TikTok: a new trend on China’s social media market
You are not up to speed if you still haven’t heard of TikTok. This is the “new sexy” on China’s social media market.
Back in September 2016, a Chinese mobile video community app called TikTok (In Chinese: Douyin/ https://www.douyin.com) was launched. The app is similar to musical.ly, which was also founded by Chinese engineers but most popular with young Western people. TikTok allows users to share 15-sec music videos of their own creation.
No one expected that the launch of Tik ok would challenge the existing giants’ monopoly of the social media market. Unlike musical.ly, which is primarily based on ordinary young people’s user-generated content, TikTok leans more on the popularity of celebrities. It encourages pop stars and influencers from other platforms to sign up for TikTok accounts, and sponsored a popular online TV show – “The Rap of China”.
This celebrity-driven marketing strategy has made TikTok the most successful video-community app in China and beyond. In May 2017, the views of TikTok’s video reached 100 million per day. Three months later, this figure shot up to 1 billion. In November 2017, TikTok even acquired musical.ly – its main competitor in the Western market (statistics from: http://news.zol.com.cn/679/6795098.html).
In particular, TikTok is most popular with young Chinese people. Statistics show 85 per cent of TikTok users are aged under 24. Recently, even a department of the Chinese government (focusing on the youth community) has realised the great potential of TikTok for engaging with the young people, and has signed up for an official account on the platform.
Young Chinese people aged under 24 are typically students at secondary school or universities. They are the target audience for universities’ recruitment. Time is ticking, and it’s not going to be long before Western universities need to consider the possibility of getting on board with TikTok.
If you need help with reaching Chinese audiences through social media, get in touch. We’d love to chat.