THURSDAY PRO // Praised by teenagers, the TikTok application now claims more than a billion users. With its algorithm designed to offer an infinite number of entertaining videos to its users, the Chinese platform has given Facebook, YouTube and Snapchat a lot of age.
With more than a billion users, TikTok became the most visited site in the world in 2021, ahead of Google. To achieve this feat, the short video application of the Chinese group ByteDance was able to rely on its algorithms which make it possible to offer an infinity of entertaining videos to its users. France has not escaped the phenomenon, with nearly 15 million monthly active users according to Médiamétrie. A figure that has tripled in the space of a year.
Unsurprisingly, it is with the youngest that the application is a hit. In France, 3.4 million users aged between 15 and 24 have used TikTok daily over the past year, again according to Médiamétrie. Very popular with this target, TikTok has managed the feat of making Facebook and Snapchat old-fashioned, which have seen their progress with teenagers erode in favor of the Chinese platform. “It has become the go-to entertainment platform for Gen Z and Millennials“, readily recognizes Arnaud Cabanis, general manager in charge of monetization at TikTok France. And to add: “We are on past times that are well above what we can find on certain social platforms.“
From 15 seconds to three minutes
However, the insolent growth of TikTok encounters some pitfalls. The application raises fears in particular around the addiction it can generate among adolescents, and even among children, since 11-14 year olds, who are not supposed to be able to register on social networks, would pass 1h28 per day on TikTok, according to Médiamétrie. To move away from this image of an application exclusively dedicated to teenagers, the platform is trying to reach other age groups. “67% of the audience is over 25 years old“, thus indicates Arnaud Cabanis.
Initially, TikTok videos were limited to 15 seconds, but their length was then increased to 60 seconds, and even three minutes last summer, a way for the application to offer more “flexibility” to its creators. of content. This development is also part of the platform’s business strategy, which wants to attract more and more companies. “More than 1,000 customers are present on the platform, and more than 30,000 creators put their services to the benefit of brands.“, specifies Arnaud Cabanis.
To seduce brands, TikTok faces a major challenge, which worries all social networks, namely content moderation. “92 million videos were deleted in real time in the last semester“, indicates the general manager in charge of monetization at TikTok France. However, this content filtering is not without consequences for the 10,000 moderators mobilized around the world to fill the gaps in the algorithms. Last December, a moderator has thus filed a complaint against TikTok after watching thousands of violent and traumatic videos on the platform.In another register, the platform has also drawn the wrath of Donald Trump, who wanted to banish it from American territory and things should not not settle with his successor in the White House, Joe Biden. However, this does not undermine the confidence of the company, which has 120,000 employees worldwide, including 5,000 in Europe. Indeed, the latter has seen its format copied by its competitors, like YouTube with Shorts and Instagram with Reels.