The article you are about to read was co-created, through interviews, with different famous Tiktokers, so we have unpublished data and many secrets to tell you about this application. We offer you this table of contents so that you can browse the article and read what interests you most, although you can also take the time and go through it from beginning to end to become an expert in this application.
What is TikTok?
TikTok is a social network born in China that has as its main goal that its users create, share and consume short videos, which can range from 3 to 60 seconds, so many people call it “the Vine heiress”. It is a social network conceived to amplify home videos, thought from each user for the rest of the community (static photos are NOT shared as it happens in the rest of the social networks)
Why is it called TikTok?
TikTok is so named to refer to the onomatopoeia of clockwise movement. From the conception of its name, this social network makes it clear that content must be created with time in mind, and that every second counts, as indicated in its video presentation for TikTok in Spanish.
Its name in Chinese soil is very different: Douyin, which means “to shake the music” in that language. This name has more to do with the popular use given to the application at its launch: sharing small music clips. This evolved a lot over time, opening up a vast amount of very heterogeneous content.
In what year was TikTok created?
TikTok opened its doors in the Chinese market in September 2016. This is its official launch date. However, it was not until 2018 that it began to grow in popularity and number of users, becoming available in over 150 countries and 75 languages. It currently has over 800 million active users.
Who created TikTok and what is their story?
As mentioned above, TikTok was born in September 2016. It is owned by the company China ByteDance that introduced it under the name of Douyin. The application was created within 200 days and during the year of its launch it reached the considerable figure of 100 million active users, with more than a billion visualizations every day. Douyin began its expansion to other countries in September 2017, adopting the name TikTok for the international market.
By the end of 2017, ByteDance invested over $1 billion to purchase musical.ly (Another Chinese Social Network focused on the US teen market) with the goal of tapping into its young user base. This platform was based on videos of teenagers, usually recorded with background music, to accompany their movements. This would remain forever in TikTok’s DNA.
By this point, the application already had over 200 million active users in Asia, Europe and North America. It quickly became the number one free application download in Thailand and other countries in early 2018.
TikTok finally merged with Musically on August 2, 2018, consolidating the existing data on both platforms into one and creating a single, larger TikTok Video community. Celebrities such as Jimmy Fallon, BTS, Billie Eilish, Simple Plan, Jason Derulo, Tony Hawk and Doja Cat joined the wave in November 2018.
In 2019, TikTok received over 738 million downloads from app stores, making it the second most downloaded app in the world. By April 2020, the application doubled that number to reach 2 billion downloads on Google Play. This earned it the nickname of “revelation”, after displacing Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, becoming the third most downloaded social network in the world, behind WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger.
A curious fact is that Douyin continues to this day as an independent application of the giant TikTok. It has kept its name since the launch and is available on its developer’s site. This popularity is due to its relevant marketing actions, such as the launch of challenges with Chinese celebrities, to capture the attention of its fans. The application has also been presented at the 2018 Spring Festival Gala, which meant an increase of 70 million active users.
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