An Influencers Guide To TikTok

Social Medias latest rising star TikTok has seen a rapid rise in the latter half of this year and is now poised as one of the top platforms to utilise in building your online profile as well as for advertising.

What is TikTok?

Somewhat controversially (especially as of late), TikTok is a product of China company.  Initially called “Musical.ly” and pushed as an app to share short videos of miming or singing to music, it was purchased by Chinese company Bytedance in 2016 and merged with their existing app “Duoyin” to create what we all know as TikTok today.

TikTok now boasts over 500 million active daily users whilst its Chinese counterpart Duoyin commands 250 million and growing. As of late 2018 TikTok has seen over 1 billion downloads, it is available in over 154 countries and its users see over 17 billion video views per month.

How popular is TikTok?

If you are not already swayed by the impressive stats above, consider the following:

• TikTok has over 500 million activate users worldwide
• TikTok was the 3rd most downloaded app in 2019 with a 70% increase in new users
• TikTok is the most downloaded app in the App App Store
• TikTok is youth oriented. 41% of its users are in the 16-24 age group
• The average user spends almost 1 hour per day on TikTok
• 90% of TikTok users access the site every day
• The number of U.S. adults using TikTok has grown over 5x in the last year

TikTok is aimed at and for content creators, it does one thing and it does it well which is likely how it has attracted the attention of one of the most lucrative age groups so quickly. 

How can Influencers use TikTok?

Influencer Marketing on TikTok is yet to reach the heady heights of platforms such as Instagram or Facebook, but it is almost inevitable as the user base matures that TikTok will become another go-to social platform for all influencer marketers.  Brands such as Nike, Sony and Calvin Klein have already dipped their toes in and a new celebrity account seems to pop up on a daily basis.

Now is the time to get on the TikTok train and start building a followerbase, TikTok are already pushing out multiple campaigns in conjunction with brands and celebrities and they have reportedly created excellent momentum, as TikTok bring on board more stats and tools for brands it can only be a matter of time before the work put in now building your TikTok brand profile begins to pay off.