Surely you have at least once heard about the main application for teenagers - TikTok. What is it, where did it come from and why is it so popular? Today you will find out everything you would like to know about TikTok, but hesitated to ask Google.

TikTok background

The service is the result of a merger between Musical.ly and Douyin, each of which has brought its share of innovation to the mobile app world. Therefore, we simply have to tell their brief story.

History of Musical.ly

Initially, the service was supposed to be an alternative to online courses: the founder of the application, Alex Zhu, considered most Internet schools boring, as they taught long lessons that were too long for the 21st century.

He wanted to create a place where experts would give mini-lectures to everyone in 3-5 minutes. Investors liked such an unusual idea, and they gave it $ 250 thousand, most of which the guys spent on developing the application itself. And only after the team, then still Cicada, used more than 90% of the budget, the developers realized that they simply would not find so many experts: no one would be ready to spend several hours, or even days, to create a video on a little-known platform.

What to do? Closing a startup and asking investors for forgiveness? No, Alex Zhu decided to go for broke: he completely changed the direction of the application, making it entertaining. The idea for Musical.ly came to him while walking in the park: there he saw a group of teenagers, where one half was listening to music loudly, and the other was filming a video for it, gluing stickers and sending videos to friends.

Then he realized that he needed to create an application where all this can be done in one place. In the first 24 hours after Musical.ly appeared in the App Store, it was downloaded by 500 people, who, importantly, returned regularly. However, the app was still growing rather slowly: it was not even in the TOP-100. This continued exactly until the developers thought of adding a watermark to the video, and already on July 6, 2015 Musical.ly got to the 1st place in the App Store. Since then, it has never dropped below the 40th line in the ranking of mobile applications.

Around the same time, the first celebrities and serious advertisers began to come to the service. In 2016, Musical.ly received $ 100 million in investments from GGV Capital, with an estimate of the service at $ 500 million, and in 2017 this service was acquired by the Chinese company ByteDance, renaming it TikTok.

ByteDance history

Today, TikTok is owned by ByteDance, which was named the world's most expensive startup last October.

The company's first service was the Toutiao news aggregator, where artificial intelligence selected news for users that would be of interest to them. Yes, you won’t surprise anyone today, but 7 years ago it was a real breakthrough.

Then ByteDance decided to go on their own, and not become part of large Chinese holdings, as most startups do. And judging by their success, they made the right decision. In 2016, ByteDance released the Douyin app (a copy of Musical.ly for the Chinese market), and in 2017 they bought the main app and merged them into a new service called TikTok.

And what is the reason for the union? They just decided to remove their main competitor and become the only such application on the market. As you can see, no one thinks Likee is a good app

TikTok today

Now it is one of the most popular social networks, which has already caught up with YouTube and Instagram in popularity. In July 2018, TikTok reached a “psychological mark” of 500 million active monthly users in the world and 150 million daily (!) Users in China. 

Even Instagram did not have such a frantic growth rate, so you need to know exactly what kind of application it is and how its audience lives. If you, too, decide to become popular, then you need to buy tiktok followers so that many people watch your videos.

Who is TikTok's main audience?

The app has already gained cult status among teenagers from 12 to 19 years old, but there is practically no older audience here. What are the reasons?

Young people love video content, and modern clip thinking does not allow them to concentrate even on a 15-20 minute video on YouTube. Also, today the Internet has become too serious and political, and children want to have their own small "online corner" where it is always fun and good. Don't believe me? Just go to the same YouTube: most of the Trending tab is filled with either politics or various emergency situations. That is why teenagers decided to build their own "online world" where everything is always good.

How do I use TikTok?

If you just want to watch someone else's content, then just download it. However, if you decide to create a video, you will have to register by creating a profile using your email / phone number, or log in through any of the social networks.

Now, at the top of the screen, you will see 2 sections: "Following" and "Recommended". The first will be loaded with videos of bloggers you read, and in the second, artificial intelligence will offer popular videos that might interest you. The more likes, the faster the system will understand what content you like.

Below you can see the toolbar, which, in principle, does not differ from the same in other social networks. What the icons mean in TikTok:

• The house is the home page where other people's videos are shown.
• Magnifier - search. Need to find a hashtag, effect or sound? That way.
• Plus - the creation of a new video. Use ready-made sounds or record your own on video. Don't want someone to see your videos? Give them privacy.
• Inbox - all reactions to your videos (likes, comments, etc.)
• The person's avatar is your profile. This is where the profile setting takes place: from the username and avatar to changing the password and connecting the PRO version.
• You can also connect two-factor authentication to be completely confident in the security of your page.

What does the PRO version give?

With its help, you can conduct in-depth analytics of your profile by views, number of subscribers, traffic sources, etc. Analytics of other people's profiles is currently only available on the Popsters service.

How to add content to favorites

Did you really like the video, sound or effect and don't want to lose it? Just add it to your favorites.

In the case of a video, click "Share" and then click on the "Favorites" icon. Everything is ready!

Want to keep a sound or effect? Click on it and you will be taken to a screen where all the videos with this effect are collected. Find the "Favorites" button at the top of the page and click on it. That's it, now you definitely won't lose the content you want.

Finding a section is also quite simple - just go to your profile and click on the "Favorites" icon in the header.

How TikTok Bloggers Monetize Their Content

There is no monetization of views, as in YouTube, which means that local bloggers will have to rely only on their own strength. As practice shows, the most popular methods of monetizing your work are collaborating with brands and promoting your own goods or services. The main thing is to immediately understand who your target audience is, and not to be sprayed with other service visitors.

TikTok for brands

How are brands promoting their products on TikTok? They have several options:

• targeted advertising between videos;
• native from bloggers;
• branded sounds / lenses / masks / sticker
• challenges.

The last method of promotion is the most interesting of all, since it differs from the challenges we are already familiar with. In TikTok, all videos in a challenge should be done under the same sound and with similar creativity. Yes, hashtags are also important, but the correct audio is above all, since it is on it that people are looking for a series of videos.

Basic TikTok memes

If you think that in this application they are still just dancing to the music, then you are wrong. Today's TikTok is full of memes for all tastes. We have only selected the most popular among them.