TikTok, the short-video sharing app, based out of China, is planing to grow and diversify its content creator base in India. The company’s expansion plan is part of its monetisation strategy. TikTok is owned by China’s ByteDance.
On Sunday, TikTok launched a campaign, #MyTikTokStory, on the platform to encourage more Indians to create 15-second videos on cooking, do-it-yourself, sports, pottery, dancing and singing.
The campaign followed a ‘Creators Lab’ event it arranged for more than 500 people in Mumbai on Friday. The social media company is hoping that diverse content will attract more advertisers to the platform.
“We are very clear that creators are a huge backbone. We believe that we have to invest in this creative community,” Sachin Sharma, head of ad sales at ByteDance India, told ET.
“They are an essential element to the business. Without them there is no TikTok. We are committed to diversify content. It is not just for brands, but we are hopeful brands will take notice of that,” he added.
While TikTok’s primary identity is still of an application for creating, sharing and discovering short music videos which is a sort of karaoke for the digital age, it is now trying to evolve.
And, TikTok is hoping that advertisers will take notice and bring in more business.
TikTok, owned by ByteDance was released in 2017 for markets outside of China. It is an iOS and Android media app for creating and sharing short videos.
TikTok claims to have 200 million users in India, of which 120 million are active every month. Its monetisation efforts picked up pace after an interim ban on the app’s downloads was lifted by the Madras High Court in April.
The app’s India userbase is primarily teens residing in small towns. It overtook Facebook as the most downloaded social networking application globally in the first quarter of 2019.
“There is research which says peer-generated content is more sticky, relatable compared to just brand-generated content. Lot of leading brands and marketers recognise that fact. A lot of interest we are seeing is because brands understand a user’s imagery of what the brand stands for is as relevant as brands’ own narrative,” Sharma further said.
Premier brands such as Pepsi, Snapdeal, Myntra, Shaadi.com and Shopclues have lined up to advertise with the popular app in India.