many profiles. Instagram wasn't much better at just over 6 years. This fact alone demonstrates the sheer magnitude of influence TikTok has and continues to grow.
TikTok is also a strong presence on other social media platforms. With Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram featuring videos made viral on TikTok being shared singularly or in curated compilations, giving the app even more power and exposure. Instagram has recently tried to emulate TikToks formula by releasing "Reels", a scaled-down version of TikTok which features effects and editing. Though it is slowly gaining popularity amongst Instagram users, it has yet to take off to the degree TikTok has.
Well, our time is up but TikTok keeps ... Ticking. As you read this over 47,000 videos were posted and are now being liked and commented on and shared amongst the masses. In the social media world, TikTok is a forced to be reckoned with. In the digital marketing avenue it has incredible potential, but we will speak on that when you have another few minutes to spare.
Thank you for reading.