Top 5 Reasons Behind The TikTok Tremendous Growth In Popularity

TikTok, a short-form video platform founded in 2016, has perhaps become the hottest app ever as it now has over 2.3 billion all-time downloads.

The app created by the founders of Vine and is often referred to as a “video for life”, and is now in 150 countries with over 500 million followers.

The Inception Of TikTok

The app started out as a way for teenagers to share videos of themselves performing simple stunts such as dancing or jumping on trampolines with their friends, however this quickly developed into a much more professional platform for celebrity endorsements.
In early 2017, the app became popular in the United States.
Many celebrities have their own TikTok account such as Ariana Grande, Justin Bieber, Selena Gomez and Shawn Mendes.
On TikTok, videos are accompanied by short bursts of sound, but many posts have no sound at all.
Samsung purchased the company in 2018 and was sold to ByteDance for a reported $1 Billion.
TikTok’s founders were co-partners in Vine, which was bought by Twitter in 2012.
They used TikTok to parody popular songs of the time such as “I’ma let you finish” by Kendrick Lamar and “Panda” by Desiigner.
TikTok is known to be very popular amongst young users of social media but a study done by the University of Texas’s McCombs school of Business showed that over 70% of users were over the age 18.

What is so special about TikTok?
When you hear that an app grows so rapidly and becomes a staple of internet culture and social interaction for Gen Z in just a few years into its existence, a logical question comes to mind: What is it that makes TikTok so successful?

We’ve identified some of the key reasons behind the TikTok app’s tremendous growth in popularity. Among them are:

1. Extremely easy onboarding.

When a new user opens an app, there is no usual sign up or tutorial for him, the videos start playing one-by-one immediately, and so the audience is hooked by the app’s content right away. Moreover, the addictive nature of the content makes it so easy for a vast majority of people to surrender and just keep watching random TikTok videos for hours long.

2. Ease of use.

TikTok has simplified content creation, sharing, and viewing as much as possible and managed to take it to the next level. As a user, all you have to do is record a piece of your daily routine or some funny dance move and it is instantly posted. Thus, both video creation and viewing are extremely plain and intuitive literally, minimal effort is needed to use the app.

3. Celebrity endorsements.

This is a huge one. When big names show their interest in something, that something always sees a surge in popularity among the fans. TikTok is liked and used by many celebrities, such as Ariana Grande, Ed Sheeran, Dua Liba, David Dobrik, Nicki Minaj, and Katy Perry to name a few. TikTok has also concluded paid partnerships with several influencers across various regions to promote the app to locals.

4. Localized content.

Another important factor fostering TikTok’s attractiveness and popularity is its focus on localized content. Despite it being a global app, there are often local challenges, contests, and captures on local trends. One example of such a contest is “1 million audition” that was launched separately across several countries.

5. Sophisticated AI technology. TikTok has never revealed its core AI algorithm to the public but the gist is easy to grasp even by just using the app. TikTok’s main goal is to get your attention and interest and make you want to watch more and more videos. Thus, the more you like the content (keep watching it instead of swiping), the more you’ll see it. Like watching cats playing in the yard? Chances are your feed will have enough similar videos to please you. Like watching funny dancing moves? Be sure to find a plethora of them in your feed!

The app wasn’t an overnight, effortless success though. In 2018 alone, ByteDance spent almost $1 billion on ads, and although TikTok was gaining a significant amount of downloads, many users abandoned the app after 30 days.
So far though, TikTok’s content has proved to have long lasting appeal. Although lip syncing and comedy are the origins of the app, it has expanded to other niches, such as fashion, health, food, pets, business, and even short films.

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