If you’ve landed on this article, you probably already know what TikTok is, and your next stage is figuring out if your business actually needs it. Not all businesses can be equally successful on TikTok; the majority of companies leveraging TikTok now are eCommerce, consulting and education services, but when put properly, other niches can get the most out of TikTok alike.

TikTok audience is growing exponentially month by month, and now the amount of active users exceeds 800 million.

But before we dig further into the practical aspects of TikTok marketing (which is a subject of our upcoming articles), here are some reasons why your brand shouldn’t ignore TikTok in 2020 and later on:

Topics diversity

TikTok has it all: from funny lip-syncing dances and vines to digital learning and environmental issues. Creators are so much diverse there, so it’s no longer an app for kids singing karaoke or dancing. As the video topics are different, the audiences are different, too. Notwithstanding that TikTok appeals more for youngsters who make good 60% of all TikTok users, 40% (which is a lot) of the audience are older than that.

So when barging in TikTok, you can be sure that there is your target audience.

The scope of influencers there is also worth mentioning. More diverse influencers bring more diverse audiences and more advertising dollars. Content creators who want more flexibility to impress the up-and-coming Gen Zers, which will soon be the largest consumer generation in the world, are pursuing TikTok aspirations. Social commerce is an unstoppable trend, and if you want to stay on top of it, you need to appeal to Gen Z.

Clear algorithm

TikTok has recently officially explained how their algorithm works. Long story short, it works pretty much the same as other social media algorithms, including Instagram or YouTube. Yet, it’s a bit different regarding the speed with which creators garner engagement and ability to get onto the recommended (For You) page. For instance, a creator’s followership or past performance are not taken into account in terms of getting into the For You page. Rather, TikTok weighs each video and its performance individually.

Some key points that factor whether a video is recommended to your audience are:

  • User interactions — TikTok considers in the videos you like and/or share, the accounts you follow, the comments you leave, and the content you create. So, for example, if you post videos with a certain hashtag, there’s a higher possibility you’ll see content with the same hashtag in your feed.
  • Video information such as captions, sounds, songs, and hashtags.
  • Device and account settings — Facets that weigh lesser are things like your language preference, your country setting and your mobile device type.
  • ​Percentage of people watching your videos through to completion. If people watch your videos till the end, it will increase your chances to get higher reach.

“A strong indicator of interest, such as whether a user finishes watching a longer video from beginning to end, would receive greater weight than a weak indicator, such as whether the video’s viewer and creator are both in the same country”, reports Social Media Today.

  • Your other interactions. “Your ‘For You’ feed isn’t only shaped by your engagement through the feed itself. When you decide to follow new accounts, for example, that action will help refine your recommendations too, as will exploring hashtags, sounds, effects, and trending topics on the Discover tab.”

Another interesting point is that TikTok can add a video to your feed even if you haven’t interacted with its creator or searched for similar content before. It’s done to ‘diversify’ the feed and test your engagement behaviour.

Tips: if you want to get discovered quickly, use hashtags like #fyp, #foryou, or #foryoupage in your captions. Also, don’t forget to discover which hashtags, challenges and sounds are trending at the moment, so you could jump on a bandwagon and amplify your chances of getting onto the For You page.

Unique social media positioning

TikTok stands distinguished among its social media competitors. It may not be the digital forum for serious (and often toxic) debate like Twitter. And it may not be the ideal communication medium for real-time chats with friends like WhatsApp or Telegram. It’s also different from Instagram with its polished influencers and luxurious images.

And Instagram isn’t nearly as entertaining when everyone is locked inside and not exploring the world.

10 TikTok stats for 2020 you should know

141 countries

According to Apptrace, the TikTok app is currently available in 141 countries out of 195 total.

Highest ER per post among all social media

According to Influencer Marketing Hub, ER on TikTok is higher than one on Instagram and Twitter.

800 million active users worldwide

TikTok has 800 million active users worldwide, according to Datareportal. That makes TikTok 9th in terms of social network sites, ahead of better-known sites such as LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, and Snapchat.

39 Languages

TikTok’s support says that ‘TikTok is currently available in 39 languages. You can change the language displayed in your TikTok app anytime.’

1.9 Billion Installations

TikTok has been installed on smartphones more than 1.9 billion times the world over. It passed the 1- billion milestone in February 2019.

52 minutes per day spent on average

When it comes to the daily time spent on TikTok, users spend an average of 52 minutes per day, according to BusinessofApps. This means that people are using the app daily either for creating and sharing short videos of themselves or for watching the existing plethora of TikTok videos uploaded to the platform.

56% of TikTok users are male

And 44% are female, according to App Ape Lab.

9/10 users open TikTok several times a day

90% of all TikTok users access the app on a daily basis multiple times. They are also extremely active on the app — 68% of TikTok users watch someone else’s video and 55% upload their own videos, based on the GlobalWebIndex report.

26.5 million monthly active users are from the USA

1 billion views

Last year, 1 billion TikTok videos were viewed every day.

It’s hardly possible to cover all aspects of TikTok and TikTok marketing in one piece, so await for upcoming articled focused on this platform and ways of leveraging it for your brand promotion.

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