TikTok Isn't Going Anywhere The social media platform is your ticket to break into Asian markets
By Peter Tseros
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
You're reading Entrepreneur Asia Pacific, an international franchise of Entrepreneur Media.
TikTok's been under the spotlight for all the wrong reasons lately, with issues in copyright infringement by users, and unregulated as well as sometimes explicit video sharing. The platform, however, continues to grow in countries such as China and the US.
TikTok, or Douyin in China, was originally was released in 2016 and introduced overseas one year later. The video sharing platform, a cross between Vine, SnapChat and Myspace, later increased its popularity in the US and India (it has now been banned in India). It was one of the most downloaded apps of 2018.
If you are ignoring TikTok, you are potentially missing out on exposing your brand to not just an already existing audience but a growing one.
The Growing Market
TikTok is popular across Asia, which has a population of 4.4 billion people. So, for businesses, tapping into this market can result in high growth. A social media platform like TikTok allows small businesses with minimal budgets to expose themselves to foreign clients in an easy and affordable way.
Posting quality and engaging content can draw big crowds but it's hard and time-consuming, especially if you have more than one platform to post on. As a result, choosing the right social media platform to focus on in the early days can be important for brand exposure.
Choose Wisely
But why should you take a look at yet another social platform like TikTok when you're already spending enough time posting on Facebook, Instagram, SnapChat or Twitter?
Well, there is a simple answer to that. Sometimes in order to stand out, you need to think outside the box. Stop doing what everyone else is doing and stand out, which is one of Tesla's Elon Musk's most important values for success. And let's be honest, with over one billion people using Instagram alone every month, it's probably safe to say that advertising on Instagram is pretty mainstream now.
TikTok is growing, which means its influencers are also growing. Just take a look at the huge followings both Pewdiepie and Ninja were able to accomplish by focussing on emerging platforms such as YouTube and Twitch at the time.
Pewdiepie has had the most subscribers on YouTube for some time now and Ninja's following on Twitch has skyrocketed over the past two years. And if you believe the answer is paying to stand out on older platforms, maybe you should think again, as paying for a following can have minimal effect and can be rather expensive, especially with established corporations having larger budgets for marketing than what the average start-up has.
It's no secret that social media is important and you should always pick a platform that compliments your business. However, with TikTok looking as if it will continue to flourish, it could be the platform that you grow your business through.
