Tiktok
An Introduction to TikTok And How It Can Get You More Attention
By now, there’s no doubt that you’ve heard of TikTok, the
social media platform that has taken the world by storm. But if you’ve just
recently discovered it and you’re an artist, you may be interested in finding
out more about the platform and how it could help you garner more attention.
Read on for an introduction to TikTok.
What is TikTok?
In short, TikTok a video-sharing act that’s specifically
intended for short-form videos. Users can create and share videos that are
about 15 seconds in length on pretty much any topic. Much like other social
media platforms, once your short-form videos are uploaded to TikTok, they can
be shared on the site itself, as well as on other social platforms, such as
Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.
TikTok was formally known as Musical.ly, which as launched
back in 2014 by Alex Zhu and Luyu Yang. Soon after it was launched, the
platform and its app started to gain serious momentum with a specific set of
users; mainly tweens, teens, and young adults. Fast forward to 2017 and
Musical.ly was purchased by the Bejing-based tech and media company ByteDance,
which already owned TikTok, a similar app that was launched in 2016 in China.
While both of the apps were already popular, Muscial.ly was more popular with
American and European users, while TikTok was more poular with Asian users. When
ByteDance acquired Musical.ly, they essentially brought together the two
platforms to create a more efficient social media video-sharing platform and
decided to move forward with the TikTok name for their app and platform.
Today, TikTok has over one billion active users around the
globe, with more than 60 percent being between the ages of 10 and 29, and more
females use the app than males.
How Does TikTok Work?
So, how does TikTok work? As mentioned, the basic function
of the platform involves users creating videos and sharing them on the social
site. The videos run for up to 15 seconds and are known as “TikToks”; if you’d
prefer to make longer videos, you can do so by making multiple clips that can
be joined together to create a recording that’s up to 60 seconds long. You can
also upload longer videos that were recorded on another app onto the TikTok
platform. There are video editing and customization tools, too; you can access
a library of songs, filters, effects, and even sound bites, which you can add
to your videos. If you’d like, you can also do a duet; just reply to someone
else’s video, create a slip-screen, and you’ll have access to non-stop
reactions. If you’d like, you can also add in your own sounds and lip-sync
along with someone else’s video, too!
Why is TikTok
Invaluable for Musicians?
As you can imagine, a social platform like TikTok can do
wonders for music artists, as you can share snippets of your songs and make
music videos to grab the attention of people who already follow you, as well as
to attract a much larger audience.
Since there are so many active users and its popularity
continues to grow, there’s a massive audience that you can tap into on TikTok.
In fact, people who have moved onto TikTok have seen a marked improvement in
their brand awareness. In fact, even accounts that have no followers can
successful garner millions of view on a new video that they post to TikTok.
Plus, there’s a new feature that could help to drive more traffic, as the
platform recently introduced the option to add a link bio. Right now, only a
handful of TikTok users can add a link to their bio, but it’s likely that the
feature will be available on a wider scale soon. When that happens, you can
expect to see even bigger and better results for growing your following and
building awareness of your brand.