What Is Tik Tok

After I have published my first story on Medium yesterday, in which I just briefly mentioned that I publish videos on TikTok, I recalled that I get so many questions about TikTok.

So, I thought to myself:

“”…Wait a minute, why should I keep repeating the same answers over and over again to different people if I can just post my answers one time here on Medium…”

So, this is exactly what I am going to do from now on.

It might surprise you that one of the most common questions that I get is actually the most basic one, which is:

What is Tik Tok

TikTok is an app owned by a Chinese company named ByteDance.

Just as a side note, some people are concerned about giving their personal information to a Chinese company, (that also has offices in the US by the way) but I don’t.

In my eyes if you give your personal information offline or online (to company A or company B) you are taking a risk, so it doesn’t matter if it is an American company or a Chinese company.

Now, TikTok creators can publish short videos on it (currently up to 60 seconds in length). The creators usually post 15 seconds videos on average.

I started by posting 60 seconds videos (which were tiny segments taken from my YouTube food videos), but gradually I start reducing the length of my videos to 15 seconds, and even 5 seconds (8 seconds is my average video length).

Most of the TikTok users are very young, so they have a very short attention span.

The videos are looping, so when the video reaches its end it just starts over from the beginning,

The videos can be with or without sounds, but usually creators tend to add sound to their videos from the music library that TikTok provides to its TikTok creators.

TikTok users (unlike in other apps) tend to use the app with sound on (which just shows how engaged they are in this app).

TikTok creators can also put hashtags, stickers, effects, and even edit their videos on the app itself to make their videos get more views and be more compelling.

Now, TikTok provides their creators their own page (like on Instagram) where the creators can add their information, and a link to their website.

Right after you activate the TikTok app on your device you will see a lopping video (this is a video that appears on your video feed which is famously called The For You Page) by a TikTok creator which you can like, comment, share or just swipe up to skip (you can also follow this creator to see more of this creator’s content).

If you ask me, This For You Page is the most addictive thing in the world,

Because you never know what you are going to see in it — so it is always exciting and refreshing.

Sometimes you will see a dancing video, sometimes a personal story, sometimes business tips, sometimes a comedy sketch, sometimes a cooking video — very random as you can see.

In the background there is the TikTok Algorithm that will keep learning about your viewing behavior and will try its best to give you more videos on the topics that you like to see.

(So, if you see a video that you like just interact with it as much as possible (like it, comment on it, share it, watched it until the end, watch it a few times, follow the creator) so TikTok will show you more videos like it.

At the end of the day TikTok wants to keep you on the app, so the more it gives you what you want to see, the more you stay on the app, the more ad space they can sell to advertisers.

No one knows exactly how the TikTok Algorithm works, but from my experience it gives more views to creators who can keep users on the app for a longer time period.

So, videos that get more: likes, comments, shares, watch time, repeated views also get also more exposure,

It is hard to determine which factor is the most important in the TikTok Algorithm, so I can only guess that the total watch time is more important than the number of shares, comments, and likes that you get.

But again, this is just my guess, TikTok doesn’t provide this information to its creators.

The Tik Tok app was formally an app called Musical.ly that did bring some new celebrities but really never produced as many celebrities as TikTok is already bringing.

You will actually be able too see many of the iconic celebrities that you know on this app (people like Will Smith, Anthony Hopkins, Sylvester Stallone, and Arnold Schwarzenegger, just to name a few).

TikTok really grew and keeps growing by keep bringing many celebrities intro the platform, and this is a clever move on their part.

The celebrities fans want to know what their favorite celebrities are up to, so they just follow them on TikTok to get updated.

So, ByteDance acquired Musical.ly, and changed its name to TikTok which is currently the number 2 most popular app in the world.

It was one of the most downloaded apps in the app stores in 2019, and it is slowly becoming the number 1 app — already bypassing powerhouses apps such as Facebook, Facebook Messenger, an Instagram (by the number of downloads).

In the beginning TikTok was just about lip sync and dancing videos, but now as I mentioned you see TikTok creators publish many different kinds of videos (tutorials, prank videos, news videos, etc…)

So, it is funny, but nowadays, when I want to be updated what’s going on in the world, I just open my TikTok app to get the latest news.

But this is a very general explanation that will not do justice to this revolutionary app.

The reality is that:

TikTok is a beast. It is a game changer.

You see, the problem that many creators have nowadays is that they can’t get their name out.

If you post your first video on other social media platforms, such as YouTube for example, then you will understand exactly what I mean.

You will find it very hard to get a lot of views.

YouTube is already an established platform with lots of established creators, so your video will rarely get seen.

This is not the case with TikTok (at least not in the time of writing this story — 2020).

In 2020, TikTok has almost zero boundaries.

No boundaries with regard to the amount of traffic that you can get.

Or in other words…

You can be a complete nobody, with just a few friends, (who also don’t like you very much) publish a video on TikTok, and within a few hours you can be an household name across the world.

This is not me trying to make my point through exaggeration.

This is what TikTok is in 2020.

Not another social networking app, but an alien life form which is about to take over the world.

It is uncharted waters, and it is a good thing and a bad thing.

The good thing of course is the crazy amount of traffic that a person with zero fans can get, the bad thing is that if you are sensitive to harsh language or rude behavior then you need to know that you are going see a lot of it in your TikTok feed.

There is currently a lot of profanity there, that’s for sure.

Boundaries can be a good thing, but also a bad thing to some people.

I actually was surprised when I saw that young people use such profanity.

In 2020, most users who use the TikTok app are between the ages of 13–24, they open the app 8 times a day, and they spend on it 61 minutes on average each and every day.

Now, as we have already seen with previous apps such as Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube, untapped potential doesn’t last forever.

It doesn’t mean that you will not be able to publish your videos on TikTok in the future, but it will probably be like posting them to any other social platform.

You will get some views, but nothing to write home about.

Publishing videos on TikTok today is very much like buying real estate for low cost.

You publish videos now when the competition is extremely low, and make your return on investment a few years down the line when your videos are ranking high and you are untouchable by competition.

If you want to follow me on my TikTok journey, just click here and say hello.

Amir

p.s: Get my full video course, and all my other courses for $12 per month through this link: https://bit.ly/2UB1HH7