Bytedance’s TikTok app, formerly known in China as Douyin (), first appeared in the country’s app store in September 2016. A common interpretation of the name is “Shaking Sound.” After only a year on the market, the app already boasts over 100 million MAU. Bytedance capitalised on Tik Tok’s unprecedented success by releasing it to an international audience. Bytedance purchased Musical.ly shortly after its release. Bytedance used Musical.ly’s preexisting audience to launch the app into rapid user growth.
The feature sets of Tik Tok and Douyin are essentially identical. Both provide users with a stream of short videos (less than 15 seconds) to watch. After signing up for an account, you’ll be able to watch the content of other users you’re following, like videos, and, of course, upload your own. Many have likened it to a cross between Snapchat and the defunct app Vine.
Lip-sync videos are the most popular content on the site. The app encourages users to sing along with a collection of songs. Nonetheless, there are videos devoted to a wide variety of topics, such as dancing, parkour, challenges, magic tricks, “fails,” and more.
On par with a rocket!
When comparing the number of users and overall popularity of apps, TikTok is among the top performers in recent years. Also, it’s one of the rare apps that’s done well outside of China. The app was first made available to the public in September of 2017, and it has since been downloaded over 663 million times in 2018. This makes it the most popular non-game app, with four million downloads. Because of this development, the app became widely known all over the world.
There was a lot of excitement about the app in 2018, but it has subsided somewhat so far in 2019. Let’s reflect on the app’s successes thus far and the obstacles it still must overcome now that we’re halfway through 2019.
What Sets TikTok Apart From the Competition?
The question is, “Short Videos?” Filters? Lip-Syncing? Have all these characteristics not been seen before?
While it’s true that most of TikTok’s features aren’t particularly novel, the app’s creators have taken things to a new level by offering them to users in a unified interface. TikTok has many features that simply make content creation easier, in contrast to its short video market predecessors who simply curated content.
The vast majority of users on other platforms do nothing but consume content without contributing anything to the platform themselves. They have made it very simple to produce a high-quality short video clip by giving users access to a wide variety of editing tools, music clips, sound effects, filters, and other media enhancements.
To further encourage users to make their own videos, TikTok has added the Challenge feature. TikTok regularly announces new platform-wide challenges for its users to complete. It also strongly suggests that its most prominent users take part in these contests. In addition, hashtags give users a way to get involved. One of these fads was the “Seaweed Dance,” which you can see in the video below.
This encourages users to take part in the platform, rather than just observe it. According to a survey of TikTok users conducted in March 2018, 76.4% of creators were inspired to start making videos because they saw others on the platform posting humorous clips and wanted to give it a shot.
Effects of TikTok on Social Media Since Putting Ahead of Schedule
TikTok (Douyin) has quickly become one of China’s most popular apps, especially among the country’s youth. Even as Kuaishou, Weishi, and other services for viewers’ attention in the short-video market, competition has been heating up. TikTok has successfully maintained its position as China’s most widely used platform for short videos.
TikTok has achieved remarkable success in a short period of time. Bytedance, which only launched its platform in 2016, boasted on July 16th, 2018, that the app had over 500 million monthly active users worldwide, making it the ninth largest social media platform in the world.
Daily TikTok Users
In November of the same year, the company boasted that it had over 400 million MAUs in China alone, but declined to disclose its MAU total internationally. It also claimed that 200 million of its Chinese users were daily active users, which, if accurate, would indicate that its users are very invested in the platform and frequently access it. This is in stark contrast to Sina Weibo, one of China’s most popular social media platforms, which, according to its Q1 Financial Report for 2019, has 465 million monthly active users and 203 million daily active users.