A Billion Users and Growing, How Does Tiktok Do It?

A billion users and growing, how does TikTok do it?

TikTok has taken the works by storm over the last year and has shown no sign of stopping with over one billion users worldwide. From my own experience, I think TikTok is the premier place for short-form content. Audio and video are more engaging/stimulating than either by themselves or pictures and TikTok has great length limits for its content. We saw the success of short-form video content with Vine a few years ago but its discontinuation left a hole in the market. TikTok improves on the short-form content with an endless scroll, viral algorithm, content creation features, and the creator fund.

If you download TikTok you’ll notice that within a few clicks you are immediately viewing content with one simple instruction, to swipe up and see the next video. This means that the user is immediately engaged and can scroll endlessly on the “For You” page. The “For You” page is the main Home Screen of TikTok where the videos you view are decided by an algorithm that updates based on your interaction with each video. I believe TikTok has created an environment where creators are all playing a lottery, to get on the “For You” page and have their video go viral. Something about the algorithm allows creators with zero followers to create content that goes viral and creators know this. To further add incentive, TikTok has a “creators fund” which pays out money to creators based on views.

TikTok has also Improved on the short-form content by allowing variability to the length of content (up to one minute compared to Vine’s six seconds) and with tools that encourage creators to build off of each other’s content. Creators can add a side-by-side to previously posted videos where they often react or reply to the video spurring interest in the topic. More importantly, are the sounds that are the backbone of the content. TikTok makes it easy to use the same audio of a previously posted video which causes certain audios to go viral where creators use the audio with their own twist, dance, or do something that becomes associated with the audio. Also, by reusing popular sounds which are often new songs by famous artists, scrolling on TikTok is to hear the most engaging parts of songs over and over, further increasing your enjoyment of the sounds. These tools all incentivize creators to create more content, ensuring there is endless new content to view. Every time you swipe up, it’s like playing a mini slot machine, your brain loves the idea that you’ll get something amazing like a hilarious video or useful piece of information, engaging your attention and causing longer viewing time.

TikTok makes money by running ads and through in-app purchases of coins which viewers can give to creators in exchange for digitals gifts. It is presumed TikTok takes a percentage cut of these gifts.

While there is much more to dissect about TikTok’s underlying technology and reasons for success, these are many of the reasons why it has become a key social platform. TikTok is a place where you can laugh, learn, discuss, discover, and more, and users and business alike understand it is the place to be for a chance at fame, money, and success.