Fast, viral, and youth-orientated: TikTok

For anyone over the age of 25, TikTok may still be a bit of a mystery. If you’re unsure what it is, well here’s a summary: TikTok is a video app that allows users to sing, dance, act, or mime to short audio clips or pre-recorded songs. Yes, it may seem frivolous, but the 16 to 24 age demographic loves it.

And that means it’s worth a lot of money. Launched in China in 2016, TikTok is a private company. And that means getting a handle on how much it’s worth is difficult. Recent estimates place its value at around $75 billion — and with over 800 million active users worldwide, it’s one of the most downloaded apps on both iOS and Android.

What makes TikTok so popular?

When a new app emerges on the market and starts to grow in popularity, it can sometimes be hard to comprehend why. After all, this is not an easy platform to understand at first. TikTok thrives off trending hashtags and challenges. These are community-led and usually start when one user produces one short video introducing the particular challenge.

Other people then copy the challenge or the activity that’s trending and produce their own version. Challenges can come and go quite quickly, but it’s those that are picked up by celebrities or online influencers that carry the most momentum. Gen Z, those who predominantly use the app, crave micro entertainment and short bursts of distraction. (It’s one of their character traits that older generations get frustrated by.)

This is one of the main appeals of TikTok. Its videos are fun, short, and on-trend. It totally understands its audience and is in tune with its needs.

How TikTok caters to its audience

When you open TikTok, a tidal wave of amateur videos greets you. Most of them seem to be teenagers lip-syncing to music or sharing something about their school day or their romantic crush. For most people over the age of 20, this type of content has little relevance. But to those in the Gen Z demographic, it can garner millions of views and followers.

Perhaps the hardest part of understanding TikTok is the brevity of the content. TikTok primarily shows video content that is only 15 seconds in length. While there is an option to share videos up to one minute long, there is no longer-form video, and no image or text sharing options. It fits right in with the teenage attention span.

What do kids want?

Many 16- to 24-year-olds simply don’t want their social media channel to be a place filled with current affairs or political debate. They seek out escapism and fun. TikTok gives you the ability to post about anything, from humor, fitness, travel, music, and quirky hobbies to dance. Its secret is not in its complexity but in its simplicity.

What can SuperOne learn from TikTok?

The big takeaway from TikTok is its sheer pace. There are so many new user challenges to check out every day, and the subchallenges spawned by those. There is a rapid accumulation of followers to consider; a new user who has failed to crack YouTube could become one of the new “faces” on this incredibly viral, beautifully designed new social media channel.

SuperOne is also about:

• Speed (you have to be the FASTEST to win the big prizes)
• Virality (because of the exponential for massive adoption)
• Sleek design

On paper, there may be no obvious connections between SuperOne and TikTok but dig a little further and they start jumping out at you.