Description: TikTok has over 700M active users globally, rivalling the likes of Facebook & Instagram. We discuss the rise of TikTok and what it means for the world.
The Rise of TikTok
Nothing is stronger than an idea whose time has come – Victor Hugo
What is a great business, but an organized form of a killer idea? We surround ourselves with conventional wisdom and knowledge which tells us how to think, behave, act, and succeed. Every so often, an idea comes along that makes convention to kneel. The rise of the internet was one such idea. Amazon was another. Google, Facebook, Tesla, and others are all great ideas that worked because their time had come.
So when we say TikTok’s time has come, it really has.
To call TikTok a social media platform would be a disservice, although it is technically one. In a way, TikTok has taken the fundamental parts of a social media experience and created a system where users are only shown content that is most likely to resonate with them. Through AI and machine learning, TikTok is able to curate content accurately according to the viewing habits of the user.
There aren’t many current social media platforms that can boast of having content curation ability as accurate and engaging as TikTok. It’s easy to use platform makes content dissemination easier for creators.
Before delving more into TikTok, it is wise to first consider its history as a company.
TikTok – A Brief History in Time
TikTok is not another Silicon Valley startup. It is an app owned by a Chinese company called ByteDance. Recent reports have stated that ByteDance is worth $75B, making it one of the most valuable private tech firms in the world.
The Chinese version of the TikTok app, Douyin, is also hugely popular in China. ByteDance was founded in 2012, and its meteoric rise has stunned many in the tech and marketing business.
Besides TikTok and Douyin, ByteDance has a number of other apps within its company such as Toutiao and TopBuzz. Since its inception, ByteDance has tried to have an international audience unlike other prime Chinese companies like Alibaba.
How Does TikTok Work?
TikTok is a short-video sharing platform. In their own words, they are a platform seeking to help users channel their creativity and content creation skills. Many influencers and creators have lauded TikTok, crediting how simple it is to create content on the platform.
Unlike many other social media platforms that have tried to become lifestyle-oriented channels, TikTok is a purely entertainment-based platform. Playing on the short attention span of general users, TikTok limits the time of its video content in order to make sure people engage with the content more.
The best part of TikTok is the accuracy with which it predicts engaging content to users. Based on how users reacted to previous content, TikTok quickly curates a stream of content tailor-made for a given user. The stream of content a user sees on his/her TikTok account is not necessarily filled with the accounts the user is following, but an accurate summation of the content a user is likely to engage with. In an age where everyone is waiting for AI and machine learning to make lives better, TikTok may have struck upon a formula that accurately predicts what users want to see.
TikTok sends a warning to its users after they’ve been watching content for 90 consecutive minutes. This shows how much people like spending time on TikTok. While other factors like its streamlined process to create content and simple user interface are important, the secret sauce that predicts and curates content for users is what makes TikTok stand apart. Big tech companies like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube have not been able to match the intelligence shown by TikTok to recommend content.
TikTok Stats
Given its magnanimous rise, TikTok has been able to rack up the record books and stat tables. Some of the most intriguing numbers racked up by TikTok include-
- TikTok has over 1.5B users worldwide
- TikTok was the most downloaded app on the iOS App Store for Q1 2019
- Over 41% of TikTok users are between ages 16 and 24
- Average time spent by a TikTok user on the platform each day is 52 minutes as per a study done in 2019
- 90% of TikTok users use the app more than once in a day
- More than a billion videos are viewed on TikTok everyday
TikTok Privacy Concerns
TikTok has run into problems with the Indian judiciary system. Many privacy watchdogs have also warned people about using TikTok. There have even been concerns about TikTok sharing its user data with the Chinese government.
In India, TikTok was banned in April 2019 by the Madras High Court on grounds that it made it convenient for people to share adult and illegal content. The ban led to TikTok being removed from all app stores in India. Later in April, the ban was removed.
The biggest problem TikTok has had to face is the type of content it is allowing children to see. In the US for instance, collecting and storing data of children below the age of 13 is prohibited. In February 2019, TikTok was paid $5.7M in a settlement case lodged by the FTC for violating children privacy laws.
The ingenuity of TikTok is the way it predicts the content users want to see. This comes at a cost. The issue of privacy in social media platforms has become very mainstream in the past few years. TikTok comes at a time when users are growing increasing vigilant about what they share with big tech companies. Since TikTok is able to predict content preferences with remarkable accuracy, it is only natural for users to ask how their data is being used.
In time, TikTok will have to provide some kind of transparency to its users. Since TikTok comes from China were user privacy laws are notoriously lax, it is struggling to match Western standards of privacy.
For its own sake, it will have to. Otherwise, a great company with incredible potential stands to lose everything.
In Conclusion
In conclusion, this article covers the rise of TikTok is the mainstream social media world. TikTok, despite being younger than Instagram and Facebook is already knocking on the door of social media supremacy. Its true impact on big tech companies and the world is what’s left to be seen.
About the Author – Gaurav Heera is a respected digital marketing trainer and founder of DelhiCourses.in. He has worked with several top brands in the industry as well, consulting as a digital marketing strategist. DelhiCourses.in, the institute he founded, is best known for its digital marketing course in Delhi.
