Reflections on Tik Tok's past, present and future

First, the birth of Tik Tok

1. The birth of microfilm

can be said to be the ancestor of Tik Tok short videos.

From the end of 25, 13 years ago, Hu Ge's 2-minute online short film "A Bloody Case Caused by a Steamed Bread" was popular by editing the Promise, China Report on the Rule of Law and the video performed by Shanghai Circus City. As a result, many netizens began to spontaneously use the fragmentation time to pick up DV cameras to shoot micro-movies, and then upload them to major video websites. Therefore, micro-movies of less than 2 minutes began to be familiar, and short films became popular.

Until 213, with the cost of shooting equipment reduced and the camera function of mobile phones gradually matured, short video applications of mobile phones began to emerge:

[if! supportLists]·? [Endif] In January, 213, Xiaoying was born, which broke the limitation of traditional video editing scenes and brought its own functions such as frame-by-frame editing and funny voice change.

[if ! supportLists]·? [Endif] In July 213, "GIF Aauto Quicker" was transformed from a tool to a short video community and renamed as "Aauto Quicker".

[if ! supportLists]·? [Endif] In August, 213, Sina Weibo mobile phone client built-in second shot application.

[if ! supportLists]·? [Endif] On May 8, 214, the US version of iOS was launched, and it topped the App Store free list one day after its launch.

2. UGC content creation began to emerge

with the development of China, after solving the problem of food and clothing, people began to pursue more spirituality, individuality and self-expression. Plus the fragmentation of life, more and more time. Many young people want attention and a large number of their own fans, and they begin to express themselves by taking selfies.

So xiaokaxiu was born: xiaokaxiu was launched in May 215, which is a video shooting application with its own teasing function. Users can create funny videos like singing KTV with the audio subtitles provided by xiaokaxiu. UGC's short videos became popular. However, due to xiaokaxiu's single play and poor operation, the hot phenomenon failed to last.

Then, in 216, represented by papi sauce, short videos were welcomed by the capital market from media content. The public pays more and more attention to short videos from the media, and their creative enthusiasm also increases.

Second, Tik Tok is a natural product of the short video wave

Under the short video wave and the increasing acceptance of video media by the public, Tik Tok was born.

Tik Tok was launched in September 216, which is a 15-second music short video community dedicated to young people. Tik Tok shortened the length of the video to 15 seconds, which reduced the expression cost. At the same time, it is combined with music to enhance the viewing experience and the spread effect of video.

began to gradually enter the public eye in March 217. Yun-peng Yue, the star, intercepted a video screenshot of a celebrity in Tik Tok and sent a Weibo with the logo of Tik Tok APP. After Weibo sent it, the video playback volume in Tik Tok has been on the rise ever since.

After that, Tiger Hu, Christy Chung and Du Haitao also uploaded their own vibrato videos. Tik Tok really brought a lot of exposure in a short time by using the star effect.

in early June 217, Tik Tok launched a TVC advertisement. This advertisement received a lot of praise after its launch, and many netizens thought it was "quite cool". Later, this short film was simultaneously shown in cinemas in 21 cities across the country, which accurately targeted the young people and won their pursuit.

in 218, Tik Tok officially announced that the number of daily users in Tik Tok exceeded 15 million, and the number of monthly users exceeded 3 million. This year, Tik Tok is trying to catch up with Aauto Quicker at an alarming rate, quickly occupying the markets of first-and second-tier cities, leaving Aauto Quicker stuck in third-and fourth-tier cities forever.

Third, the reason why the vibrato is so popular

I have summarized three main reasons why Tik Tok is so popular:

1. The video is fascinating, and a powerful content recommendation algorithm:

According to the official description, today's headlines can calculate the recommendation result in .1 second, complete the article extraction, mining, duplication elimination and classification in 3 seconds, and calculate the interest of new users in 5 seconds.

Tik Tok's recommendation rules are largely powerful algorithms from headlines. It is understood that vibrato videos are "tailored" to users through three dimensions:

The first dimension is content. The content is basically some high-quality content. Including all kinds of beautiful women, handsome guys, delicious food, beautiful scenery, funny, cute, patriotic and so on.

the second dimension is user characteristics. Including all kinds of interest labels, occupation, age, gender, etc., as well as implicit user interests delineated by many models.

the third dimension is environmental characteristics. This is a recommended feature in the era of mobile Internet. Users move anytime and anywhere, and their information preferences are biased in different scenarios such as workplace, commuting and tourism.

combine these three dimensions, plus sophisticated algorithms in the background. The video recommended by Tik Tok can be said to have completely absorbed the user's DNA, which is completely in line with the user's taste preferences, and users will easily become addicted to it and indulge in the ocean of "beautiful things".

2. All kinds of public relations means, traffic poured into

Star effect: Through various stars, including Lu Han, He Jiong, Dilraba, Tang Yan, Michael Chen, Haoran Liu, Du Haitao and other stars, it brought a lot of traffic.

public relations communication: in early June 217, Tik Tok launched a "quite cool" TVC advertisement, which was well received after its launch. After that, this short film was released at the same time in 21 city cinemas across the country.

In addition, there are a number of creative H5' s spread. For example, the number of visitors to the First Cultural Relics Exhibition has exceeded 5.5 million in just a few days.

Tik Tok's public relations communication has accurately targeted the young people and formed a viral word-of-mouth communication, so it is easy for the younger generation to be sought after.

3. Pay attention to the user experience, innovate the gameplay, and create hot spots

Tik Tok often thinks about the functions of products from the user's point of view. Their own design team also registered Tik Tok to collect users' suggestions on Tik Tok, and at the same time, new functions and new filters will be published on Tik Tok to "survey public opinion" to see how well users accept them.

It is similar to xiaokaxiu, but the difference is Tik Tok's innovative gameplay. Tik Tok users can make the video more creative through video shooting speed, video editing, special effects (repetition, flashing, slow motion), dancing machine and co-production, rather than simply lip-synching. At the same time, Tik Tok attaches great importance to the optimization of filters, special effects and videos, which has won the favor of many young people and also allowed users to create better content.

In terms of hotspot manufacturing, Tik Tok often creates hotspots that all the people can participate in to encourage users to participate. For example, cilicili dance, gesture dance, reversing dance, etc., are conducive to arousing public opinion and promoting communication.

Fourth, Tik Tok's future and difficulties

But behind the popularity, Tik Tok still faces the following three difficulties:

1. Social shortcomings

The sudden popularity of Tik Tok made Aauto Quicker, a Tencent department, feel threatened, banned vibrato videos on WeChat, and restarted the micro-vision project.

Tencent knows that Tik Tok's shortcoming is social interaction. Tik Tok's loss of sociality is like her loss of soul. Why do you say that? Because every time I see a good video, I will definitely click on Tik Tok's comment area to see everyone's comments. Socializing will increase the fun of watching videos. If there is no comment area, it will be tasteless when you brush the video. Therefore, socialization is a sharp edge to enhance user stickiness and product loyalty.

here you may ask, isn't there a comment area in the video? Wouldn't it be social? Although there are many comments in the comment area, most of them are unilateral comments, except for the previous comments, and it is difficult for the broadcaster to reply to everyone.

A good social environment must be mutually beneficial. Long-term unilateral communication can easily lead to the gradual decline of users' enthusiasm for participating in comments, and make most users become people who eat melons and only read but don't write. On the other hand, if users make videos and send them, they will not get attention and comments, which will also reduce their enthusiasm for creation.

for social products, social interaction must be conducted by both parties, so as to improve the dependence and loyalty to the products. Long-term unilateral interaction will adversely affect the social environment in Tik Tok.

although Tik Tok made a revision after being banned by wechat, and changed the concerned page into a design similar to a circle of friends, personally, the design was a bit lame, on the one hand, it lacked the immersion of watching video and audio on the big screen, on the other hand, Tik Tok didn't have * * * friends like wechat, and the circle of friends could form interaction. Many times, communication is only one-sided communication, which rarely forms interaction and can not bring social fun to friends.

will Tik Tok encounter the same difficulties as AliPay if it wants to take the social road now? Let's wait and see.

2. The homogenization of short videos is serious, and the creative cost is high.

The content creation in Tik Tok is becoming more and more homogeneous, and the old tricks of playing imitation, showing cute pets and spelling jokes are lacking in new ideas; Users of all kinds of beautiful women, handsome men, delicious food and cute things will soon be visually tired.

Therefore, Tik Tok can only cooperate with MCN institutions at high cost to develop high-quality content; Spend money to shoot short videos with stars. But these are not the factors of a virtuous circle.