As TikTok grows, so does suspicion

Re:As TikTok grows, so does suspicion by jacooper on Sunday July 10, 2022 @03:17PM (#32047963)

> The minute quality creators leave a platform is the minute it dies. TikTok has not really been rewarding creators fairly, and pushes the idea that organic growth is possible, and that people have become really successful, but many creators realize after months of working for little to no reward that it's a false narrative.

I heard the opposite story from 2 creators in my local language.

Their growth on Tiktok is crazy, one got a million followers in less than a year, this is almost impossible in YouTube or Any Facebook based social media, also the amount of interaction and views on videos is amazing compared to YouTube.

Its why many are going to tiktok, even if they don't like the Platform, its actually possible to reach people, while on other platforms such as Instagram, you have to pay to reach even half of your followers.

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Re:As TikTok grows, so does suspicion by CommitSyn on Sunday July 10, 2022 @03:29PM (#32048077)

Now that YouTube has shorts I wonder how many creators are switching. Part of the reason you can get so many followers on TikTok is the video length. When it started you could only post a 15-second video. Later on they allowed you to link 15-second videos up to a minute in length. Then it was 3 minutes, and in February they changed the maximum video time to 10 minutes.[1]

Viewers can watch a lot more 15-second or 1-minute videos than 10-minute videos. If 5-10 minute videos start becoming popular, expect the reach new creators can get to drop drastically.

1. https://screenrant.com/tiktok-videos-minimum-maximum-length-...

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Re:As TikTok grows, so does suspicion by winternett on Sunday July 10, 2022 @10:35PM (#32051549)

They are all portrait mode videos though, not very versatile and useful in the long term... Actually, portrait content was dying off before TikTok...

It's bewildering how they warehouse so much content that will really not endure, at some point they're likely going to need to archive a lot of TikTok user posts, because the content is very low quality overall, and a lot of the content generated is limited by it's context.

It probably be a huge sticker shock to see the monthly cloud hosting bill for any one of these apps.

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Re:As TikTok grows, so does suspicion by quest88 on Sunday July 10, 2022 @05:38PM (#32049330)

What does one million followers mean though? Who cares about that unless you can monetize. Teens can’t monetize so their social capital is views.

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Re:As TikTok grows, so does suspicion by throwoutway on Sunday July 10, 2022 @05:49PM (#32049438)

They monetize by advertising on behalf of companies to their viewers. And they have no idea how to price their monetization so I presume the companies are winning here

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Re:As TikTok grows, so does suspicion by 1337biz on Sunday July 10, 2022 @07:56PM (#32050558)

I noticed a similar narrative and noticed it even first hand on some accounts I am following on Instagram which only recently started moving to TikTok. The growth is insane. Comedians with something like 10k followers on Instagram getting 1-2m views on their TikToks in their first few vids. But they are fully adjusting to the TikTok format and dynamic.

On instagram I am increasingly seeing ads for popular sports and music stars - which I would suspect could be triggered by unsatisfying reach or growth for them and Instagram cutting down even more on free exposure.

If TikTok can sustain a mechanism that boosts new creators it will be golden for a long time. Organic growth seems to be dead for Instagram and YouTube unless someone puts in 10x the effort than for TikTok.

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Re:As TikTok grows, so does suspicion by winternett on Sunday July 10, 2022 @10:21PM (#32051475)

They constantly tweak the bias of what is shown on these platforms to keep engagement high. By the minute we talk about a trend online, the bias has already changed to a new focus. All of these sites are driven by manipulating users into compliance and over-investment of time and money. That is how they make ad revenue to pay overhead, and create product dependency.

The problem is that there are so many people addicted to the possibility of being a popular influencer that no one is being honest about how little real success and money they make on these platforms... In truth it may be a possibility that most users are completely faking social media success.

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Re:As TikTok grows, so does suspicion by dburflzz on Sunday July 10, 2022 @09:30PM (#32051195)

How do users know that those followers are human?

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Re:As TikTok grows, so does suspicion by winternett on Sunday July 10, 2022 @10:14PM (#32051431)

Based on what I've observed, most organic followers are scripts, and views are carefully metered and pre-determined based on each account's personal characteristics. The merit system isn't conducted without bias.

TikTok forces use primarily of it's app, and only offers limited use in web browsers, which makes their methods less transparent.

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