Tik Tok’s Success Due to Diffusion in Social Networks
https://www.forbes.com/sites/tomtaulli/2020/01/31/tiktok-why-the-enormous-success/?sh=28dd50e465d1
Tik Tok is an app that has taken over our new generation. Through viral marketing, Tik Tok has made its way to the phone screens of millions of young people around the world. Through the app, people of all ages are able to show their creativity through short video clips that they can customize with filters and background music. Tik Tok’s feature of remixing allows for challenges to go viral and for people to put their own touch on existing videos. However, Tik Tok has not always been under the spotlight. Just as any other app, Tik Tok had to start off slow. Released in September 2016, Tik Tok saw slow results until its surge in popularity in 2018.
Tik Tok’s rise to fame can be explained through the concept of diffusion in social networks. At first, just like any other new app, Tik Tok started off with a small audience. The graph above shows an example of a small social network with five nodes. As we see in this network, there are initially two Tik Tok users. At first, when Tik Tok was not as popular among the general public, people in social networks like the one above would not choose to download Tik Tok just because a few of their acquaintances were using it. However, Tik Tok is an app of direct benefit. This means that the more people that use the app, the more benefit the users will receive from using the app. In the example of Tik Tok, when there are more users, there is more content, making it more entertaining for users. Additionally, with a larger audience, this gives people and brands a greater chance at going viral and being seen by more people. As the audience for Tik Tok suddenly grew in 2018, the app started to diffuse within social networks like in the one above. Through two steps, Tik Tok has successfully made its way onto the phones of all five nodes in this social network. In the initial graph, the threshold that determines if a node, or a person, decides to follow the decisions of their neighboring nodes, is greater than ½ because Tik Tok’s popularity was not as great at the time. After its rise in popularity, however, the benefit of using Tik Tok increased, and the threshold was lowered to ½ and maybe even lower. We see this through the actions of the neighboring nodes in the graph. In the first step, the node had half of its neighbors using Tik Tok, so it also decided to follow their decisions. Then, in the second step, the remaining nodes also had half of their friends using Tik Tok, so they followed their decisions as well. Through diffusion like this in many small social networks, Tik Tok was able to see major success among young social groups.
Since Tik Tok did not just successfully enter small social networks, but also saw success all around the world, we must view the spread of Tik Tok on a larger scale. At first, Tik Tok saw success in China through its Chinese version of the app named Douyin. After diffusing within that social network, the English version of the app made its way into the music industry due to its capability of virally promoting music. From there, many Instagram users uploaded their favorite Tik Toks on their Instagram pages as well as their stories. Through the success in these social networks and many more, Tik Tok was able to be diffused within other social networks and eventually saw the success that we see today.
Personally, I was able to view this diffusion of Tik Tok in social networks around me. Among my social networks were people who did not believe that Tik Tok would become so famous, including me. However, after the rise in popularity in Tik Tok, and the rise in benefit of using Tik Tok due to the rise in people in our social network using the app, those people, me included, eventually ended up downloading Tik Tok, and even becoming addicted to it. I was amazed at how the power of direct benefit caused this diffusion within my social network as well as the world.