Over the past few years, the TikTok app has gained immense popularity, embraced by a wide user base who found in it a platform to express their interests, coupled with its user-friendly interface. But how did this app begin, how does it operate, and what’s the secret behind its prevalence among teenagers?
TikTok is a social media app that has gained significant fame in our current era, despite being present since 2016. Initially known as “Musical.ly,” it underwent a transformation in 2018 when the Chinese company “ByteDance” acquired it, renaming it TikTok. It is considered the international version of the Chinese app “Douyin.” TikTok quickly gained global fame and popularity.
The app is dedicated exclusively to sharing short video clips, allowing users to create and publish videos on various topics. It is predominantly used on mobile phones, although it has a dedicated platform on Google.
The app, whether on mobile or Google, offers video recording and uploading to the site with a variety of filters, background music, and audio-visual effects.
According to global statistics from Statista, the number of TikTok users reached approximately 143.3 million users in the United States between 2022 and 2023. Considering the U.S. population during that period, over 43% of the population used the app.
South Korea tops the list of countries with the most TikTok users at 113 million, followed by Indonesia with 110 million users, and then Saudi Arabia, where 87.9% of the population, or 9 out of 10 individuals over 18 years old, use the app.
In the latest TikTok statistics, the app has been installed approximately 3.5 billion times by its users.
When ByteDance acquired TikTok, it had a clear vision of how to widely spread the app. The optimal way to achieve this, according to ByteDance, was to introduce famous personalities through subscriptions or partnerships.
Indeed, the company paid numerous global celebrities to appear in short videos on the app, encouraging their followers on all social media platforms to subscribe to TikTok. The primary method to attract the audience was through “challenges,” a strategy still popular on the platform today.
One notable personality that stood out in promoting the app was English comedian “Jimmy Fallon.” Leveraging the COVID-19 pandemic and the lockdown period in 2020, Fallon created a TV show called “The Tonight Show,” which he broadcasted from home. In the show, he hosted stars and engaged them in what became known as “challenges,” utilizing TikTok. This significantly contributed to the widespread adoption of the app.
One famous challenge was the “rolling on the green grass challenge,” where users had to record themselves rolling on the grass and use the hashtag “#TumbleWeedChallenge.” This hashtag gained tremendous popularity, amassing around 39.2 million views.
As the app continued to expand, many other celebrities joined in promoting it, including singer “Jason Derulo,” actor-producer “Will Smith,” dancer “Addison Rae,” and many more.
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