Some business thoughts can converge the best of everything at the right time and witness unprecedented success. We have seen this happen with multiple industries and in this process, we have also seen some brands that were considered to be indomitable in their space getting toppled by these new businesses.
If we can talk about one such business in the field of social media, it has to be TikTok. It would not be an exaggeration to say that TikTok converged everything that was needed in the social media space at the right time.
A bit about TikTok
TikTok, as we all know, is music and video-based social media application. The app topped the download charts of the App Store in 2018 and it continues to progress in terms of download numbers shadowing Facebook and Twitter. When we talk about investments, the company has a formidable portfolio of investors.
The company is considered more valuable than Uber and is far ahead of some well-established names like Airbnb.
The company was founded in 2014 and there are more than 100 million users who actively use TikTok. Although TikTok has suffered a few blows in terms of the app getting banned in India, it still continues to dominate in America, Europe, and its home ground China.
What makes TikTok a success?
As we have already seen, TikTok has a lot of features that make it an ideal social network.
The focus – While social networks like Snapchat focus on filters and Facebook makes us focus on textual or graphic content, TikTok makes it easy for people to create videos and that too, short and convenient ones that do not take a lot of time to shoot and edit. These highlights impeccably take into account the millennials and the younger generation who do not have a lot of time to focus on a single thing.
Going mobile-first – Creating a platform for sharing videos is not a new thing: YouTube had established this new age information sharing method eight years before TikTok. However, the primary focus of YouTube was on the web, whereas TikTok focuses on mobile devices. It enables people not only to shoot but create, edit, publish, and share videos even using a low-powered smartphone.
Making content creation easy – Think about an app like Facebook. Here, users will have to create content from scratch. However, on TikTok, users can even consider lip-synching to the existing wide repository of music tracks. Therefore, it becomes easy for users to just choose one track, familiarize themselves with the dialogue, and simply synchronize their lip moment. This presents a massive advantage over platforms like Facebook and Twitter, where people will have to squeeze their thoughts to come up with a content idea.
Leveraging celebrity presence – TikTok has a lot of prominent global celebrity figures marking an active presence on the platform. The list of celebrities includes Ariana Grande, Jimmy Fallon, and Will Smith. This automatically diverted fans of these celebrities to join TikTok and even lip-synch to their videos. This helped skyrocket the popularity of the app.
Options to monetize – No, we are not talking about the advertising options that the TikTok platform provides. People with a considerable chunk of followers on TikTok kickstarted the new wave of influencers for the new generation. They were able to earn huge profits from TikTok as brands wanted to leverage their popularity. These people kept the platform fueled with fresh and engaging content that brought in a lot of new users.
Lavish in sharing – TikTok might be an app on its own, but it did not hesitate to tie up with other apps for sharing. This made it easier for users to promote them in places that were earlier considered unreachable. People could immediately share their creations on WhatsApp or Twitter, making it easy to increase popularity and acquire followers.
The market of TikTok like app
It might not be possible to clearly define a market size for an app like TikTok. However, the growing smartphone penetration, the need for homegrown brands, and the inclusion of newer generation into the group of smartphone users make the market ideal for the introduction of a TikTok alternative.
The fact that multiple social networking sites exist without jeopardizing the progress of another is a resounding testimony to the fact that you can consider launching an app like TikTok.
Before you embark on your sojourn of TikTok like app development, you will need to be aware of the features at the basic and advanced levels.
The avenues of monetization of video sharing app
The greatness of TikTok does not live in its magnitude of innovation alone. It is the numbers in profit that make TikTok a lucrative business idea. In 2018, the revenue of the company exceeded $7 billion and with the pandemic catalyzing its usage, it will not be a surprise to see a 300% growth in that number.
The simplest way to monetize an app like TikTok is to run ads through the platforms provided by Google and Apple. Almost every app makes money in this fashion. However, if a user pays to use your platform, then they should not have any ads running on their interface.
This brings us to the next avenue of monetization, which is the introduction of subscriptions with a freemium model. Basic features should be available for anyone, but if they need to access premium features, the users will need to pay an additional amount.
In addition, you can also facilitate purchases within the app. It can include access to some premium music tracks, live sessions with celebrities, special galleries, and a lot more. The only limit in this regard is your imagination and creativity.
The features of Tiktok Clone App
The profitability and the dependability of an app like TikTok have been established. It is quite likely that an aspiring entrepreneur would want to build a business out of music and video-based social network like TikTok. There are certain features that need to be in place to ensure that your app functions properly.
- The user should be able to create an account on your social media app without any hassle. They should be able to register using either their email address or phone number. It should be noted that TikTok lets users watch the creations and videos of other users without mandating registration.
- The registration should immediately create a profile for the users where information regarding their creations and their followers should be displayed.
- The users should be able to see a feed of videos from the people they follow. Based on their interest and interactions, the feed should also include videos that can be of interest to them.
- The users should be able to search for contents of their choice based on multiple parameters like usernames, music tracks, and even hashtags that collate a particular trend on an app like TikTok.
- The users should be able to easily create videos as it can be considered the epicenter of the entire app. They should be able to either use the camera or directly upload videos from their gallery.
- When users create videos, they should have access to some quick editing tools, filters, effects, emojis, and masks. The editing options should facilitate slowing down/accelerating the video, reversing, and cropping/snipping videos.
- Enabling easier subscriptions, especially for brands, the users should be able to follow a person by scanning the QR code integrated within the app.
- Push notifications should be effectively used to communicate with users regarding new content from people they follow, viral trends, and certain content from celebrities. Push notifications can also be passively used to promote content as a part of an advertising program.
- The app should be able to flawlessly share content with other social networks and instant messaging apps.
- Content creators should have access to detail analytics, so they can create content that is more likely to be consumed based on the number of views and interactions.
Taking it to the next level
Beyond these basic features, some research and investment in technology will ensure that your music and video social marketing app will conquer a greater count of audience.
The focus of TikTok was on Generation Z and they built the product according to the needs of those people. Their focus gave them massive success and when you launch the product, it is important to identify the niche of your audience.
The GPS is an amazing revolution of recent times. What was once accessible to just the military and aviation is now made available on every smartphone. Using the location factor, you can create better feeds that cater to the trends of your location.
The interface of the application ought to be easily navigable and intuitive. Users should be able to quickly create videos, interact with content, and comment on them.
Bringing in artificial intelligence for better content ideas, a more appealing content feed, and more lucrative advertising for users will ensure that your platform gets the much-needed wings for launching itself into profitability.
Conclusion
The success of TikTok has revealed to the world without an iota of doubt that music and video-based social networking is here to stay. It also does a lucrative business because of the multiple avenues for profit it brings to the table. If you are one of those aspiring entrepreneurs who would like to build your own Tiktok Like App Development, you can go for a TikTok clone app. A TikTok clone script is easy to customize and it can be garnished with features of your choice both in the visual and technical arenas.
You can drop a line to one of the companies that specializes in the development and customization of white-label TikTok clone app. They will take it to understand your requirement and present you with the perfect product, all set and ready to launch into the market!
