Is TikTok Another Fad Or A Real Social Contender?

Is TikTok for real or just another fad? That’s the question that many people are asking today. Many thought that Snapchat was a fad, but it’s still here, very much alive and well. Before you dive into any platform and whether you’re a Camsoda model or a consumer looking to connect with models, it’s important that you know everything there is to know about it.

Find out why TikTok became the emergent engagement platform of today. You’ll know everything from top to bottom about this platform. If you’re not interested, one quick glimpse of the numbers just might change your mind. Here’s what you need to know about the TikTok algorithm, userbase, downloads, and much more. 

What You Must Know About TikTok

Now, before kicking things off and digging into the facts, it’s important to understand our stance on social media. Now, we’re all for using social media platforms and we encourage our models to use them. In fact, it’s a major user base driver for many of our models. 

However, it’s important to understand that many of the social platforms have users that are under the age of 18. To cam models using any of these platforms who don’t verify their users, please use your best judgment. Now, time to get to the fun stuff, starting with the numbers…

TikTok’s Numbers Are Wild

For a company that was founded less than five years ago, the numbers are really impressive. 

800M – Each month, there are 800 million active users who regularly use TikTok. 

1B – There are one billion video views daily on the platform.

26.5M – There are 26.5M active monthly users within the United States 

52 Minutes – That’s the amount of time that the average TikTok user spends on the app. 

41% – The number of users who are between the ages of 16 and 24. 

5.5x – TikTok United States user base has grown 5.5 times in size over the last 18 months.

90% – That’s the number of TikTok users who open the app more than once per day. 

3rd Place – TikTok is the 3rd most downloaded non-gaming app. 

So, as you can see, there’s a lot of activity on this platform and it continues to grow like crazy. 

Is It Better Than Instagram?

It’s too early to tell, but what’s very evident is that Instagram and TikTok are different. Instagram, like Snapchat, is a platform that allows you to share snapshots of aspects of your life. Many share via stories rather than the traditional photo route. With TikTok, video shares can be longer (up to 60 seconds) and they tend to be more scripted. 

Although there are many more users currently accessing the Instagram platform, TikTok is not far behind. Engagement growth on TikTok has officially surpassed Instagram. As these two platforms fight tooth and nail for users, as a cam model or consumer, I remind you that it’s always best to go where the rest of the consumers are and show up early. 

But getting there isn’t enough. You need to know how to use it and how it works if you want to game the system. Just like many people try to game the Google algorithm, the same goes for TikTok. Step one is knowing how the For you feature of TikTok works. 

Mastering The For You Feature

For those of you not familiar with For You, it’s the TikTok feature that you see when opening the app. Yes, I’m referring to the never ending stream of videos that keep you scrolling for days. This video feed is a unique feed that’s just for you – hence the name. No two feeds are identical. 

If the For You page were a place in a Monopoly game, it would be Boardwalk. Getting featured on that page is literally every social media influencer’s dream and it can make or break careers – no joke. If there were only some transparency on how you can end up on that page? 

And finally there is! Here’s how it works…

According to an article published in Wired, “The company relies on a complex set of weighted signals to recommend videos, including everything from hashtags and songs to the kind of device a person is using.” What TikTok has admittedly stated is that they display content to a small subset of users once uploaded. TikTok is displaying it to these users after determining that they’re more likely to engage with the creator of the video. 

If the subset of users responds positively by either watching the entire clip or sharing it, TikTok then shares the video with people who they feel have similar interests. Videos then go viral once engagement improves as the content gets pushed further and further out to users. Watching, sharing and following are by far the strongest signals that TikTok is keeping track of. 

I guess the bottom line is simple. If you want to go viral or grow, you need to create unique content worth liking and sharing and it needs to happen at mass to exponentially reach more people out there. That said, I suggest you start creating content!  

TikTok Influencer Inspiration

Still not sure where to start? No worries! The first thing you should do is familiarize yourself with some of the hottest TikTok influencers on the app today. Influencer Marketing Hub covered the top 20 TikTok influencers in 2020 that you need to know about. My suggestion would be to follow them. If you’re looking for the full list, you can find it here.

Check out Holly H, Savannah Labrant, and Liza Koshy to name a few. Take a close look at the videos and try to identify some of the things that they’re each doing in videos that have sentiment. Oh, but always remember that this isn’t Camsoda, you need to keep it PG-13 here for the sake of your account as well as your fans. 

Is Age Really An Issue?

You better believe it’s an issue! There are tons of young people using TikTok and it’s important that you keep the content clean while promoting your brand on the platform. 

The objective is to attract consumers with the same likes and dislikes. All while making sure that they’re of legal age. Now if the For You feature works as it should, then this should help reduce the risk or put you in front of other adults looking to connect with one another. 

Conclusion: TikTok Is Here To Stay

While we’re not sure how long TikTok will be around for, we do know that it’s here to stay for now. Don’t waste a good opportunity to promote your brand or connect with cam models if you’re a consumer. You can always skip social media and connect via Camsoda.com directly. That’s probably your best bet, but if you’re looking to be social on a widely used platform, then you’ve got plenty of options – one being TikTok.