There’s hardly any doubt out there that, in terms of video and “fun stuff,” nothing beats the entertainment that the relatively young social media platform TikTok brings to the table. With 2.6 billion downloads across the world, it’s the most downloaded app in human history, with hundreds of thousands of influencers that continually contribute with content.
The explosive growth, considered by some as “viral”, registered a difference of 600 million downloads from 2017 to 2018, and by 2019 this amount got to an impressive 1.5 billion downloads. Of course, this doesn’t always translate to active users, but the fact remains that one could say that the whole of China and India has downloaded this app at least once.
In terms of active users, this social network surpasses 1 billion per year, with an average of 73 million active users in the United States alone. But that country accounts for just a small percentage of the users that enter TikTok regularly. The main source of users of this social media platform is from South-East Asia.
There’s a reason behind it, and it’s the birthplace of TikTok. It is rooted in the heart of South-East Asia, particularly China, where it was born as Douyin in the hands of the Chinese company ByteDance. Growth was so exponential there that the creators decided to expand this product to the rest of the world, finding in the US and Europe a great target for it, especially knowing now that the medium of engagement is about 68 minutes in the United States and 74 minutes in countries like Norway.
In terms of revenue, this social media platform is among those that earn a great deal of money from their advertising as well as promoted content. Users do not want to miss the growth that they often use the scheduler for TikTok to be consistent on the platform. While in 2019, the income of TikTok was about 350 million dollars, by 2020, amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, this social media soared with an impressive income of 1.9 billion dollars, only to be surpassed by the amassed income in 2021, rounding the impressive sum of 4.6 billion dollars, 4.300 million more than in 2019.
What’s in TikTok?
The main attraction of this social media is the kind of “pill” content that is uploaded by numerous influencers, but also by creative users that share their videos with the world. The ability to include music free of the many restrictions other social media platforms have is one of the main signatures of TikTok, allowing users to create “lip syncs” amongst many other creative videos.
Sometimes it’s just a fragment of a tutorial, and other times it’s the full tutorial on how to install an audio system, up to how to build a house using wood and nails. Even when the maximum length of a video can’t surpass 10 minutes, many of these TikTok teachers manage to create engaging and very helpful content that, for example, thrives in countries like China, Japan, and most of Asia.
On the other hand, in the US and Europe, the main focus of this social media is influencers doing dances and “pranks,” as well as funny videos about animals and mostly entertainment. This is a main difference between what “peaks” in the trending videos in these different regions, and some attribute it to the “algorithm” that privileges some content over another, since what might interest Chinese people differs greatly from what might interest US citizens.
With these differences settled, there are many ways a user can improve his or her experience on this social media platform, by filtering what they see, or even using some of the features to their advantage. This allows them to create even funnier videos, or a more creative way to approach a tutorial. Nonetheless, what is the user’s goal in TikTok? There is always a feature to make not only creating easier, but also allowing them to enjoy more of what is available, let´s find out what they are:
– Duets: one of the most used advanced features in this social media, it allows two users to create some of the best lip syncs there are, since they can dance and sing while playing their favorite music in the background. Sometimes it can be a friend, other times a complete stranger, or even (if you are lucky enough) a celebrity might ask you to collaborate with your video.
– Stitch videos: another great feature is the possibility to “capture” another person’s video and react to it, creating new content with your comments or even adding something cool to it. A lot of celebrities do it, sometimes to “boost” the influencer careers of some newcomers as well as contribute to charities.
– Add effects: a great contribution to the “table” of the social media platforms brought to the table by TikTok was the possibility to add effects to the videos. But also, you can use third-party to add VFX, allowing you to create impressive effects and also some very funny additions that can really exalt your videos over other users.
– Following vs. For You videos: as was explained earlier, the algorithm takes data from the user’s preferences and suggests a lot of videos from different creators. It might not be as polished as you might like, but it’ll sure help you choose some people you might not know and will surely enjoy. Also, you can choose how often you see those you follow, just in case they get quite repetitive with their content.
