TikTok is Rising - But Will it Be a Relevant Platform for Brands?

There's always some new social media app on the market, some rising platform or tool which is destined to become 'the next big thing'. 

Most end up falling short. Remember 'Peach'? 'Ello'? What about 'Vero' or 'Meerkat'? Some of these platforms are still going, but they've not gone on to become the Facebook challenging players they were once touted as.

But TikTok feels different. Backed by Chinese corporation ByteDance, TikTok is growing fast, despite being similar in style to the various Stories tools already on the market. Filling a void left by the demise of Vine, TikTok is not only providing an alternative outlet for creative expression, but its also rolling out features in western markets that it's been able to try out among its large Chinese userbase first, giving it a solid testing ground.

And it may well become the next big social platform - but will it also develop into a relevant consideration for brands?

Rapid Growth

Seemingly overnight, TikTok became the social app of the moment late last year.

Everywhere you looked, people were posting clips from TikTok, mentions of the app were rising online. Just as Snapchat had done previously, TikTok became the app that you had to see, that people had to share with their friends.

That momentum is reflected in the download stats - according to Sensor Tower, TikTok has now been downloaded over a billion times, with 663 million of those downloads coming in 2018. By comparison, Instagram, currently the fastest growing social app, saw 444 million new downloads in 2018 - so TikTok is now actually growing with greater momentum than the Facebook-owned image platform. 

More than that, Sensor Tower's figures don't include installs from China, so the total download figures for TikTok are actually likely far higher than this. 

Read more: https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/tiktok-is-rising-but-will-it-be-a-relevant-platform-for-brands/549376/

Original source: https://www.socialmediatoday.com/