Within a year from its creation, TikTok has taken the world by storm, attracting billions of users to the video-sharing app, but is this success sustainable or is it simply a fad that will fade as quickly as its viral content does?

TikTok history

What started as a teen karaoke app, otherwise known as Musical.ly in 2016, has quickly become an overnight success after Chinese company ByteDance acquired and rebranded the app teens now know and love as TikTok in an attempt to expand to US markets. The app’s success can partially be attributed to its main focus: 15 to 60-second videos that are algorithmically recommended on a “For You” feed or recommended based on who you follow on a separate “Following” feed. This focus is something that had not been seen since Vine, another video-sharing app that, while wildly popular, failed to prove its worth and was shut down in 2016. 

While TikTok´s recent growth is impressive, it’s important to take into account the massive ad campaign that ByteDance has invested in. According to the Wall Street Journal, over $1 billion has been spent on ads to drive users onto the platform. So far, the investment has proven itself successful as TikTok takes the title of the most downloaded app internationally. What’s highly crucial for the app’s future success, is to make sure that those users are retained over time.

Because app downloads aren’t everything, in order to avoid being nothing more than a viral trend, TikTok must retain its user’s attention, offering something more than what other video-related apps like Instagram and Snapchat already do. In a way, the app’s AI learning capabilities will help deliver content and a platform that truly knows its users and their behavior. With the young audience’s needs to connect and create, allowing its users to freely and creatively express themselves while promoting a sense of transparency and community will be instrumental in creating and retaining a loyal user base. While the app is already on the right track by offering creative and collaborative tools like “duet” feature, that allows users to respond and interact with others’ videos, it’ll be interesting to see what other features TikTok will release in order to keep the interest and novelty in the app going.

Another challenge that TikTok may face is adapting to an ever-growing and ever-changing market. Currently, TikTok users in the US mainly consist of people in the 16-24 age bracket. This, however, might not always be the case. As TikTok continues to grow and succeed, it will begin to gain more public attention and attract people from other demographics following the footsteps of Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram who originally started with younger users as its early adopters and eventually shifted to a more mature user base. This will be a balancing act for TikTok to maintain, as it will need to appeal to all future audiences without driving any segment away in order to keep its exponential user base growth.

With a saturated and heavily competitive market, it’s hard to argue that TikTok’s success will be a long term thing. Just remember Vero, a promising new take on Instagram that went viral and then flopped in a matter of days. While TikTok seems to be off to a better start, it’s just a matter of whether the app will know how to adapt to its audiences demands in the future while maintaining profitability to continue its success, a struggle often seen between social media apps, its content creators, and its users.

Source: https://blog.globalwebindex.com