The “Tik Tok Revolution”: A Beginner’s Guide
There is a new app that is dominating the Internet. According to countless industry commentators and media professionals, it is redefining our relationship with social media.
Since its global launch in 2018, the video-sharing application, Tik Tok, has been able to achieve vast worldwide popularity at an undisputed level.
Users are invited to create, post and share short-form videos that centre on absolutely anything — dance, cooking, comedy, education. These duration of these clips can last anytime between 15 seconds and 3 minutes.
For those below the age of 25, most of this information you very likely already know. This is because a colossal 41% of self-reporting global Tik Tok users are between the ages of 16–24. For those unfamiliar with the complexities of social media’s current front-runner, or for parents who wish to know why exactly their child is spending an average of 52 minutes per day looking at their iPad, it may prove beneficial to read on. Where? Who? Why? How? And arguably more important, what’s next for Tik Tok?
Where?
The concept of a music-based, video-sharing, social media platform was initially launched in 2014 in the form of Chinese owned app, ‘Music.ly’.
‘Music.ly’ gained significant attention from worldwide media organisations due to its ever-increasing popularity with young audiences, majorly across Asia, as well as its strong corporate links with the United States.
A similar video-sharing app, branded as Douyin, was launched in China two years later by the technology giants, ByteDance, which also had a significant reception with young users in Asia. Realising the international potential that the two apps had if merged together, in 2017, ByteDance purchased the rights to Music.ly for $1billion and in 2018, Tik Tok was born.
Who?
According to data retrieved by Comscore in June this year, 41% of worldwide users age between 16–24, making them the majority of Tik Tok’s audience.
Potentially more shocking a statistic however, is that 18% of children between the ages of 8–11 are believed to have set up a Tik Tok profile, despite the age restriction being 13 years. This has led to many parents wondering what it is that is drawing in their children.
“Children and teenagers are continuously seek other spaces, new experiences when it comes to social media,” reports Dr Cristina Vasilica, Lecturer in Digital Health at the University of Salford. “They’ve moved on from Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat — these are the spaces for millennials nowadays. These young audiences seek gamification, interaction, creation, and Tik Tok is the newest and arguably most accessible way that they can achieve this.”
“It is important to recognise that Tik Tok popularity has significantly increased during the pandemic as people explored ways to become more socially connected, occupy time and access information. This is specifically the case for young generations. The platform has noted a significant increase in memberships and sign-ups of those aged 16–24 during 2020.”
Matt Navarra, UK-based Social Media Consultant also agrees that the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic meant that young users were flooding to Tik Tok for these reasons. He said: “The pandemic, the lockdowns, not being able to do what we want with who we want meant that a lot of people meant that the online world was our means of interaction as well as entertainment, and I think it was the need for entertainment especially amongst the younger audience — that desire to create content as well as to observe it — was what gave Tik Tok the big boost that we often refer to.”
Why?
Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat, as well as many other leading social media platforms, all have incorporated a video-sharing element to their software, leading analysts to question what it is that makes TikTok so distinguishable from the rest.
Mr Navarra, 41, was Director of Social Media and Global Technology News at ‘The Next Web’, as well as a Digital Communications Advisor for the UK Government. When asked about why Tik Tok seems to have risen to prominence, he said: “I do believe that there has been a shift in what people want from social media and what they expect to find on it compared to a few years back.
“The “Instagram-aesthetic”, the polished, defected type of personal content that you would find on older platforms simply do not seem to be enjoyed as much nowadays.”
“Tik Tok, I believe, leaves considerably less room to be polished or perfected; it seems to have centred upon the idea of not taking life too seriously. This concept hasn’t existed on other major platforms as of yet, meaning TikTok was able to stand out to people.”
Mr Navarra also stated his belief that most other major social media platforms either have done, or are in the process of “ripping off” the features of Tik Tok which are understood to be the most popular, referencing Instagram’s ‘Reels’, which were introduced in August 2020, as an example of this.
How?
Despite these creative features luring in users, Tik Tok is more widely distinguished from other forms of social media due to its unique algorithmic technology.
Mr Navarra said: “Not only do users have freedom to create what they want, but being able to do this on a platform that has its own unique yet very strong algorithm that essentially gives brings content they will likely want they want to see — very quickly I might add — are reasons why generally, even prior to the pandemic, Tik Tok is becoming the most popular social media app of today.”
A statement made by Tik Tok explains: “The system recommends content by ranking videos based on a combination of factors — starting from interests you express as a new user and adjusting for things you indicate you’re not interested in, too”.
Aspects such as interactions made by the user (likes, comments, shares), the information of each piece of content (captions, hashtags), the length of time content is watched for (beginning to end) and account settings (language, location), are believed to be the main deciders of what material is going to be displayed to you.
Dr Vasilica, who’s major areas of expertise at the University of Salford include Social Media and Behaviour Change, agreed that the strength of the algorithm that Tik Tok uses should be considered its biggest achievement.
She said: “I personally think that apart from the ‘intelligent’ platform (AI), it is users’ gratification, people seeking spaces to satisfy their needs, that matters.
“The AI capabilities enable access to content that users ‘like’, it gratifies their needs. It figures out what will keep you coming back for more.”
What’s next?
The ever-changing world of social media has meant that predicting the level of growth that an app may achieve, as well as whether it might be able to maintain success, is something that many social media experts have struggled with.
“Being a new social media platform, Tik Tok always had the potential for growth however you want to measure it; there is always more headroom for growth” claims Mr Navarra. “Will Tik Tok become ‘the biggest app’ and overtake the likes of Facebook? It’s very hard to tell. I think it will be in amongst the mix of them; it is hard to say whether it will take away from other platforms. Certainly, in the area that Tik Tok is all about — short-form video content — this new app is coming in close to Facebook. Who knows where it’ll go to next?”
Contrastingly, Dr Vasilica stated: “I believe that, like many of these other platforms, we will definitely see some form of levelling off — or at least a slowing down of Tik Tok’s growth and popularity.”
Despite any disagreements, neither Mr Navarra or Dr Vasilica are predicting that Tik Tok’s growth will come to a halt anytime soon.
