What do we know about TikTok?
TikTok is a modern social media network where users create short lip-sync, dances, funny videos or talent clips. The platform first appeared in 2014 under the product called musical.ly. The developer from China, Alex Zhu, saw kids on the streets of Shanghai who were dancing and recording themselves on their phones. This inspired Alex, along with his long-time friend Luyu Yang, to create the musical.ly application, where the idea was to have a large database of music within the app so people could lip-sync songs. In other words, they created a karaoke mobile app where people could dance and pretend that they’re singing. The new social media network quickly grew in China and the US, attracting the first big brand in 2016 when Coca-Cola launched its #ShareACoke campaign. In 2018 musical.ly merged into TikTok and continued to attract teenagers from all other the world to their app. In February, 2019 TikTok officially hit one billion downloads globally. Businesses soon realised that they couldn’t neglect the fact that there is such a modern video-sharing social media network where they could target a much younger audience, and thanks to that, TikTok’s presence sky-rocketed.
Some shocking TikTok facts:
- TikTok has 500 million active users worldwide
- TikTok is more popular than LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, and Snapchat!
- In the first year videos were already being viewed by 1 million people a day
- TikTok is available in 155 countries
- TikTok is available in 75 languages
- The main audience is young people aged 16-24 (41%)
- Users spend an average of 52 minutes per day on the app
TikTok in United Kingdom
You’ve probably seen that by the end of 2019 there were TikTok ads appearing on TV, buses and on other social media platforms in the United Kingdom. Big celebraties such as Gordon Ramsey, David Beckham, Lewis Capaldi and many others became TikTok ambassadors in the UK last year. The most popular Ad campaign for TikTok in the UK is below:
Jump In Together pic.twitter.com/jHfOyRERdm
— TikTok UK (@tiktok_uk) December 17, 2019
We all love numbers, so exactly how popular is TikTok in United Kingdom? According to some information circulating online, the TikTok app was downloaded more than 6 million times in the UK, and we know the following:
Content
TikTok videos are currently very simple. Users record 15-second videos of themselves dancing and often miming. Popular bloggers post humorous videos or create their own TikTok challenges. The app itself is pretty similar to Instagram’s or Snapchat’s story feature: vertical content, short videos, simple reactions from users.
The type of content which gets the most engagement among the TikTok audience:
- Binge content, dark humour, non-sense etc.
- Comedy/Humour
- Stupid Humour
- Very stupid humour
- ‘What happened next’
- Dances
- Vines
- Tricks
- Pranks
- Fails
We’ve found a pretty informative video from Elise Darma with examples of some types of videos which are often used by businesses on TikTok. You can get a rough idea of the content you’re looking at:
There might be some people who think that TikTok is not for their brand because it’s impossible to create videos of your particular product. However, it does not necessarily have to be all about your product; it’s about people behind the brand or services. We have seen builders, vets, product designers, football teams – you name it! Any industry is perfect for TikTok if you’re creative enough.
Our Case Study with a brand new Yorkshire clothing brand
Here at Yolka Digital we like to try something new, and one of our clients approached us for help with getting them on TikTok at the end of last year. We used our expertise in Instagram, researched the latest trends and interacted with a similar audience which might be interested in buying our client’s clothes. The results were pretty fantastic, as we managed to get their page to 1000 followers in a month, their videos received around 2000 views, several new followers on Instagram and a couple of sales. Better results could’ve been achieved with TikTok specific videos, as we used the videos which the client already had. There are no advertisement options for Small or Medium businesses on TikTok at the moment, but if it changes in the near future, it would be a great platform to advertise your service or product to a younger audience.
If you’re interested in getting your brand on TikTok, drop us a message and we can help you with TikTok Marketing, Management and Growth. Remember that the earlier you consider using this social media platform, the more benefits you get and the quicker you’ll see an improvement!
