It has been over a decade when community-driven platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and many more have completely dominated our screens. With how much impact social media has brought to our lives, it is no denying that this has been the era of social media and it has been changing the way we perceived the world.
Today, it’s all about making life updates. In that sense, social media platforms have been constantly evolving the way it does the work for us. It was in 2009, five years after it first took off in the online world, Facebook had its milestone as it became the most popular social media platform in the world. In 2018, Instagram became the 2nd most popular free app in the app store in the U.S alone. And in the present, another social media platform has captivated app users by storm, and that is TikTok.
TikTok was launched in September 2016, and in just 3 years, it’s safe to say that its popularity has totally exploded. It is now the fastest growing social media platform in the world that takes online sharing to a whole new level.
Just in case TikTok is still out of your radar even with its popularity today, here is a starter guide to TikTok should you want to hop on the bandwagon.
What is TikTok?
TikTok, known in China as Douyin, is a Chinese video-sharing social networking service app by ByteDance, that allows users to get creative in making videos for up to 60 seconds. Users can create short music, lip-sync, dance, comedy, and talent videos that are shared and watched across the whole platform.
There have been a lot of dancing and lip-syncing apps that have been released in the Apps Store. However, in this era of social media, nothing beats TikTok for being the most popular in this area. Today, TikTok has become the most downloaded app on Apple Store and Google Play Store, surpassing other social media platforms such as Instagram, YouTube, and WhatsApp.
Who Uses TikTok?
Formerly known as Musical.ly, TikTok has been downloaded over 1 billion times and has since become popular among teens and early adults, especially those from Generation Z. Those dance and other random #(insert challenge name)challenge, that you see people (especially the Gen Zs) do these days that have gone viral, are most likely from TikTok.
While we somehow categorize TikTok as a platform dominated by the young generation, people of all ages have been engaging in the platform whether as a viewer and a creator. You’ll be surprised about how the old gens have so much following on the platform.
With the potential of TikTok in gathering so much following as a thriving entertaining video-sharing platform, it has now opened a lot of doors for personalities, brands, companies, and businesses to penetrate the platform to gather more audience and establish their own influence and branding. Since businesses see the need to adapt to the constant changes in a social media interaction, utilizing TikTok as a platform for video marketing has become a kind of digital marketing strategy that has been making a huge impact for brands in the present.
Setting Up Your Account
If you want to learn more about TikTok, the best way to do it is by creating your own account on the platform and exploring. Whatever reason you may have for creating a TikTok account, creating a new log-in account is quick and easy. And you can do it in more ways than one. However, keep in mind that making an additional account using the same info linked to your existing account is not possible.
Once you’ve downloaded the app, all there is to do is to create your account. Setting up your account can be done in 3 ways:
Via phone number
1. Open the app on your phone.
2. Tap “Me” found at the bottom of the screen.
3. Type your username at the top of the screen.
4. Tap “Add Account”.
5. Tap the “ Use Phone or Email” option.
6. Key in your date of birth.
7. Enter your working phone number and then tap “Send Code” and wait for the code.
8. Enter the 4-digit code to finalize creating your account.
Via e-mail address
1. Open the app on your phone.
2. Tap “Me” found at the bottom of the screen.
3. Type your username at the top of the screen.
4. Tap “Add Account”.
5. Tap the “ Use Phone or Email” option.
6. Key in your date of birth.
7. Tap “Email”
8. Key in your email address then tap “Next”.
9. Enter your TikTok account password then tap “Sign Up”.
Via Social Media Accounts
You can automatically create your account via Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Google. The process is the same for all social media accounts you use to make your account with.
1. Open the app on your phone.
2. Tap “Me” found at the bottom of the screen.
3. Type your username at the top of the screen.
4. Tap on your preferred social media platform.
5. For iPhone users, a pop-up message will appear asking for permission to use your social media to sign in to TikTok. Tap “Continue” to proceed.
6. Enter the login details of the social media platform you choose for your TikTok Sign In an account.
Viewing Recommended Videos
TikTok’s viewing page consists of the Following and For You page. These pages show the videos of the people you follow and TikTok’s recommended videos for your based on an algorithm respectively. You can switch between pages by tapping on the name of the page. Swipe left to see the profile of the video you are currently viewing.
Interacting with TikTok
When you view videos, there are five icons that you can find on the right that allows you to interact with.
The first icon from the top allows you to visit the page of the owner of the video you are currently viewing. If you haven’t followed the account yet, the icon displays a plus sign which automatically hits follow when tapped.
Below is a heart-shaped icon that you can tap when you like the video. It also shows the total likes the video has gotten since posted. All your liked videos will appear on your profile which you have the option to be available for public viewing or private.
When you want to post comments on the video you are viewing, you can tap on the conversation bubble and leave short comments of up to 150 characters.
The arrow pointing on the right is the share button where you can see your options as to where you can share the video. It also displays commands such as duet, saves video, report, and more.
The last icon is a spanning record that displays the music the video is using. Tapping the record will take you to a page that shows the other videos using the same music.
Making Your Videos
Creating videos with TikTok is easy since it already has everything that you may need to create an awesome viral video. You can either upload videos from your gallery or shoot it directly with the app.
1. Click on the “+” button to go to Shoot mode. Make sure that TikTok can access your camera and recorder.
2. Set up the timer, speed, filters, and effects that you want before shooting then long-press the button to start shooting. The video taken with TikTok can be extended from 15 seconds to 60 seconds.
3. Choose music from the music gallery to make your video more interesting.
4. Once you’re done shooting, you can press the red check to go to the editing page.
5. You can choose another music, adjust the volume, and cut sound.
6. Select your frame of the video as a cover. Add some captions or hashtag, then hit the post.
How to be a Famous TikToker
People tend to watch videos that are trendy today. Look up to the trending hashtags and pair them with popular songs and get creative with your content. The key to increasing your chances of being followed is to be consistent in making interesting and creative content. Interact and connect with other creators and share your video on other social media sites so the world can see what you can do.
