FreireGreenwood_TikTok

TikTok is a popular social platform that started as Musically before merging with TikTok. It was founded by Zhang Yiming and has become widely used, with over 1 billion monthly active users. The app's main feature is the "For You" page, which shows personalized content based on user preferences. TikTok also has a creator fund that allows users to earn money for their content. The app has surpassed 2 billion downloads and has become the most visited website, overtaking Google. The future of TikTok looks promising, with more opportunities for creators and continued growth in popularity. Instagram has tried to compete with TikTok through its Reels feature, but TikTok remains unique with its algorithm and user experience. Have you ever thought of a place where you could post anything you wanted whether it was dancing videos something about sports gaming Vlogs about your day your outfit of the day literally anything you name it What I just described to you is what we're going to be talking about today's podcast TikTok took off roughly three years ago and today we're going to unpack everything you need to know about this widely used social platform I'm Jessica and I'm here with Caitlin and we're going to tell you everything you need to know about the type talk All right. So hi everybody I'm Caitlin and basically what we're going to do is we're just going to start with like a little rundown of TikTok and it's just timeline of how it became to be before we like actually unpack like the importance of TikTok in today's society, so All right, take it away Caitlin. Here we go. So it all starts in March of 2012. So our internet Entrepreneur Zhang Yimin found ByteDance in Beijing and then in July of 2014 I like to do he launches musically which is an app that enables users to create short form lip-sync music videos so before TikTok we'll kind of dive into this later on but TikTok was initially musically and then later on musically like Merged and became TikTok all of a sudden which we'll get to that. So Caitlin all you keep going So we're gonna get to it so then in November of 2017 ByteDance acquires musically for 1 billion dollars and the company starts operating musically in the United States and then in August of 2018 ByteDance merges with musically and then with TikTok and migrates all all users profiles to TikTok and Alex Zhu becomes TikTok's senior vice president Saying that combining musically and TikTok is a natural fit given to the shared mission of both experiences To create a community where everyone can be a creator. I want to sit on that for a second and just talk about when I first saw when Musically merged with TikTok and coming from personal experience like it was Kind of a weird thing I would say I don't know if you would agree on this or not But um, I remember in like middle school like pretty much all of my friends including myself like we all use musically and then like it was musically for a while and then I don't remember what year was but Yeah, it was like our 8th grade freshman year Um Everybody was like did y'all update musically? Did y'all update musically? And I was like what like what's what's going on? and then everybody was like it's this thing called TikTok TikTok now and like so for a while like TikTok wasn't like as commonly used because people are like what is this app now? Like what happened to musically like it was it was weird and I remember Um, all my friends would be like you're weird if you're using TikTok Everybody just kind of had the idea that like TikTok was like kind of stupid and then it was just like Taking the idea of musically but nobody I guess nobody really understood what was happening like behind the scenes as to why TikTok became TikTok and why it was no longer musically. I don't know if you want to add anything Yeah, adding on to that what my experience and my take from it was that it was cool and like middle school to have musically and to post on there and then when Like TikTok became a thing if you were using TikTok or making like short videos on it You were being basically judged for having it which was honestly in my opinion Really weird because it was basically still the same platform, but just with a different thing Yeah And it was like its features were also a little bit different too. Honestly like looking back now I Couldn't tell you like what musically was. I mean it was the same concept with like videos and everything but like I don't really know what the difference was between the two, but everybody just like it's kind of like baffled almost at how it just changed and like nobody really wanted to Use it because it was something new and something different Mm-hmm. Exactly. All right, so continuing on with our timeline. So in February of 2019 Lil Nas X Released Old Town Road on TikTok and it catalyzed the viral sensation that ultimately reached number one on Billboard's chart So this is actually something kind of really important and that was really good for TikTok, especially with like Musicians and singers like marketing all their new songs is because that a lot of people actually started Going on TikTok because of like all these celebrities and all these musicians like posting all their new songs and their little snippets and stuff like that and like now fast forward to now that's like a huge thing on TikTok which we'll dive in like to more detail later on but Like nowadays you will see like I would say like rising musicians like they'll try and promote themselves because they are like a smaller musician and not really well known that they'll like post these snippets of like their new songs that they're coming out with but like Meaningful lyrics that will like resonate with a lot of people so they'll try and like promote their Music through TikTok which is kind of like why this Why what Lil Nas X did is like so important like so important to the app and so significant Yeah, and if you think about it, that's honestly how he kind of got his start as a musician Like he posted Old Town Road and then or Old Town Road and it was like a big song like it was catchy Everybody liked it. They were making their like their TikToks their dances to it and like it was just blowing up on the app And all of a sudden it was on the radio like the next few days and then eventually like adding on to that There were like multiple remixes of this song. So like TikTok was a big influence And to this not only the song but like Lil Nas X's career But we can keep going on with the timeline and just yeah, exactly. So then in December of 2019 TikTok Became the most downloaded app in the world and second in the United States and then April 2020 TikTok surpassed 2 billion downloads and set the record for quarterly downloads And then in September September 27, 2021 TikTok announced that it surpassed 1 billion monthly active users And the app continuously kept like rapidly rising in popularity And then in December 2021 TikTok overtakes Google as the most visited website on the internet Okay this one's funny because there have been multiple times for different reasons where I haven't had my phone Like just you know just because you know sometimes you just got to get away from it but like But sometimes it gets me into like exploring and somehow I get into like exploring And somehow I stumbled across like TikTok's website and it was really weird to me because I honestly just thought it was like a mobile like platform where you could only use it on your phone And then I discovered that like you can use it on your laptop you can use it on a computer And so I think that's another reason as to why this app is becoming so like widely like popular because of the fact that it's not just mobile friendly but also like computer friendly as well Exactly and then in April 2022 TikTok is known as the most downloaded app in the world and during the first quarter of 2022 yeah it was just the most downloaded app in the world Yeah so I think all of those things are like really important to like who is really behind TikTok and like who like helped TikTok become what it is now So I think we can start diving into that About some important people on TikTok So obviously the first most probably the most important person that we know on TikTok is Zhang Yiming The founder that we talked a little bit about he's the reason I mean the way that TikTok became the way it was was because of him He was the one that founded ByteDance and then had ByteDance buy TikTok or Musical.ly and then merge it with TikTok and he was basically just like the foundation and laid everything out for how this platform is and how popular it is Yeah I remember also like going back to talking about the merge from Musical.ly to TikTok a lot of people what they thought TikTok was was like Chinese hackers that somehow hacked Musical.ly and created TikTok So I think that was also part of the reason why like not that many people wanted to use it at the time because there was this idea going around that like it was Chinese hackers which now makes sense knowing that the founder of TikTok, ByteDance, whatever you want to call it Was based out of Beijing Yeah based out of Beijing but looking into the app and like the people that use the app one of the most influential people one of the most influential person people yeah whatever you want to call it Creators on the app To this app would be Charli D'Amelio I mean everybody knows who Charli D'Amelio is Yeah so she like basically just got famous for posting dancing videos of her on TikTok and like now it's like she has like this whole career and she's what pretty much already Yeah she's like 18 Yeah and she has this like ginormous career like she's now on Dancing with the Stars and everything And it's just crazy to think about like how this all happened because of TikTok and like her posting a video of her dancing which then led to her posting more and more and more because one got famous then I guess others started getting attention and then she like kind of created this like well known persona I would say But I mean yeah adding on to that like it's kind of crazy how with this app people can just post videos of themselves and it's so easy to like blow up on like the platform and the app because of like the for you page which we'll talk about a little more later but like it's so easy to reach like people with like the interest of the same years Like it's just it's honestly crazy because it's just random people and like you can post one video and like some videos will get like random like crazy amounts of views just I guess based off an algorithm that we have no idea how it works but um but then you'll post others and it'll get like I don't know like 20 likes from like your followers It's just there's really no like way of understanding how the algorithm really works and honestly if I'm being honest sometimes I think that there's people that are literally sitting on my phone listening to what I'm talking about because I'll be talking about something then I'll get on to TikTok and like what I was talking about will show up on my for you page which like Kaitlyn said will like get into what a for you page is But I think one of the biggest things on TikTok now and like a key economic consideration for this app would be the creator fund Oh 100% And like nowadays we're seeing a lot of people on TikTok like posting like videos and content to gain some sort of income from it and I'll let Kaitlyn touch a little bit more on that Yeah so with the creator fund basically if you have I'm pretty sure it's over 10,000 followers or it might it might be more at this point since like a lot of people are blowing up on the app Basically if you have a certain amount of followers you can apply for the creator fund TikTok has to approve you and then once you're approved like your videos depending like on how well and stuff they do TikTok will literally send you a check in the mail with like money for basically just being like oh thank you for posting on our app and like having like a following and like getting people to get on our app and stuff like that A big person like that we already mentioned I mean Charli D'Amelio like she's just posting videos And this is like before the creator fund too so I think she almost had some sort of like influence to like the idea of the creator fund Yeah no I would 100% agree and I think she's also part of the reason why a lot of other like people were like oh let me join TikTok because maybe the same exact thing can happen to me I mean she was just like an ordinary like regular like high schooler and she starts posting these videos and they're blowing up and all of a sudden she's like walking on red carpets and going to all these fancy events And the sad side of that though is like to the point where she had to like be taken out of school and everything because of like how fast she blew up on the internet like on TikTok Another person I want to talk about with this creator fund which is kind of funny so we mentioned in like the very beginning of this podcast that like there's this idea of posting your outfit of the day and one of the biggest like things I've seen with this like idea is Alabama sorority recruitment It has become for the past two years, this Alabama sorority recruitment has been a big thing like there's hashtags like Bama Rush like so many people like including friends that I have that go to Alabama when they were going through this process like they would post like their outfits of the day and like what they were wearing like during the different days of like recruitment And in particular this year a girl named Kylan Darnell but she's now a Zeta at Alabama she like I couldn't even tell you who this girl was before like Alabama Rush and then like now like even people here at Wofford are like talking about who this girl is and like she literally just got famous for posting what she was wearing for what day of each day of like sorority recruitment at Alabama Which I think is like kind of crazy that you can post something so small and like blow up and then now you're basically making a ton of money for just posting TikTok Exactly yeah so I would 100% agree with that but moving on from that we talk about things that we think is like a key feature basically of TikTok and I would 100% say that's the for you page I mean that's kind of what TikTok is all about that's like when you think of TikTok you think of oh what's your you ask your friends like what's your for you page like what's like oh this was on mine like da da da da And like Jessica was saying earlier like what you like and like what you save and now there's this thing like you can like repost things like all those things like are taken into consideration with like what videos are going to show up on your for you page like it can be completely random I would say like the for you page is basically like the first thing you see when you enter the app and it can literally be anything from like funny things to sad things to outfits to like cooking like sports videos anything it's the most random thing that you could like possibly come across It's basically just TikTok putting like the videos that they find the most popular that day and they put it on your for you page and if you like it then they're going to keep giving you more content like that and if you don't then they're not going to And I think this is why like the for you page is like why people are like random people are just like becoming like TikTok famous is because there's really no saying like when you're going to get TikTok famous why you're going to get TikTok famous it honestly just like depends like I really can't explain it like Yeah like I had um gosh like back in December of 2020 I made some random TikToks and I got like 28 point something like thousand likes on it and it was like a five second clip of me like it was like lip syncing Yeah and then like since then I've posted TikToks and what I think the most likes I've gotten maybe like 200 but like that's not even on a regular basis like on a regular basis I think like on a random day I think one of my TikToks will get like 20 likes maybe So it's just like a very weird algorithm that like we've done our research but like we still can't really comprehend like why it is the way it is But I would 100% say that like the for you page is what makes TikTok stand out from every other like platform there is like I mean with Instagram you can just follow the people that you like and I mean they have the explore page but I don't really ever see people going on it they're just looking at like who they follow and things like that And I mean I know I'm pretty sure Twitter has like a for you section kind of thing but like it's almost like a trending like thing yeah but it's more like trending and it's not really things that are like affiliated towards you I would say And so I think that's like the cool thing about TikTok is that it's literally for you it's based off of things you like it's based off of things you sent like it's literally a page accumulated like to your interest to what you want Like on other apps such as like Instagram like Kaitlyn said it's like people that you follow so it's like gonna be things that like you like put on your feed yourself whereas TikTok it's like it can be different any given day Like the other day for example I went and saw the new movie Don't Worry Darling with Harry Styles in it and like I wouldn't consider myself like a major Harry Styles fan but when I came back like when I got back to campus got back to my dorm like after watching that video or after watching that movie I got on my TikTok my for you page was all like people had a Harry Styles cover it was all Harry Styles And so it's just like I said earlier like making the joke like I think people are literally sitting on my phone listening to the things that I'm doing like that's why I say that is because like it's just the timing is like weird but like also like it's always random Yeah and so adding on to the for you page I would also say that's kind of like what the brand identity is for TikTok and also like TikTok's symbol what is it? It's like a little like music note which kind of also makes you think of its roots like musically which is kind of cute Yeah so it's like a little music note and like a black background so like people are gonna know what it is just based off like the logo and everything and like if you were talking to someone and you were like oh like your TikTok or oh your video was showing up on my for you page today like without even saying TikTok if someone says for you page you automatically are like oh TikTok Yeah and like even if you're like looking at somebody's phone like at what apps they have and stuff like that if you see that little like music symbol you're gonna be like oh you have TikTok like people know what it is like that's their known like symbol and you know And I think every app like kind of has that like Instagram you know the little Instagram's changed theirs up a little bit Yeah they have changed theirs well Snapchat is probably the most prominent one Yeah the little yellow background with those Speaking of Instagram So with TikTok so we're gonna talk about how like TikTok differentiates themselves from their other competitors so Instagram tried to be a little sneaky and kind of copy what TikTok was doing And they made this thing called Reels which now I think Facebook has also like done that too but I mean it makes sense because I'm pretty sure like Facebook bought Instagram or whatever so they have this thing called Reels which is pretty much TikTok Yeah But it's not as big of a hint I mean you can add on to that Yeah I mean basically kind of what we said earlier the way with like Facebook and Instagram and their Reels is that you can like them and stuff like that but a lot of the times like what I've noticed on Instagram is that I will like certain kind of Reels and it won't like give me the same things that I've liked Yeah It's giving me a lot of like other things that have been like more popular for the day which I mean TikTok also does the same thing But I think TikTok also takes what you like I think it takes it more into consideration Exactly so that's definitely a way on how TikTok is a lot more different than their competitors and I mean yeah so we can go on to our last thing and we're gonna talk about The future of TikTok The future I think there's a lot in store for TikTok personally going back to the creator fund I think now that people know that this is a thing that they're gonna like just keep posting and posting videos until like they one of their videos blows up and then possibly their account blows up and then they can just like start posting in hopes of that creator fund and that check that Katelyn mentioned Because I mean that would be the life like imagine you literally just had to post TikToks all day to get your source of income Yeah and I would say I think kind of like Facebook how it's stuck around for like a hot minute like a good amount of time I think TikTok will be around for a while because I have younger cousins that are literally like 7 and 8 and they're on TikTok Yeah And they're doing all these things and I know they're gonna stay on it for a while just because like I don't know all their friends are on it and everybody else is and I just don't think it's ever gonna get old Yeah which I also think is like kind of scary too because like we said like 40pages is so randomized that like I think it's almost like in a way like dangerous for kids to use this app because of how random it is and there's let's just say there's some bad people on there Yeah which I mean there's a lot of bad people on Any sort of platform But I would agree that I really do think that TikTok is gonna be around for a while I mean I use it myself I use it on the daily Yeah I think TikTok's a great app however though Yeah So But yeah I think that's all we got for everybody Yes so thanks for sitting with us and listening about TikTok we hope you enjoyed the podcast Yeah and we hope y'all love TikTok as much as we do Bye Bye