Do you know TikTok?

Here are some numbers:

  • 52: Average number of minutes per day that TikTok users spend on the application.
  • 500 million: The number of monthly users TikTok reports having in China.
  • 75 million: The number of new users that TikTok added in December 2018, a 275% increase over the previous year.

The platform, developed by ByteDance, is the result of a merger between one of their projects and musical.ly, which they bought for $1 billion in 2017.

The explosion in the popularity of the application is dazzling and very impressive.

Its concept is simple, users can publish video clips of up to 15 seconds in length, often lip-syncing on a soundtrack of their choice. But there are also some very entertaining “challenges” (Lip Challenge, Rotation Challenge, Boy Challenge, Shoe Change Challenge, etc. New challenges are constantly bubbling up in your news feed).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fp12gsY87h8

“Everything about TikTok teeters on the edge of amateur professionalism — and it’s that juxtaposition that makes the app so bewitching. Impressive editing is paired with the childlike acting and lip-synching the app and its challenges call for. It’s gleeful and adorable. …. TikTok isn’t about perfection; it’s about belonging to a movement.” – Julia Alexander, The Verge.

And that’s what makes the application so popular with teenagers.

The strength of the platform lies in the tools it makes available to its users: video editing, music, filters, duets, virtual money. They become the source of a great deal of creativity among the most successful young people that use them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bIEPbyUsl4

If you are not familiar with the application and platform, or even to learn a little more about the latest statistics, an article from the Quartz Obsession newsletter allows you to discover what TikTok means in the emerging social networks landscape. (By the way, don’t hesitate to subscribe to this newsletter, its content is fascinating with each mailing.)