TikTok is one of the fastest-growing social media platforms with over 1.5 billion monthly active users and is now worth over 100 billion dollars.
This social media giant that bases its existence on short video sharing started in September 2016 as two different platforms. Despite its late entrance into the social media world, it has demonstrated that it is here for the long run.
It is a collaboration between musical.ly and Douyin Apps. In 2017, Byte Dance, the owners of Douyin, paid $1 billion for Musical.ly and merged the apps and user base to form TikTok, which was the most downloaded social media app, surpassing Facebook, WhatsApp, YouTube, and Instagram.
On the surface, TikTok is not any different compared to other social media platforms that came before, but what makes it irresistible to users, especially teenagers, all over the world is its wide variety of options that creators can use to make exciting content and its user algorithm that is fine-tuned to users’ specific interests and always tends to provide binge entertainment to its unique users.
The app doesn’t only recommend; it basically dictates what you watch, and that makes the app very integral.
TikTok, like most social media platforms, generates most of its revenue by posting ads on the platforms. Still, there are other ways for social media platforms to generate revenue.
For example, TikTok users can purchase coins that they can use or gift to their favorite creators; these coins can be used to exchange a variety of payouts and digital gifts. This unique business model has largely increased the company’s revenue.
The younger generation is the majority of users on social media, and TikTok has used its algorithm to figure out a way to draw them through short visuals, a fast-growing community, and endless content (as most social media platforms aside from it don’t have an infinite feed but show content from accounts you follow or interact with), and freedom to be whatever they want and have fun while doing that, as TikTok is where trends are born.
Various TikTok challenges spread like wildfire to other social media platforms, and since the app is more connected to teens, these trends always have a mass following.
Social media influencers and sisters Kylie Jenner and Kim Kardashian have accused Instagram of slowly turning into TikTok, where most of the content on Instagram is videos, taking away the originality of Instagram.
There seems to be a struggle between other social media platforms to understand the algorithm of TikTok, thereby changing their unique services and imitating TikTok.
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Photo by Solen Feyissa
