TikTok- Every second counts
We have always been taught to value time and not waste time! However, we do a lot of things in life that feel like a waste of time. I used to listen to radio in the morning or before sleeping at night and I would realize that I have been up for 1.5 hours without doing any constructive work! I would get angry at myself and cringe at my laziness! However, Social media and other mobile apps have done something similar to our lives. We log into Facebook or Whatsapp as soon as we wake up and just before we go to sleep. Sometimes it feels like an addiction to the mobile phone doesn’t’ it? There is one more app that finds a special mention in the possible symptoms of mobile phone addiction and that is TikTok!
For too many of you who may cough at the mention of Tiktok, I would like to place a few stats in perspective.
TikTok is the 4th most downloaded Non Game app in 2018 and the most downloaded Android App store app in 2018 beating the likes of Youtube, Whatsapp, Instagram.
TikTok! TikTok! What the F*** is TikTok???
TikTok is a 15 seconds video storytelling app that lets the user discover and create videos with pre-recorded music clips, special effects, fun filters and more. It’s Artificial Intelligence enabled algorithm curates relevant video content trend for you and lets you follow and contribute to the trend! Basically, it is crowdsourcing infotainment at the next level! Beijing based ByteDance is the publisher for TikTok. ByteDance bought Musical.ly in November 2017 for USD 800 million and merged the user bases of both by August 2018. ByteDance has produced a total of 75 mobile apps with 42 iOS apps and 33 Android apps.
Read our previous post on TikTok as a Marketing platform
Out of all the apps produced by ByteDance, TikTok is the most popular mobile app that has 500 million downloads which reach upto 1 billion app downloads if we take into consideration the TikTok Lite and other regional variants.
TikTok is better known for act out memes backed by music and other sound clips which are endlessly reproduced and remixed by the youth! You may create a standalone video, or have a reaction to an already made video, perform a duet with another user, mirror your own performance or lace up your video with a filter!
I’m an Indian! I cant have Chinese products entering my space!
If we look at the app as a business proposition by ByteDance, SensorTower reports that out of the 1 billion TikTok mobile app downloads, 25% is attributable to India while 9.6% is attributable to USA . Indians have dominated the app downloads in a relatively short span of time and that makes Digital Marketing trend detectors like me sit up and notice.
Though TikTok has entered rough waters in the recent past with Madras High Court banning the app for a while due to its objectionable content but the ban has been removed and the users are creating content like never before!
Who are the brand advocates of TikTok in India?
TikTok has a huge presence in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities of India. If you browse through the list of videos, you can see people in small towns, villages and non-metropolitan cities creating TikTok video content that is shared and commented by their admirers and critics. The engagement is up to the extent that some content creators are now mini-celebrities!
A glimpse of TikTok Celebrity meetup
Event companies cash on this trend by organizing a TikTok Creator meet where handpicked TikTok celebrities perform which is again shared by their fans!
TikTok advocate shares his experience
After the event, the TikTok celebrities interact with the journalists about their journey to fame! So, it’s time to move over Bollywood and TV celebrities and start noticing the upcoming trend!
Let’s come to the point!
Platform for Branding and Promotion
As a CXO level executive, or a Brand manager or as a marketer in a firm you need a fresh set of thoughts or as they call it “Out of the box” ideas to make a difference!
If you feel there is a need to expand your product in a particular Tier 2 city of India, TikTok is a viable way to do it. Primarily, because out of all social media platforms, Facebook caters to all segments of Indian geography but the recent algorithmic changes in the wake of 2019 elections have caught most of the marketers off guard. Twitter and Linkedin cater to the intelligentsia of the society or you may see a hot debate on any social topic on twitter and might get upset. Instagram is an option but the IGTV has not picked off too well. TikTok fills the gap in the Tier 2 and Tier 3 Indian cities when you need an influencer to give an instant boost your brand or when you intend to make a trend go viral!
Case of OPPO Reno 10x Zoom model
Oppo mobile phones launched OPPO Reno 10x Zoom model just before the ICC Cricket World Cup 2019. They gave a couple of hashtags like #OPPOBillionBeats, #IndiaGiveYourHeartbeat for users to use.
Additionally, they uploaded an anthem “Jeet pe apna haq hai” with simple and easy to replicate dance steps. They roped in TikTok celebrities to create a stir around the Indian cricket sentiments attached with the World Cup. As a result, the hashtag #OPPOBillionBeats generated 1 million posts with 700 million views. One can imagine the kind of eye balls generated by OPPO to launch a new phone in a relatively new market which also means the cost for the entire marketing campaign would have been aptly optimized!
Link: http://vm.tiktok.com/dKSeNX/
A vibrant platform for content creation and curation
As a content creator, you don’t have to be a brilliant video editor to be successful in reaching out to a bigger and more engaged audience. All you need is to follow the cues of a trending audio clip and you’ll be sorted! I have been following so many Dance tutorials, Physical wellness tutorials, and mini celebrities in other parts of the world. Observe the trend before the clock ticks away!
Source: https://bytedance.com/en https://sensortower.com/blog/tiktok-downloads-one-billion https://www.tiktok.com/share/video/6700569318138055941 http://vm.tiktok.com/dKSeNX/ https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/29/its-time-to-pay-serious-attention-to-tiktok/ http://vm.tiktok.com/dKXDML/ https://www.tiktok.com/share/video/6700569318138055941
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