What Makes TikTok Tick?

According to a report by Sensor Tower, TikTok was the 2nd most downloaded app of 2019. Over the last few days, I’ve been exploring TikTok and below are my key takeaways on what’s driving the app’s growth.

• Focus on content rather than network — Unlike other social networks, the content you see on TikTok is largely algorithmic driven and is much less dependent on who you follow. This allows TikTok to combine all the signals it has collected about you along with data from trending videos to show you a far more relevant and entertaining feed.
• Easier onboarding for new users — One of the biggest challenges for social networks is to provide value to a new user. For example, the usefulness of your Twitter feed is highly proportional to how much time you invest in following the right people. On the other hand, TikTok and it’s algorithmic feed allows new users to directly consume content without having to build a network.

• Minimum time to value — Once you install and open the TikTok app, you’re directly taken to the “For you” feed where you get to experience the value of TikTok. The focus on demonstrating value in minimum time can be seen in the choices the team has made — no onboarding screens trying to explain what TikTok is, no account creation flows when you open the app, no follow recommendations etc.
• Make it easier for more people to participate — TikTok Trends and Challenges takes away the stress of having to come up with an original idea and allows more users to participate in the content creation process. TikTok has shown us that the same idea/theme can be expressed in so many different and creative ways.

• Build the right incentives and feedback loops — TikTok rewards creators for producing content that helps the broader community. For example, if you create an original sound, others can use your sound in their own videos. In turn, you get a lot of exposure by being featured prominently on the Original Sound page which is linked to every video that uses your sound. Such smartly designed feedback loops allow Tiktok to incentivize the desired user behavior.

Originally published at http://www.anandsamuel.com on April 17, 2020.