Is TikTok a Threat to Facebook?

Is TikTok a Threat to Facebook?
TikTok vs Facebook
Is TikTok a Threat to Facebook?
TikTok vs Facebook

Social media these days is full of short dubbed videos, made by millions of regular people from across the world. TikTok, a social video app owned by Chinese startup ByteDance, has turned video content mainstream-industry upside down. It is the next big thing that has deranged the endemic social media Eco-structure fundamentally. A leading data collection site states that since Snapchat, TikTok is the only app which has managed to disrupt other existing social media platforms.

Earlier, TikTok was famous by the name ‘Musically’, and now is a free app that is used by the bulk of the population every day. It is a free platform where one can share and view videos for free, which in turn attracts more followers on the platform. Another exciting feature which is exclusive to this app is that videos can be made vertically in this app, unlike YouTube. It helps you watch a video without flipping it sideways to watch it on full screen. Another feature that makes it unique is its networking. It has enabled users to engage with other users through ‘response’ videos. Several such features which are not there in any other app makes TikTok what it has become today.

On the other hand, Facebook, which is famous for eradicating competition by introducing similar features to its platform, has managed to clone TikTok by adding a new app called ‘Lasso’ in November 2018. However, stats tell us that it was not successful like previous experiments. Where, the download number of TikTok was 39.6 million in 2018 in the United States, Lasso was downloaded by only 70,000 people in the same year. And the stats show, how TikTok is unsurpassable for the clones. However, Facebook’s other ‘identical’ features from its peers such as ‘stories’ have been well received by other apps owned by the same entity such as Instagram, Facebook Messenger, and WhatsApp.

Not only the US, but TikTok has successfully captured the Indian market as well, with 200 million active users to date. Apart from that, the app is available in 150 markets in 75 languages. The total number of active TikTok users around the world are 700 million approximately. So, keeping the present stats in mind, TikTok could be a threat to Facebook in the long run.