Whether you live in a city or a village, there’s no way you would have missed watching a TikTok video on the app or on Facebook. In recent times, TikTok — the 15 second video sharing platform — has been a rage among the youth.
The app is not only popular among urban youngsters but is also catching the attention of the rural youth as the platform is a great medium of entertainment and socialisation.
At a recent event hosted by TikTok India in Mumbai, we caught up with Sachin Sharma, director, sales and partnerships, ByteDance India (which owns TikTok), to find out the recent trends on the platform that are hyper regional in nature.
The local flavour
Sharma explains that increasing internet penetration and affordable smartphones are the two primary reasons behind the rise in numbers of Indians opting for a digitally enabled and enhanced lifestyle. “Since its launch in the early first half of 2017, TikTok has received an overwhelming response in India and the number of users has grown rapidly because it enables everyone to be a creator and inspires users to share their passion and creative expression through their videos,” says Sharma.
He believes that it is this spirit that in turn, has led to a lot of these users becoming key influencers on social media in India including the ones belonging to smaller towns and cities.
So what is it about the app that people are so hooked on to it? He adds that the localisation strategy of the app helps them in encouraging users to create relevant and local content along with incorporating global trends.
“Our operations team is in sync with the market needs to ensure TikTok provides the best community support for creativity and discovery for our local users to provide a platform for them to showcase creativity. We also focus on improving the user experience and delivering more diverse and compelling content that is also relevant to the regional audience,” adds Sharma.
As an app, they recognise that creativity is not just limited to the audience belonging to certain towns or users speaking a particular language, but they focus on making it more inclusive. “Our mission is to capture and present the world’s creativity, knowledge, and moments that matter, directly from the mobile phone thereby enabling everyone to be a creator,” he quips.
He says that the app celebrates diversity and believes in giving everyone a platform. There has been a huge rise in the number of TikTok users belonging to various regions of our county. Sharma adds, “More users are joining the platform from deeper pockets of the country and we believe there is still a wide audience which is still waiting to be explored.”
15 seconds to money!
Apart from giving you fame, in case your video goes viral just like Priya Varrier whose wink became an overnight sensation, the app also lets your earn.
Sharma says that since the beginning TikTok has enjoyed immense popularity in India and the innovative content has only helped its audience grow. This is evident through its over 200 million users. “As a content interaction platform, the app facilitates revenue generation for creators and we enable them to get a wider following on other social channels as well due to our cross-platform integration,” he explains.
He adds that more and more creators are turning into influencers in their own right. As a result, many brands, artists and even production houses are realising the impact of launching a song, movie or campaign on TikTok. “The biggies not only leverage artists or actors to launch the campaign, but also engage with our creators on the app by using the innovative marketing tools that the app offers such as the Hashtag Challenge. These challenges generate a lot of traction,” Sharma adds.
The road ahead
When asked about the future of the app and upcoming trends in social media, Sharma says that the short video content is here to stay. He feels that the vine culture will continue to grow as users are looking for creative and ‘snackable’ content online.
“Our number of users has grown rapidly and TikTok was even crowned as one of India’s most entertaining apps according to Google Play Awards 2018 which is a testament to TikTok’s success and popularity in India,” Sharma points out.
The developers understand that TikTok’s popularity is beyond Hindi and English. “TikTok is currently available in 10 major Indian languages, celebrating diversity and giving everyone a platform to express themselves creatively. We are optimistic about the future and hope to continue to grow while creating a better in-app environment for our creators and users,” he concludes.