Gone are the days when Facebook and Instagram reigned supreme in the social media universe. Now who gives the cards is TikTok. Created in China in 2016 by startup ByteDance, the app has based its existence on short and fun videos. In 2019, it became a global phenomenon and conquered countless celebrities. Even “The Washington Post” got in on the act.
With 1.65 billion downloads on the App Store and Google Play Store, TikTok has become the third most downloaded app in the world in the “non-games” category, according to a report by SensorTower Analytics.
This placement placed it ahead of Face and Insta, second only to WhatsApp and Messenger.
It is the first Chinese platform to achieve such a level of global relevance and the only app in the world’s top five that is not owned by Mark Zuckerberg’s conglomerate.
In response to the emergence of the new protagonist, Facebook launched the Lasso app last year, and Instagram added the Scenes feature, both of which work very similarly to the Chinese social network. The company intends to maintain relevance by appealing to the features that the young audience can take from the platform.
“With comedy, makeup, sports, games and decoration content, TikTok presents a diverse range of innovative content”, says the application’s community manager, Rodrigo Barbosa.
“The focus is always on offering new features and creating more creative environments for people to express themselves.”