TikTok takes a bite of the Zucker-burger
TikTok is leaving Zuck’s Meta in the dust.ust. (Photo: Grapevine Leaders)
Right now, TikTok has the second most engaged base of active users among the top social media apps. TikTok is opened on a daily basis by 30% of all active installations, coming in second to Instagram’s 39%. Looking good for the Zucks so far, right?
A closer look at the numbers shows that this is where Meta’s lead stops. In the first quarter of 2022, TikTok was the most downloaded app on both the App Store and Google Play. TikTok is also the highest earning app, with its revenue forecasted to reach $23 billion by 2024. This is a monumental feat considering it’s not a gaming app.
Almost all of TikTok’s revenue comes from advertising, thanks to its highly addictive, never-ending stream of recommended content—a feature of the platform that Zuckerberg’s Meta seems to be trying to replicate.
TikTok's monstrous growth
Users spend an average of 95 minutes on TikTok—proof of just how engaged its users are. TikTok is designed for short-form content, given how it started out with a 15-second limit. Even now after TikTok expanded its maximum video length, users can only upload up to 10 minutes of content. The fact that users spend an hour and a half on the platform a day on average is remarkable. In comparison, YouTube is in second place at 74 minutes, and Instagram at third with 51 minutes.
TikTok averages at 95 minutes a day of in-app activities in Q2 of 2022. (Source: SensorTower)
TikTok is growing at a much faster rate than its predecessors. It took Facebook nine years to hit 1 billion users. It took Instagram eight years, and it took both Youtube and WhatsApp seven years each. TikTok, which was first launched in 2016, reached the 1 billion milestone in 2021 (you do the math).
Keep up, Zuck
With TikTok changing so much of how people consume content and overtaking Meta at breakneck speed, it’s clear that Zuckerberg needs to pick up the pace. In fact, Facebook employees were recently given a specific memo: Make the Facebook timeline more like TikTok.
Meta’s race against TikTok started with Instagram introducing Reels, but the plan moving forward is to do the same with Facebook as well. The memo included directives to Facebook employees to make the main feed function more like TikTok’s “For You” page, which is focused heavily on recommending posts to users.
With plans to increase emphasis on these similar features, Meta executives hope that doing all of this will reverse their platforms’ stagnant growth—and maybe get back enough of its younger audience to exit its flop era.
