A Look At How Many People Use TikTok: The Amazing Power of TikTok Marketing 101

“How many people use TikTok?”. This is a great question for businesses to ask themselves as it means that they are thinking about the possibilities of TikTok marketing to grow their online presence.

Over the past few years, TikTok has grown from strength to strength in terms of demanding user attention and engagement. Due to its growing popularity, now is the perfect time for businesses to consider utilising TikTok marketing due to how many people use TikTok.

Influencing Factors of How Many People Use TikTok

In this article, we’ll take a look at how many people use TikTok and outline the reasons why the social media platform has become a worldwide success. By understanding how many people use TikTok, businesses can understand the digital marketing landscape even better and begin to develop a digital strategy for marketing on TikTok.

The Rise of TikTok and How Many People Use TikTok

TikTok initially launched back in 2016, however, the rapid growth of the social media app kickstarted in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. Since the population spent more time at home due to lockdown restrictions, this resulted in an increase in screen time and the use of social media to connect with family, friends, and brands.

Here are some statistics about how the COVID-19 pandemic affected the use of social media:

• The average time that was spent daily on social media in the U.S. was 65 minutes in 2020.
• One of the main reasons why people utilise social media is to cure boredom. 
• User-generated content (UGC) has increased since the COVID-19 pandemic as social media users create content themselves to connect with their followers online.
• Since the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a 70% increase in the number of viewers joining live videos on Instagram.
• More businesses turned to social media and focussed on improving their website due to the temporary closure of physical stores and an increased reliance on online shopping during the COVID-19 pandemic.

How Many People Use TikTok In The World?

With the increased usage of social media, a large number of these people turned to TikTok to discover entertaining and enjoyable content. So, how many people use TikTok in the world? Let’s take a look at some of the important figures that suggest the rapid growth of the social media app:

• There are over 1 billion TikTok users in the world.
• TikTok is available in over 154 countries in the world.
• TikTok saw an increase of 45% in active users in 2021 compared to the previous year.
• Over half of TikTok users are female.
• Social media users aged 18-24 years old utilise TikTok the most out of any other age group. This means that the Gen Z demographic makes up the most active users on TikTok!

• Out of all the countries in the world, the UK spends the most time on TikTok per month, averaging almost 28 hours per month.
• TikTok is used by almost 21% of all internet users in the world.
• TikTok is the 6th most popular social media voice in the world.
• TikTok is the most downloaded application as of 2023.
• On average, TikTok users open the app at least nine times a day.

How Many People Use TikTok and Why

From these TikTok statistics, it is clear that TikTok has become an essential social media app that users find addicting due to its entertaining content. So, why do so many people use TikTok? Let’s take a look at some of the features of TikTok that make it so popular.

How Many People Use TikTok?: Video Content

TikTok is a great case study to analyse the power of video content when influencing consumer behaviour. A TikTok video can be as short as a couple of seconds or as long as ten minutes. Although TikTok videos can be as long as ten minutes, short forms of video content are still a powerful way for businesses to improve their TikTok marketing strategy and build awareness.

Here are some recommendations to improve your video content on TikTok and ensure your target audience watches the entire duration of your videos:

• Include text on your video content: Text is very important to include on your video as this helps you communicate your messaging effectively and clearly. When including text, ensure to include text at the beginning of your video to hook your audience in, and include a call to action at the end of your video to encourage engagement.
• Experiment with different video lengths: When developing your TikTok marketing strategy, experiment with different video lengths to determine how your target audience reacts to different types of content. To see immediate results, aim to create shorter forms of video content to increase the likelihood of your viewers watching the entire duration of your videos.
• Experiment with video effects: There are several video effects available on TikTok that allow businesses and content creators to maintain their target audience’s attention. Some of the most popular video effects on TikTok include Green Screen, Slow Zoom, and Split Screen.
• Add keywords to your video text and caption: Including keywords related to your products and services improves your SEO on TikTok. This increases the chances of your content being viewed by social media users who would be interested in your products and services.

The endless possibilities of video marketing on TikTok make the social media app a fantastic and exciting marketing tool for businesses to elevate their online presence and generate sales.

How Many People Use TikTok?: The New Search Engine For Consumers

Another reason why so many people use TikTok is also due to the possibility of using TikTok as a search engine to discover new products, information about products and services, and research customer reviews.

Let’s take a look at some examples of when social media users would utilise the TikTok search engine.

How Many People Use TikTok To Discover New Content

If a user does not find content that piques their interest on their main ‘For You’ feed, they may utilise the TikTok search engine to discover new content that is entertaining and educational. For example, if a social media user is interested in baking, they may search for the following keywords:

• ‘baking tutorial’
• ‘baking recipes’
• ‘how to bake the perfect cookies’
• ‘baking for beginners’

Once the user has entered keywords relating to their interests and desires, the TikTok algorithm will search for content that includes the same keywords through text on the videos themselves and also in the caption. 

Due to the importance of the TikTok search engine for users when discovering new content, ensure to include keywords in your content to improve the SEO of your TikTok videos. This means that the TikTok algorithm will be able to understand exactly what your content offers for the user, and therefore make content recommendations to the correct target audience!

How Many People Use TikTok?: Remaining Up-To-Date With Trends

TikTok has become the ultimate social media app to check out trending content and popular products promoted by content creators. When developing your marketing strategy for TikTok, utilise the TikTok search engine to identify trending topics and content to increase the visibility of your content.

For example, if you were a piano teacher wishing to increase your visibility on TikTok, you may utilise the TikTok search engine by including keywords related to your business such as ‘how to play’, ‘piano lesson’, and ‘piano for grade 5’. Next, scroll through the content that appears and identify if there are any trends or recurring content that appears. 

Once you have identified trending content, outline ways in which you can generate similar videos that would appeal to your target audience. Therefore, keeping up-to-date with trends can allow your TikTok page to grow faster on the social media app and increase the visibility of your brand!

How Many People Use TikTok To Research Brands and Products?

Since the introduction of TikTok Shop and the ‘TikTok Made Me Buy It’ trend, consumers have been utilising the TikTok search engine to research brands and products that they are interested in. 

As the TikTok app encourages users to create their own content, consumers now share their thoughts, opinions, and reviews of brands and products through video content in order to help other consumers make the correct purchasing decisions. 

When it comes to searching for information about businesses, people trust other people. Therefore, TikTok has become a platform for consumers to share their reviews on brands and products, making purchasing decisions for consumers easier and simpler!

How Many People Use TikTok?: The Rise of Influencer Marketing

The popularity of influencer marketing is another reason contributing factor to how many people use TikTok. Influencer marketing on TikTok has encouraged a level of authenticity compared to other social media platforms due to its raw, unfiltered content, and the establishment of online communities.

The key to influencer marketing for a business is to select an influencer who will appeal to the correct target audience and generate sales. Due to this, authenticity is essential for consumers to trust an influencer’s opinions when promoting a brand. 

Influencer marketing is also a brilliant way for businesses to expand their reach and connect with a larger audience. If an influencer’s followers engage with content relating to your business’s products and services, there is an increased likelihood that these consumers will also follow your page in order to stay connected with your brand. 

TikTok is a fantastic social media app for brands, influencers, and consumers to connect and communicate with each other online. In particular, the comments section on TikTok videos allows consumers to ask influencers specific questions or queries relating to a brand’s products and services. By engaging with content through the comments section, TikTok has become an online community for consumers to share product and brand recommendations.

When developing your marketing strategy for TikTok, consider utilising influencer marketing to monitor user behaviour when engaging with an influencer’s content compared to your business page. Analysing how many people use TikTok points towards the proven success of influencer marketing as one of the most powerful marketing tools to influence consumer behaviour and generate sales.

How Many People Use TikTok?: TikTok Advertising

Paid advertising is a great way to support organic content while improving your reach and generating a higher ROI. Here are some benefits of using TikTok advertising:

• Effective content: The format of TikTok ads appears similar to organic posts, and so this increases the chances of the consumer relating to the content and taking some form of action such as following an account, sharing the post with another user, and making a purchase.
• Target the correct audience: When setting up your TikTok ad, you can define who your target audience is by their age, gender, location, and interests. This means that your ads have a higher chance of generating sales as you are targeting the correct consumers.
• Budgeting: When you first set up your TikTok ads, you can experiment with your budget to determine how many conversions are generated based on how much is spent towards advertising. This means that there is flexibility with budgeting as you can always edit your campaign to increase or decrease your budget accordingly.
• Increased brand awareness: Targeting the correct audience through TikTok ads increases brand awareness as your consumers will recognise your brand more quickly and remember your business when searching for products and services.

Want to know more about how many people use TikTok and why? Get in touch with ProfileTree today to elevate your marketing on TikTok today!

Check out this article on TikTok Banning and the future of the app.