My Experience as a New TikToker
TikTok is currently the most happening app this year among the Younger Generation. You can see it for yourself in the videos shared on Facebook, on Instagram, Youtube, on the screens of the “kids” near you.
But is that all it is?
To understand the hype, one fine day downloaded the app. Not only because I saw potential in uploading my random doodling videos and adding weird music and effects to it, just to see how effective such a video would have on viewership among crazy teens who only watch, scroll their screens for the next one while some upload their videos.
But also because hey, if those kids could do it, so could I.
Pre TikTok.
That App
TikTok had been around for a long time now and if someone mentioned it, I would definitely have said, “oh yeah, that millenial/Gen Z app”(even though half the millenials around the world have just recently started downloading the trendy app, a push also accredited to COVID-19)
Watching 15–60 seconds videos mindlessly scrolling my screen, I openly judged TikTok users all the way from planet Facebook, watching pretty looking teenagers dancing, singing, making food out of simple recipes, dubbing and enacting crazy bits for no good cause or effect — however, with over 100K viewers on Facebook, not even on the designated app. “Those views and likes could be utilized for a better purpose” I thought frustrated.
Pfft..I can do it
Now making these videos did sound like a simple deal. Ofcourse, just download the app, literally do a bit, add visual effects to it, making full use of the lazy built-in editing features, voice overs and catchy music, all of those synced in together making it look like an easy-peasy job and ending up with a silly video. Voila! You go viral over night with millions of views by those lazy screen scrollers.
What would these kids know about working hard on SEO, content, creation, research and going to appropriate channels for authentic publications?
Post TikTok.
As a 27 year old senior millenial generation who used to understand apps in an instant, but now has to watch youtube videos on “How to ...” do anything at all, perhaps due to “maturity” or time constraints, job, “practical life” and the acceptance of the fact that we have newer teenagers in the world with an exposure of dynamically being more connected to the world than we ever were through Messenger, Yahoo, Facebook, Twitter and the older version of Instagram - I did my best to understand the app and how to use it.
Your one stop shop
With TikTok, video editing is not only an easy task to do, but with the availability of trimming, cropping, adding visual and audio effects, music, voice effects along with the ability to check what pattern is trending, it has become a one stop shop for so many. It makes it easier that TikTok has created a standard video editing system that allows creation of “trends” among the users which allows them to not go astray of the app and learn off each other in an attempt to make different content out of the same effects. There definitely is competition, more or less mirroring off of each other to maintain that image of the app. That’s smart play by TikTok, isn’t it?
Your Target Market
You will find almost all of your target audience: crazy teens, school/College students, families, influencers, start ups, celebrities - a demograph of every kind. And they all are very supportive of each other giving TikTok an image of cool, trending, content creators (users who upload videos are tagged as “Creators”). If you don’t
The New Era
Videos are the present. The future is probably AR/VR but let’s talk about videos. This app primarily focuses on video content. All users come here to either watch what others are doing or create their own. It is a new way of guilty pleasure, where you aren’t wasting your hours of your time watching a series on the same genre, but rather a collection of short videos by “real people”on original yet varying content with the latest creative elements embedded and ready to use by a regular user. It’s the place to be for those people who want entertainment that does not demand commitment.
Whether we want to accept it or not. No matter how we look at it, or judge those edgy kids, they have elevated another platform through creating content that they initially used just for fun. It’s a beauty. It’s “the trending thing” because half the online population is already there now and the other half is in the process of migrating to it.
I would say it’s definitely a revolution that the snickering population is missing out on. Give it a shot and try for yourself. As for me, I plan to create my 4th video and give going viral another shot.
