A beginner’s guide for TikTok
Practically over night, TikTok has blown up and found its way to Austria. But what is TikTok actually? Why is it so popular? Is it monetized? Is it safe? Let’s take a look at the platform that caught Generation’s Z attention.

TikTok is a Chinese-owned social video-sharing app. Users can shoot, edit, and share 15-second videos jazzed up with filters, music, animation, special effects, and more. Just like any other social media app, users can also follow, like, and comment on everything they see. Right now, 500 million users watch and produce short videos.
Who is the company behind TikTok?
ByteDance, which is headquartered in Beijing, bought the lip-sync video platform called Musical.ly. After al lot of controversies, Musical.ly was rebranded as TikTok. Since then, the downloads of the app doubled worldwide.
How does TikTok work?
Users can record short music videos, select from a collections of movie, TV-show or song scenes, integrate them into a “playback show”, share them and add hash tags to them. This concept is of course not new anymore. So what is behind the hype? The Chinese app is currently the most downloaded app in the world.
What makes TikTok different/unique?
According to Byte Dance, it’s “one of the first companies to launch mobile-first products powered by machine learning technology” and that it was founded to “combine the power of artificial intelligence with the growth of mobile internet to revolutionize the way people consume and receive information.”
This basically, the app uses various kinds of artificial intelligence (like facial recognition for the filters and filling the feed with customized content) and is therefore able to provide exactly what the users want.
Who are the users on TikTok?
The main users on TikTok are under 24 years old. They are the ones who started using the app first and made it big. But it’s not just kids who are getting in on the TikTok phenomenon. Celebrities like actress Reese Witherspoon and Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon also noticed the train and joined the platform.
How can we use TikTok?
So far, so good. But what is in it for us? How can we use the app in our communcation-mix? User numbers should increase rapidly in Europe and especially in Germany.
In Austria, the Red Cross is the first humanitarian organization to use the app for marketing purposes. Meanwhile, the account counts 4,200 followers. TikTok is a new way to bring humanitarian content to the otherwise hard-to-reach young target group. The current most popular video creatively explores first-aid myths and has been viewed over 60,000 times. The Red Cross will continue to approach young kids via TikTok with topics such as first aid and blood donations.
Another example is Fanta who also working on TikTok. For their Halloween campaign, the company works with influencers who transform themselves into their Halloween outfit with Fanta.

Is TikTok here to stay?
In addition to the very high organic range, the network can offer a long average length of time spent on the display, targeting functions are also available. However, on TikTok, the advertising must quickly attract attention and last a maximum of 15 seconds. Entertaining content is in demand, it is particularly important here to act quickly and not to plan forever in advance.
So, all just a hype or a new channel that is important for our Content-Strategy? Time will find out. Tik-Tok, Tik-Tok!
