So far, 800 million people worldwide use the TikTok video streaming app for entertainment and connection, and 12.5% of them, 100 million, are Americans. After President Donald Trump said on July 31 that he planned to bar the Chinese-owned social media app from operating in the US, he reversed course, saying he would allow TikTok to keep operating if it were sold to an American owner. Microsoft is one of the companies most likely to buy the app. The possible acquisition will allow the software company to compete with Facebook and Google-owned YouTube and attract a younger audience.
Like many other social media apps, TikTok is not just about entertainment and funny videos. It’s a powerful instrument for influencers, opinion leaders, and enterprises to gain followers and audience loyalty and to broadcast their ideas worldwide. The TikTok optimism helped millions of Americans connect and express themselves during the difficult pandemic times, and now, platform users are to be denied this opportunity. This is why the reaction to the ban was so strong among TikTok users and why people started keeping eye on the acquisition news and searching for possible alternatives. But is it actually possible for other streaming apps to take the place of TikTok?
The TikTok secret: The power of zoomer creativity
In 2019, TikTok outperformed social media giants such as YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook and became the most downloaded app on the Apple App Store, with more than 33 million downloads. The platform boosts user engagement by launching challenges and providing a wide range of filters and music-syncing options that can be applied to user videos. Furthermore, it uses AI algorithms to optimize content creation, curation, and recommendations. This makes TikTok a mixture of Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook: video content with music that can be improved through filters and has recommendations.
According to the information shared by Postoplan, more than 40% of the TikTok audience are zoomers, and the app has the highest average engagement rate (ER) of all studied social media sites, at 14.87%. These facts are interdependent: “The TikTok secret is that it was initially developed for generation Z teenagers. This generation is addicted to mobile devices, lacks offline communication, and yearns for recognition. They use the app multiple times a day and are engaged in new online activities – that’s how the high ER can be explained,” says Postoplan CEO Alex Bozhin.
Nevertheless, only 7% of businesses connected to Postoplan started using TikTok for business goals because, for a pretty long time, the app provided limited promotion prospects. However, after the TikTok Ads Manager was launched in Q1 2020, the situation is likely to change.
Searching for TikTok alternatives
So far, TikTok is available in over 150 countries, with India, China, and the US being the largest markets for the app. In late June 2020, TikTok and 59 other Chinese mobile apps were banned in India. Now the same ban is possible in the United States. The reason for these bans in the two countries is the same: TikTok is accused of illegal personal data usage, which threatens the national security of the respective countries.
As TikTok has formed a demand for this type of video-streaming app in the US market, its ban opens up new opportunities for TikTok competitors from the United States or Europe that are unlikely to be banned in the future: byte, Dubsmash, Funimate, Triller, and Instagram Reels.
Dubsmash is the second-largest video streaming app in the US, with 27% of the country’s short-form video market share by installs and 100 million users globally, according to App Annie. As the platform has always been overshadowed by TikTok, it is commonly considered a ground zero for new influencers and creators. Dubsmash doesn’t have that many stars, and that’s why people feel comfortable when they record and stream videos.
Funimate’s main advantage over TikTok is that it has no restrictions on video styles: slow motion, video compilations, loops, lip-syncing, etc. With 40 million users worldwide, Funimate is often described as a video-editing and -streaming app, and the company focuses on providing users with vast flexibility in creating short videos. The seventh-largest video app in the US, Funimate is widely used just for editing videos, and the content created with this app is then shared on other social media.
Launched in 2015, Triller is an AI-powered video-editing app with 26.5 million users. On Triller, people can film themselves doing different things, and the app will automatically compile the best moments to create a music video. The app focuses on creativity, authenticity, and content creation through remixing – just like TikTok does. But these apps are not the same. On Triller, users can listen to entire music tracks, whereas TikTok users have to put up with a 15-second restriction. Furthermore, Triller is integrated with other music libraries such as Apple Music or Spotify, whereas TikTok has its own library. That means TikTok is much more ambitious in its attempt to disrupt the music industry, whereas Triller collaborates with existing market participants.
The byte app is an American social video-streaming platform founded by the co-founder of Vine and described as Vine 2.0. Launched in January 2020, byte got over 1.3 million downloads within the first week, with U.S. users accounting for 70%. Byte is a direct competitor of TikTok with one great advantage: it provides monetization options for creators. The app shares the revenue gained from advertising among the top 100 influencers and creators, and the current TikTok ban has spurred on a popularity increase for byte in the US.
This short comparison would not be complete without mentioning Lasso, a short video-sharing app by Facebook that was a copycat app of TikTok and was shut down on July 10, 2020. This service was directly competing with TikTok but never gained popularity even though it was launched by a social media giant. The reason Facebook shut down Lasso was to focus on a shift to the Instagram Reels feature. This new service was first launched in Brazil and then expanded to France and Germany and now is available in over 50 countries. Its concept is pretty similar to that of Lasso and TikTok: Instagram Reels was launched in the US on August 5, and the possible TikTok ban is likely to work in Reels’ favor.
In conclusion, the prospect of TikTok being banned is a nightmare scenario for many teens in the US. The possible Microsoft acquisition would grant the software company millions of grateful youth as well as new opportunities on the social media platform market. President Trump said that he will wait until September 15 to take action on TikTok, and the current uncertainty in the video app’s future opens new opportunities for TikTok competitors to seize the moment and scale up their user base.