TikTok Series Part 3. Having a Bite: How ByteDance is Taking on the World’s Media/Tech Giants
By Alex Shukri
Chinese tech companies like ByteDance, Alibaba, Tencent and Baidu function in the second-largest economy with little competition from other global tech giants like Google.
Thanks to Chinese censoring laws, Western apps and social media platforms are banned which provides companies such as ByteDance with a gap to fill. They created alternatives for everything: Google Drive, Amazon, YouTube, to name just a few.
ByteDance was founded in March 2012 - eons ago in tech terms - by Zhang Yiming witha news app called Jinri Toutiao - ‘Today's Headlines’ in English. He started the app because he realised that people were spending less time reading newspapers and spent more time on their phones, specifically on the metro going to and from work. Capitalising off this revelation, within 4 months the app had 1 million daily users. In the intervening eight years, ByteDance has grown to be worth $78 billion thanks to other successful apps such as Douyin (the Chinese version of TikTok), Toutiao Helo (an Indian social media app) and most famously, TikTok.
Even with the spotlight on ByteDance, the company remains shrouded in secrecy. Zhang Yiming hardly gives interviews and has banned his employees from speaking to the press without permission. As a tech CEO in China it's advisable to keep a low profile - according to Shaun Rein, managing director of the China Market Research Group, being too high profile means attracting the attention of the Chinese government and American officials due to the Chinese-American trade war.
Despite the reluctance of the limelight, however, ByteDance is focused on explosive global growth, especially in markets like the US where they've been attempting to recruit from companies like Google, Facebook, and Snapchat, and expand their empire even more. While not all of their apps have made it as big as TikTok has outside of Asia, global success is on the horizon for ByteDance.
ByteDance is all about user experience and connection - not only as an investment for the company, but also as an investment in the users. The investment in the users allows for a better experience that draws more users to the app. The success of ByteDance's apps can be boiled down to three core aspects - a formula mastered for domination in the market.
Highly engaged, and young user base. TikTok itself is a perfect example of this. Gen Z is the core and targeted audience, as is the case for many apps from ByteDance
Virality based products. The top 50 creators on TikTok have more followers than the populations of Mexico, Canada, the UK and Australia combined(!)
Personalisation, recommendation and, of course, the algorithm. The user experience on ByteDance apps is addictive - there's no waiting space between each post as there is on other apps such as Instagram, so mindless scrolling for hours is easily achievable. And the more users scroll, the more personalised their experience is which makes them want to continue using the app. The perfect cycle.
Image: https://jefftowson.com/
Here are a few examples of the rapid expansion of the ByteDance empire:
Music apps:
ByteDance proves that their apps can launch music careers - such as Lil Nas X, Ant Saunders, and Arizona Zervas. But not only on TikTok. ByteDance launched a music app called Resso, with a similar algorithm to TikTok. It's a social media music app where users can upload lyrics to songs, share tracks, and even create their own music. While it’s a music app primarily with a subscription service, they're also focusing on social media product features rather than monetisation as the primary objective. This app does have competitors though, not only in China with Tencent, but internationally with Spotify and Apple Music.
Mobile gaming:
In China, one popular expansion of the ByteDance empire is Xiaomei Fights the Landlord. However, as usual, their biggest competition is Tencent which has become popular over the last decade in the gaming industry. However, ByteDance's unique advantage to other companies coming into any new industry is their massive teenage audience on TikTok that are more likely to follow other ByteDance apps than other companies.
News:
As detailed at the start, ByteDance runs the news app Jinri Toutiao (‘Today's Headlines’). There are no writers or editors employed. Instead, the algorithm recommends stories to users based on their interaction with other stories. Since 2012, this app has become one of the most used news services with 120 million daily users. Similar apps have been launched by ByteDance in the US, India, Indonesia and Europe but none have had the same success as Jinri Toutiao.
E-Commerce:
Unsurprisingly, ByteDance is already branching into e-commerce, allowing for easily accessible integration for shopping while users remain in-app. ByteDance wants to blur the line between commerce and content. Just as with TikTok’s shoppable ads, the Chinese version of TikTok (Douyin) has partnered with Alibaba. Users can watch a video about a dress and have an option to buy that dress seamlessly in-app.