TikTok. The Next Sink or Swim…
Back in 2010, an application named Instagram took the world for a storm. Within two months, the app had over 1 million users who were sharing pictures of all their life events. Today, Instagram has over 1 billion users and is arguably the top social media site. Rather than only provide a place to share photos and videos, the application now contains many features to help businesses sell products and grow brand awareness. With the continued rise of social media, many other applications are competing to have success, like Instagram.
When a company can establish a brand on a rising social media site, it can create an edge over other competitors. According to Shane Barker, “Just like other forms of marketing, the social media landscape is changing at a quick pace. This makes it important for you to keep up with the latest trends.” Therefore, companies should pay attention when a new application is beginning to be used by many users, so they can develop an audience and create brand awareness on the site. Although many people argue it is a waste of time to invest time and money in an unproven social media, the benefits of jumping onto a rising platform provides more potential benefits than risks.
TikTok: The Next Big Thing
One of the most recent trends online is the rise of TikTok. TikTok merged with an online music platform called Musical.ly on August 2, 2018. Since the merger, the application has become the most downloaded app on the app store and now has over 500 million users. The app gives users creative control to make videos that other users can view and interact with. The rapid increase in users has many people and businesses wondering if the application will continue to stick around or lose prestige like other video platforms such as Vine.
A few main differences of TikTok from other social media platforms are the trending videos with hashtags that many other users mimic and remake, the ability to create up to one minute of video content, and the young age of the bulk of its users. TikTok is a relatively new application but has already begun to surpass YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat, and Facebook in a ranking of U.S. downloads from Apple’s App Store and Google Play. If these trends continue, there is no telling whether TikTok may be able to become the next big application for businesses to advertise their products and offerings.
Don’t be a business hoping for a rapidly growing platform to sink to irrelevancy. Remain relevant. Follow the trends — download TikTok. Your next TikTok may become the next trending video and reshape your brand forever.