Where Will TikTok Be In 5 Years?

As TikTok continues to go from strength to strength in terms of user numbers, we’re increasingly looking to its future and wondering where it will be in a year, 2 years, or 5 years. The trajectory of where social media apps are headed is often hard to predict; social media is a fickle industry in which any number of things could happen in any given time period. The popularity and fortunes of any social media network depend almost entirely on whether it’s able to keep the users it’s attracted or whether corporate controversies get in the way, as they have in the past with platforms like Facebook and Twitter.

In recent weeks, TikTok has found itself at the centre of a number of controversies. India has outright banned the app – as well as several other Chinese apps – due to a perceived threat to the country’s national security and defence. Similarly, TikTok has been banned in regions like Bangladesh or Indonesia and is subject to intense scrutiny in other nations thanks to security breaches. As such, the potential future of the app is not necessarily as secure or clear-cut as its excellent user adoption rate suggests it should be. We thought we would take a look at a number of potential scenarios involving TikTok and where it could end up in the next five years.

Strength to strength

There’s every chance that in the next 5 years, TikTok could go from strength to strength and see itself become the dominant social networking app. Right now, its numbers are strong, but it isn’t rivaling Facebook or Twitter in terms of adoption. If more and more people join the TikTok train – if the short-form content style catches on beyond the young demographic it’s currently targeting – then TikTok could seriously explode, especially if it deals with the banning and censorship issues it’s currently facing. The trajectory TikTok is on suggests that there’s no chance it won’t grow in the next 5 years and become a true social media juggernaut.

Marketing on the rise

In the next 5 years, it is extremely likely that video marketing on TikTok will massively increase. Brands are only just starting to understand the potential of the platform for advertising purposes, so in the next 5 years you can expect TikTok to become a hub for marketing just like other social media platforms are right now. Short form video content has immense marketing potential, so brands won’t want to miss out on the window into the TikTok demographic that using the platform to its fullest extent could provide. Expect brands to team up with more influencers, too, so that in 5 years’ time, TikTok influencers are just as much a marketing force as Instagram influencers are now. There are many services out there that can help you market your products by increasing your tiktok likes and followers, this will help gain trust and overall help boost engagement.

A Byte of the pie

Recently, a new social media app hit the scene. It’s called Byte and it was released back in January this year. Byte is another short-form video sharing service, but its restrictions on content length are even shorter than those of TikTok; it only allows users to upload videos of 6 seconds or fewer. Even though that sounds like a limitation, it might well appeal to certain users who appreciate the brevity and immediacy of TikTok, so there’s every chance Byte could gun for TikTok’s crown and could well take it. In addition, Byte allows its creators to earn through ads, which TikTok currently doesn’t, so that’s likely to be an incredibly enticing prospect for influencers going forward.

Fall from grace

Given TikTok’s recent controversies, there’s a chance that what’s happening around the app right now in the world of security and data protection could doom it in the future. While these issues aren’t usually of serious concern to most consumers until they become personal, TikTok is experiencing quite a few distinct controversies at the moment, so it’s possible people may start becoming wary of it as a platform. If ByteDance can get a handle on how TikTok approaches its public relations, then the problem will likely not progress any further, but this is certainly something the Chinese company needs to keep a very close eye on.

An uncertain future

Of course, it’s impossible for anyone to know exactly where TikTok will end up in the future. Any of the above are possible, but it could also go in a direction that’s completely out of left-field or respond to a growing trend that nobody saw coming. That’s what makes the mercurial and unpredictable world of social media so thrilling; nobody knows exactly where these platforms will go or what shape they will take into the future. Whatever the case may be, we know we’ll be right there with TikTok to see what happens to it in the next 5 years. It’s our favourite social media app right now and we’re excited to see what happens next!