Why Did TikTok Become So Popular in India?

One of the most popular video-making applications, TikTok is a gen Z platform where they get the way out to express themselves. 

People can sing, dance, and do acting while lip-syncing with the recorded voice in the video. TikTok was created by the Chinese company ByteDance in August 2018, by taking over Musical.ly, the same platform, and shifting all its users to TikTok. All the content present on Musical.ly was also shifted to TikTok and the users did not lose their videos and followers. 

Apart from that TikTok provided some different and extravagant features other than Musical.ly which made it the most downloaded App in no time. In October 2018, it reported 500 million monthly active users in the world. 

Rising to Fame:

So how do you think TikTok became one of the most popular apps in India?

There are various significant reasons behind it. For instance, celebrity endorsements. 

There were many celebrities who started using TikTok besides Facebook and Instagram. They started making short videos and uploading them on their pages, hence giving inspiration to the young generation. It became one of the fastest-growing platforms where people could rise to fame, by not only making dancing and singing videos but also by sharing funny videos. 

Hence, there is no doubt that in India people loved TikTok, and after in launch in 2018, it was downloaded 611 million times. It gained a massive audience in a very short period of time and overpowered many other applications present in the market. And there is a fun fact, in one of the research, it has been shown that 90.5% of TikTok users in India are men. In the year 2019, India’s Tik Tok market reached up to 323 million users which is a huge number. 

Now, the TikTok application had enough abilities to become famous but lockdown came out to be a boon. It gave people the opportunity to become creative while staying at home. People started opening up but just not letting themselves be confined to a boring life. TikTok came out to be a life savior to a lot of people as it helped them to be connected with the outside world and kill loneliness and boredom. 

Easy To Use and Access Content:

Another important point TikTok became famous in India was that it was an easy-to-use app. You could just make videos and download them on your phone and share them on any platform. Also, the less duration of the video helped people show their activity in a short time, and also these were liked by many as it took less time and effort to watch. Besides this, the one-by-one playing feature of TikTok got people addicted and engrossed them to watch videos for a long. It also became helpful to people running small businesses as they could now record short videos of their work and show their skills to everyone. The app enables millions to achieve their dreams by just creating 15 seconds video. 

Apart from non-informative content, there were many communities that used the app for educating people in an interesting way. TikTok gave people a break from the age, sex, caste, and creed barrier and took everyone together under one platform. It encouraged creativity from all different sorts of things and let India’s digital-savvy youth express themselves with confidence. People started to gain millions of views and followers in a very less time, thus becoming a rage among teens from all over the country. 

Also, it was different from other applications like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter where people with something very specific or had some extraordinary talent only rose to fame. But TikTok had a completely different narrative, as it is only driven by content and not by quality. It allowed everyone’s precious life movements to be captured on the mobile phone under one platform. 

Instant Recognition:

Besides this TikTok is famous among the youngest as it provides instant recognition and an opportunity to have a big fan base. There were many commoners who became influencers in very little time and started to earn a huge amount by doing brand endorsements, collaborations, etc. Also, getting fame on TikTok, affected their social media accounts by increasing their followers there. Many of them also got blue ticks from Facebook as their followers reached millions. 

But yes gaining popularity on a content-based app is not very easy, as you have to be regular in posting and follow a strict schedule and it only helped people in having a huge fan base.

Becoming Everyone’s Favorite: 

Another factor, which made the app everyone’s favorite, was that despite being a global app it had given preference to local content. On World Youth Skills Day 2019, TikTok with the support of the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) helped to educate millions of users about ongoing government-driven skill development programs and vocational training opportunities in the countries. Also, it gave an opportunity for small brands to grow very fast. Many people used it as a marketing platform and utilized new techniques for advertising their brands. Many influencers rose to fame through brand endorsement, which also helped them to earn a huge amount. Many celebrities also liked it because they could use this application for promotional events in just 15 seconds. 

Hence, these were the factors, which made TikTok quite popular in India and people started loving it instantly. It created a room for talented people and also became a favorite pass time for many.