Tic Tok; The Social Media Video App that will change the Industry

You might have heard about musical.ly founded by Alex Zhu and Luyu Yang in 2014 from Shanghai in China. Maybe you didn’t, but you must have heard about the app Tic Tok. Musical.ly was bought by ByteDance, a media and tech company in Beijing and rebranded it to their taste which they named Tic Tok. In China alone, Tic Tok has over 300 Million monthly users even with their restrictions to the internet. Tic Tok has been able to win the heart of its consumers to remain keen to it for 15 seconds due to a few reason. The company is striving well and the app is going global with a lot of people around the world having the app on their phones.

Social media is making a lot of difference in the business and in the internet world and Tic Tok isn’t left behind.

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What is Tic Tok

I have done a little explanation in the beginning but I will like to introduce the social media app again. Tic Tok, is a 15 second video based social media owned by ByteDance, a Chinese startup headed by Zhang Yiming who is the CEO of the company which is valued currently at $75 Billion. ByteDance have created a lot of apps lie Toutiao (a news and information based platform), Flipagram and others. In 2016 Musical.ly was rebranded and changed to Tic Tok as mucical.ly was meant for lip singing video where their voices aren’t heard but their lips move while Tic Tok gives a different video experience with filters through augmented reality, different songs and facial effects for a duration of 15 seconds. Tic Tok is known in China as Douyin.

Tic Tok has its user base within the age group of 15 and 30 years with about 500 million active Users which makes it the ninth largest social media in the world.

How Tic Tok is making its App a Business

Tic Tok uses machine learning technique to get targeted videos to their consumers. This unlike other social media which shows only content posted by followers and friends, Tic Tok shows the users different videos based on the trend the users like to consume. So Tic tok becomes more addictive as users keep using the app because its machine learning targets users.

Tic Tok Algorithm and marketing has helped the company gain a presence internationally. The app makes more revenue from the USA than from China. The App is supported with about $3 Billion by Soft bank and KKR an American investment firm. The company generated $176.9 million in 2019 which Is a very huge one for a startup.

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Tic Tok Downsides

Tic Tok is currently having issues with monetization of contents by users based on views, also the duration of videos is one of its downside for ads. Tic Tok influencers do not have Tic Tok as their intermediary between brands rather, the influencers needs to find brands themselves. The other side is of Tic Tok is they now introduces a live stream feature where users make money based on the numbers of views.

Tic Tok has faced a lot of lawsuit due to inappropriate content since it is a platform mostly occupied by minors (teenagers) as well as suits based on privacy of data of the Users.

Conclusion and Question

Tic Tok is gradually becoming a top 5 social media giant in the world and there might be more lawsuits and bans in future since most of its users are minority but on the other hand, unlike Facebook and YouTube, Tic Tok is the fastest way for people to reach fame currently with its algorithm and its user base.

Do you think Tic Tok can beat video giant Youtube and can it chase Snapchat off the market?