The videos created on TikTok—referred to as 'TikToks' themselves—are often guided by in-app trends and sounds. These 15-60 second videos are shared in a simple, scrolling feed format and are designed to be shared easily with family members and across other platforms.
What is TikTok? TikTok is a social media platform for creating, sharing and discovering short videos. The app is used by young people as an outlet to express themselves through singing, dancing, comedy, and lip-syncing, and allows users to create videos and share them across a community.
The App Has 30.8 Million Daily Active Users via iOS
The iOS version of TikTok reigns supreme, as data shows it has 30.8 million daily active users as of December 2021. The Android version still performs well, but it only has 14.43 million daily active users.
Difference Between Tiktok and Vine
How is Tiktok different from Vine? Videos on Vine were only 6 seconds long, while Tiktok allots 60 seconds.
TikTok is a video-sharing social media platform where you can create, edit, share, discover and watch short, vertical videos—from just a few seconds long, all the way up to 10 minutes.
The social media platform allows its users to both create and watch short video content, that is primarily 15 seconds in length. People crave micro-entertainment and short bursts of video distraction, this is one of the main reasons for the app's popularity. Content is short, fun and on-trend.
Common Sense recommends the app for age 15+ mainly due to the privacy issues and mature content. TikTok requires that users be at least 13 years old to use the basic TikTok features, although there is a way for younger kids to access the app.
TikTok's main selling point is that it features built-in recording and editing capabilities that make it easy for content creators to quickly record, edit, and post video content on the platform–and have them go viral when done right.
TikTok's Viewers Are More Engaged
Vine had a very centralized creator community. That means only a fraction of users would actually create content on a regular basis while most of them were simply passive viewers. Out of the already limited number of creators, only a handful were actually popular.
TikTok Users by Gender
As of the latest data (January 2022), the majority of TikTok users are female (57%). And 43% are male. In a similar vein, the majority of TikTok creators are also female (53.79%).
Addiction: Since the app boasts an “endless stream” of material, students are likely to spend a long time in the app and might even become addicted to watching the videos for hours at a time. Bullying: A high school principal in New York tells SmartSocial Founder Josh Ochs that students are being bullied on TikTok.
TikTok remains teens' most favored social media platform so far in 2023, though its favorability fell one percentage point from the fall of 2022 with a 37% share, according to Piper Sandler's Spring 2023 Taking Stock with Teens survey. Behind TikTok is Snap (27%) and Instagram (23%).
The app is letting users restrict their videos so only viewers only the age of 18 can watch. In a blog post, TikTok announced an expansion of its Content Levels, which group the app's users by age and restrict the content seen by younger groups.
TikTok is fighting to stay alive in the United States as pressure builds in Washington to ban the app if its Chinese owners don't sell the company. But the wildly popular platform, developed with homegrown Chinese technology, isn't accessible in China.
The country said that the app presented an “unacceptable” risk to privacy and security. India: The country was one of the first ones to prohibit TikTok and other Chinese apps in 2020 soon after 20 Indian soldiers were killed in a confrontation with Chinese troops along their disputed Himalayan border.
TikTok, which has over 150 million American users, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Chinese technology firm ByteDance Ltd., which appoints its executives.
TikTok generates money when brands buy these ads to reach their worldwide audiences. With 2-D and 3-D Augmented reality branded lenses, Tiktok is making the platform more participatory and fun. In combination with the hashtag challenge, these lenses have the potential to make the campaign more engaging.
If you want to make money directly from TikTok, you'll need to have at least 10,000 followers, plus at least 100,000 video views in the last 30 days.
TikTok makes money from advertising, shop commissions, fees from subscriptions, and music royalties. The business model of TikTok is centered around becoming a super app on which users can not only consume videos, but shop for items, play games, and so much more.
According to TikTok: “The system recommends content by ranking videos based on a combination of factors — starting from interests you express as a new user, and adjusting for things you indicate you're not interested in.”
Adults looking for a new way to connect with others online can look no further than a social media app gaining popularity. Clapper is a video-sharing app catering to grown-ups and offers local and global videos to users and is available in 40 countries.
1. Watch-time and length. One of the most significant differences between YouTube and TikTok videos is how long the user watch-time is. TikTok creators can share videos between 15-second and 10-minutes long, but YouTube gives creators the ability to share up to 15-minutes or unlimited for verified accounts.
Jean Twenge, our nation's leading researcher on how social media impacts child and adolescent development, recommends that no child under 13 should be on any social media, including TikTok. And I would add that many 13-year-olds aren't ready. TikTok offers a curated version of their app for under-13s. Don't use it.
It's not possible to see exactly who has viewed your videos, however. People can see how many times a video has been viewed from the thumbnail on their profile page, but this doesn't include information about specific accounts.
1 ENABLE device-level parental controls
TikTok states that the app is intended for users aged 13 years and over and has a 12+ App Store rating.