Tiktok network graph with 5,638 nodes and 318,986 unique links, representing up to 790,599 weighted links between labels, using Gephi network analysis software.

Source of:

Peña-Fernández, Simón, Larrondo-Ureta, Ainara, & Morales-i-Gras, Jordi. (2022). Current affairs on TikTok. Virality and entertainment for digital natives. Profesional De La Información, 31(1), 1–12. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5962655

Abstract:

Since its appearance in 2018, TikTok has become one of the most popular social media platforms among digital natives because of its algorithm-based engagement strategies, a policy of public accounts, and a simple, colorful, and intuitive content interface. As happened in the past with other platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, various media are currently seeking ways to adapt to TikTok and its particular characteristics to attract a younger audience less accustomed to the consumption of journalistic material. Against this background, the aim of this study is to identify the presence of the media and journalists on TikTok, measure the virality and engagement of the content they generate, describe the communities created around them, and identify the presence of journalistic use of these accounts. For this, 23,174 videos from 143 accounts belonging to media from 25 countries were analyzed. The results indicate that, in general, the presence and impact of the media in this social network are low and that most of their content is oriented towards the creation of user communities based on viral content and entertainment. However, albeit with a lesser presence, one can also identify accounts and messages that adapt their content to the specific characteristics of TikTok. Their virality and engagement figures illustrate that there is indeed a niche for current affairs on this social network.

This graph contains weighted edges between names of celebrities (vertices) which have more than 60 percent of cosine similarity. Similarity info was taken from Gensim Fasttext model which was trained on texts (descriptions) for Tiktok videos.

Launched in 2016, TikTok rose to be one of the most popular social app and video platform for global users. In 2021, TikTok had approximately 656 million global users. This figure was projected to increase by around 15 percent year-over-year, reaching 755 million users in 2022. TikTok global installs peaked at the end of 2019, with the app amassing over 318 million downloads. During 2020 and 2021, TikTok download trends experienced a slower growth, amassing 173 million downloads from users worldwide during the last quarter of 2021.

Globally the average user spends 52 minutes on TikTok every day. About 90% of their worldwide users access TikTok on a daily basis.

In 2021, TikTok increased its U.S. user base by over 29 percent compared to the previous year. Audience growth of the social video platform is projected to remain in double digits until 2021, before slowing down to a 8.1 percent annual user growth rate in 2022. In 2021, TikTok had 86.9 million users in the United States.

As of February 2025, the United States was the region with the largest TikTok audience by far, with almost ****** million users engaging with the popular social video platform. Indonesia followed, with around ***** million TikTok users. Brazil came in third, with almost ***** million users on TikTok watching short-videos. From Reels to Shorts: social short video takes the internet Between 2021 and 2022 some of the most popular social media platforms have been adding short-video features on the heels of TikTok’s popularity. YouTube Shorts, which rolled out to the global market in June 2021, reached *** billion monthly active logged-in users in 2023. In comparison, Instagram’s short-video format Reels, which launched in August 2020, presented a higher view rate than regular videos on the platform between June 2021 and June 2022, as well as a higher likes rate than other content types on Instagram. TikTok business model TikTok is owned by the Beijing-based ByteDance, along with the short-video app Douyin (TikTok’s version for the Chinese market), video platform Xigua, and popular news app Toutiao. While the products intended for domestic market consumption operate in the Chinese digital ecosystem and have a plurality of established monetization methods such as a live-shopping events hosted by famous influencers, TikTok’s main revenue stream comes from online advertising. In 2022, TikTok was estimated to have generated around **** billion U.S. dollars worldwide via online advertising.

As of February 2025, it was found that around **** percent of TikTok's global audience were women between the ages of 18 and 24 years, while male users of the same age formed approximately **** percent of the platform's audience. The online audience of the popular social video platform was further composed of **** percent of female users aged between 25 and 34 years, and **** percent of male users in the same age group.

Teenagers make up the largest group of active users on TikTok.

In 2023, social video app TikTok had approximately 102 million users in the United States. This figure is projected to increase by over five percent year-over-year, reaching 107.8 million users in 2024. TikTok is one of the fastest-growing social media apps in the United States and especially popular with younger digital audiences.

The average adult TikTok user in America spends 33 minutes per day on the app.

These TikTok user statistics tell the whole story of the new social media giant and give you some insights into the app's future.

In the fourth quarter of 2024, TikTok generated around 186 million downloads from users worldwide. Initially launched in China first by ByteDance as Douyin, the short-video format was popularized by TikTok and took over the global social media environment in 2020. In the first quarter of 2020, TikTok downloads peaked at over 313.5 million worldwide, up by 62.3 percent compared to the first quarter of 2019. TikTok interactions: is there a magic formula for content success? In 2024, TikTok registered an engagement rate of approximately 4.64 percent on video content hosted on its platform. During the same examined year, the social video app recorded over 1,100 interactions on average. These interactions were primarily composed of likes, while only recording less than 20 comments per piece of content on average in 2024. The platform has been actively monitoring the issue of fake interactions, as it removed around 236 million fake likes during the first quarter of 2024. Though there is no secret formula to get the maximum of these metrics, recommended video length can possibly contribute to the success of content on TikTok. It was recommended that tiny TikTok accounts with up to 500 followers post videos that are around 2.6 minutes long as of the first quarter of 2024. While, the ideal video duration for huge TikTok accounts with over 50,000 followers was 7.28 minutes. The average length of TikTok videos posted by the creators in 2024 was around 43 seconds. What’s trending on TikTok Shop? Since its launch in September 2023, TikTok Shop has become one of the most popular online shopping platforms, offering consumers a wide variety of products. In 2023, TikTok shops featuring beauty and personal care items sold over 370 million products worldwide. TikTok shops featuring womenswear and underwear, as well as food and beverages, followed with 285 and 138 million products sold, respectively. Similarly, in the United States market, health and beauty products were the most-selling items, accounting for 85 percent of sales made via the TikTok Shop feature during the first month of its launch. In 2023, Indonesia was the market with the largest number of TikTok Shops, hosting over 20 percent of all TikTok Shops. Thailand and Vietnam followed with 18.29 and 17.54 percent of the total shops listed on the famous short video platform, respectively. 

Regional TikTok user statistics differentiate significantly. Each major region has also experienced growth a different times.

TikTok has risen through the ranks to become the 5th most popular social media network worldwide.

TikTok, a social video app launched in 2016 used for sharing and creating video content, continues to grow in popularity. As of 2022, approximately 41 percent of users in the U.S. engaged with the popular social video app. Around seven in 10 respondents aged between 18 and 19 years were using TikTok, while usage among respondents aged between 20 and 29 years was approximately 56 percent.

TikTok global usage In 2021, TikTok had 1 billion active monthly users worldwide, a growth of 45 percent on the previous year. As of April 2021, the majority of global TikTok users spent less than one hour per week on the platform. Eleven percent of users spent five to ten hours a week on the app, and six percent were using it for ten hours or more per week.

Users' opinion: safety concerns and positive influenceOnline TikTok challenges and hoaxes have been a topic of discussion in recent years, with parents raising concerns about safety regarding content posted on the platform. As for U.S. adults’ opinions of TikTok, favorable attitudes towards the platform decrease with age. Overall, as of November 2021, 33 percent of users aged 18 to 34 years had a favorable opinion of the app, but just one in 10 users aged between 45 and 64 years felt the same. Around 20 percent of all adults had a very unfavorable view of TikTok. Despite the criticism, the platform hosts a large number of positive influencers, focusing on themes such as mental health awareness and body positivity. In 2021, one of the most followed TikTok educators and activists was Nicole Lilly Christou, with her profile @nikkililly reporting approximately 7.7 million followers in the United Kingdom alone.

According to a survey conducted between April and May 2023 among TikTok users in the United States, **** percent of Generation Z users reported feeling that TikTok was addictive. In comparison, around ** percent of Gen X respondents felt the same. Millennials were the demographic reporting the highest number of TikTok users feeling negative mental health effects of the platform, with **** percent of respondents reporting having experienced such effects.

TikTok has a significantly larger female user base globally.

In 2020, TikTok brought in $33.4 billion in revenue.

There are currently over 1.5 billion active users on TikTok worldwide.

TikTok has 136 million monthly active users in the US alone.