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Is TikTok the platform brands should be aiming for?
Since its launch in 2017 to markets outside of China, to their merging with Musical.ly in 2018, TikTok has taken over the social media platform game, but what makes TikTok the best app?
TikTok is an app created by ByteDance, a Beijing-based internet technology company founded in 2012 by Zhang Yiming. In just 8 years, TikTok has become the most valuable startup, at a valuation of more than $75 billion, it’s the first Chinese internet company with a “significant, genuinely engaged following around the world,” according to The Verge and has been downloaded 2 billion times all across the globe, making it the most downloaded app in 2019.
TikTok is the first social media to focus on the future goal audience, Gen Z. With 66% of users being under 30 years old, it is a social media platform for creating, sharing and discovering short videos engaging this audience. If we study this new generation buying habits, entertainment consumption and external environment we can see why TikTok is their favorite app. This platform gives them the opportunity to become viral, to be a content creator, to be an “influencer”, the people they admire and look up to, and how did TikTok achieve that? By making it easy, by giving them everything they need within the app, no need of external resources or complete knowledge of the subject, and of course, by making it fun.
Living by its title, this social media exists, because of the creators. This platform allows them to express themselves with minimal input for a lot of output, which means that everyone can be a content creator and join a community that has the same likes and that understands you.
But this doesn’t mean that brands are excluded. Recently, TikTok wanted to help them be part of the community, but without affecting the users experience. “With the launch of TikTok For Business, we set out to embrace the creative, positive, and real moments that make our community so special with solutions for businesses to connect and grow with our wonderfully expressive community,” said TikTok’s managing director for Global Business Marketing, Katie Puris, in an announcement. This will allow brands to speak in their audiences’ language, to approach them and to be part of their environment, without being invasive or ruin their experience.
With this last addition to their services, TikTok takes a stand, and proves it is here to stay. They came to change the way content is created, but mostly the way you connect, profoundly understand and work for your audience.