The Tik Tok puppet that tells you where to travel
In the latest development of ? how millennials are much more connected to social networks than you ? we see a new facet of the social app Tik Tok that might interest anyone working in the tourism industry.
But first a reminder of what is Tik Tok.
Tik Tok is an app working on IOS and Android (at least for now, we'll see what the 5G war will do to that) launched in 2016 in China by ByteDance and one year later in the rest of the world. It relies on short (no more than 20 seconds) videos made by the users.
ByteDance previously launched Douyin whith great succes in China and used its software architecture as the basis for Tik Tok. BByteDanceasically Tik Tok is the international version of Douyin. is also operating the news famous news app Toutiao.
The video sharing landscape in China is huge and highly competitive and Douyin is its leader.
In december 2017 Tik Tok was installed on 20 millions devices worldwide. In december 2018 that number had already reached 75 millions.
In the month of november 2018 alone, Tik Tok has been installed on 35 millions devices, making it the third most popular app in the world behind Whatsapp messenger and Facebook messenger.
The US are one of its main markets with 9 millions downloads through Android for the month of october 2018.
ByteDance’s strategy to attain such a fast rise consisted in a smart combination of :
-Well timed hashtags allowing users to display their self image in an attractive way, such as #karmaisabitch where they showed before/after makeover videos of themselves.
-Hashtags aimed to challenge the users to do things like rolling like a tumbleweed.
-Collaborations with celebrities like Jimmy Fallon or one of the Kardashian sister, who would repost their Tik Tok videos on their other social networks, mainly Instagram and Twitter.
-Collaborations with brands targetting the younger audience like Guess.
-Visibility in a more classic and prestigious way through Time Square and Picadilly Street’ screens.
-Acquisition and merge of competitors such as the other successful chinese app Musical.ly.
But one of the main features that helped Tik Tok to get so big is a very simple one. It is called ? duet ? where you can replicate other users's video and add yours alongside with simple video editing tools. This aspect make small audiences easy to find for any user.
ByteDance is valuated at 75 billions of dollars which make it todays most highly valuated tech start-up.
If we look at today's Tik Tok stats what do we see ?
-it is used in 154 countries
-it has 150 millions daily users in China
-500 millions users worldwide
-it comes in 75 languages
-80% of users are on Android devices
-29% engagement rates
-41% of users are aged between 16 an 24
-1 million pages view daily
- Now for the tourism in Asia part
So this app, that we all really really want to spend our free time on don't we, has a new star in Asia. Hu Lai the tibetan sand fox is a hand puppet played by comedian Liu Yang.
His show called ? Hu Lai decides to go travel ? already has thousands of followers in the chinese speaking audience.
Liu Ye is one of the many stand-up comedians that gained popularity on the chinese stand-up scene. But since stand-up in China doesn’t bring a lot of money, Liu, who is also an english teacher, had to find a better source of revenue.
He found it by bringing his art on the social media stage. Now he is doing comedy on Tik Tok and Bilibili and is produced by Be Wild Media.
And that fox is smart indeed. He has become in a very short time a prominent influencer of the millennials’s tastes in travel.
In his show you can see him (the puppet, not Liu Yang who doesn't appear) travelling in places like Hong Kong. He's tasting the food, go to the famous places… He does anything a tourist would except that he is a fox puppet with a good sense of humour.
There is nothing extraordinary in his show but it is fast paced , simple and straightforward like a usual Tik Tok video.
And that's all ! No magic formula used to gain such an influence with his thousands of young followers. He used the classic Tik Tok tools, received the help of a label and done !
Older generations, especially in Europe, could have dreamed about travelling around the world in the same adventurous manner as Hugo Pratt's Corto Maltese. A vision that became popular after the rise of mass tourism. What was seen as a thirst for adventure was also a desire to stand out from the common people.
Pratt himself has worked for the tourism industry and if you look at the ? guide du routard ? mascott you'll see an adventurous hobo, not a travelling family of four nor a wealthy businessman.
Millennials are no exception to that desire. But while their young age makes them prone to seeking peers approvals, their lives are entangled in a web of social networks interactions, urging them to stand out from the crowd. This is the main paradox of their lives, in an era where you supposedly can ? have it your way ?.
This permanent use of social networks help them understand clearly that those who do not follow the classic path are rewarded with unique experiences. Experiences that can then be shown on social media for more peers validations, more engagement from your community, turning into a stronger presence and existence on these media.
Like it is said in this South China Morning Post editorial ? Travelling in the age of social media is not just about experiencing the unusual, but also being seen to be doing so. ?
Operators seeking to understand the millennials market have to be watchful for new trends of course, but must also developp new apprehension of how to notice, track, influence and capture these trends.