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Does TikTok cost money?

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Think TikTok Is Just About Dance Moves? Think Again! Here's What the TikTok App Is All About and How It Works

Is your child constantly staring at their phone, scrolling, while random sounds, noises, and short clips of music play over and over again? Do they walk around the house singing, executing non-committal dance moves such as lots of stepping, dabbing, and hand motions? During coronavirussocial distancing, are you wondering more about TikTok and wanting to join it? We bet! So let's start with the basics: what is TikTok exactly and how does TikTok work?

While most of us older folk are focused on other social sharing platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and even Snapchat, TikTok has been growing for years. For part of 2018, it unseated Instagram as the top free app in the Apple Store and remains in the top five position of the free app charts. With 1 billion users, it's safe to say TikTok is here to stay. Even celebrities (celebrity parents, that is!) are getting in on the TikTok craze. Reese Witherspoon made a hilarious IGTV video in which her son, Deacon Phillippe, attempts to teach her the ins and outs of TikTok. "Deacon teaches me how to TikTok," the caption reads. "I think I nailed it." Highlights include some pretty embarrassing (but still cute, because hello, it's Reese!) dance moves and the Legally Blonde star cradling a Hydroflask like a baby. (See: What's a VSCO Girl? for more context.)

Let's break down all the basics about TikTok:

Related: The Secret to Winning 'The Pen Game'—the Funny Game Going Viral on TikTok

What is the TikTok app?

TikTok is the world's fastest-growing app. Formerly known as Musical.ly, TikTok is a social media app that enables users to make and share 15-second videos. These videos can be set to music and usually feature choreography. Other kinds of videos prevalently found on the app include comedy (a la 2013's Vine app, but a few seconds longer), and YouTube-esque skits, challenges, and memes. Launched in 2016, TikTok had 150 million users when it overtook Musical.ly, a music-focused app that had 100 million unique users at the time. Whereas Musical.ly was mostly a platform for kids to lip-sync, dance, and perpetuate popular choreography, the TikTok rebrand broadened the app's horizons to more: dancing, viral challenges, lip dubbing (remember that short-lived app?!), comedy, parkour, magic tricks—you name it. What TikTok evolved into is kind of like the lovechild of YouTube and Vine—funny, shareable videos with a potentially "viral" quality, only in tight, digestible time frames: 15 seconds or less. If you have an account, you can watch, like, and share videos. You can also create your own video content. To recreate a "sound" or in layman's terms, to use the same sound or song from another video, you simply click the spinning circle in the bottom right-hand corner, then click, "Use this sound." Bam—you can now make a video to that same song.

Who has the most followers on TikTok?

Wondering who is most TikTok famous? Based on the TikTok app's strong roots in music and dance, it probably comes as no surprise that the TikToker with the most followers is a dancer: Charli D'Amelio. But it's worth noting that Charli only recently got in that top spot. On March 25, 2020 Charli dethroned Loren Gray when she amassed more than 65 million followers on the app. As of this writing, Charli has 105.9M followers and Loren Gray, an 18-year-old American singer with a penchant for doing glam makeup comes in fourth place with 50.7 million followers. Between Charli and Loren, social media personality and dancer Addison Rae has the second most followers with 74.4M and magician and filmmaker Zach King has the third most followers with 56.4M.

How do you get TikTok famous?

It's the question all TikTokers want to know: How do you get TikTok popular? Well, there's no real math equation for getting famous or going viral on any social media platform. However, there a few things you can do (regularly!) that will boost your chances.

Here are our top tips for getting TikTok famous:

Post often: Like, every day. There's a lot of content out there and if you're not making it frequently and consistently, it will get buried by people posting at least once a day. Make interestingcontent: This is probably the most important step and since it's so ambiguous, you can see why it's hard to turn getting TikTok famous into a step-by-step process. Basically, you have to make new content rather than just hopping on what's cool. If you're a trailblazer of trends on TikTok, then you're more likely to get peoples' attention. Stay up to date on trends: Making original, unique content is important but it's also important to hop on any trends that are going viral. So, if there's a dance everyone's doing, put your own spin on it. Talking about trends brings us to... Use hashtags: Hashtags increase your content's visibility on nearly every social media platform—Instagram especially. Some hashtags you may want to include are "fyp" and "for you page" since those are frequently perused, but also pay attention to niche hashtags. Uploading a video of your plants? Include specific hashtags relevant to that niche: "plant ladies of TikTok," "houseplant club," etc. In the home decor space on TikTok? Try "#forthehome and #homedecoronabudget. Find your (small) niche: Most people on TikTok use the app to record dances, sing, or do comedy. If that's the route you want to go, then do it, but you should know these are oversaturated spaces. Meaning, it's harder to be seen because everyone else is making this kind of content, too. If you can, find a smaller niche that speaks to the kind of content you want to create: like the plant ladies of TikTok or home decor accounts mentioned above, these spaces generally have less creators, so therefore more room to go viral or catch a following quickly. Other TikTok spaces that aren't as oversaturated (but have the potential to be more popular) include shopping accounts, pet accounts, artists' accounts, DIY accounts, and more.

How does TikTok work?

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"In a nutshell, it's a feed of (mostly) vertical content that is served to you through an algorithm powered by machine learning that predicts what you are interested in based on your engagement with the app," explains Jacob Pace, CEO of leading global Gen Z media company Flighthouse—the largest media brand on the app. Flighthouse recently surpassed 27.5 million followers on TicToc app and has used a technique of producing original vertical video content as a way to attract millions of followers and hundreds of millions of views per month. Though TikTok comes from humble dance-and-lip-sync-oriented beginnings, Flightouse (and Pace) maintains that comedy is one of the app's richest categories. "Comedy is the leading category from what I've seen spanning to various other categories including DIY, dancing/music, and others," he says.

How can I make a TikTok account?

Users have to be at least 13 years old to make an account. It's totally free to sign up and all you have to do is make an account by downloading the TikTok app from the App Store. Once it's installed, open the app and swipe up to explore your feed. After reviewing the Terms & Conditions, tap the profile icon in the bottom right-hand corner. Make an account using either a phone number or email. You'll need to put in a birthday (to prove you're over 13) and make a password. Alternatively, you can sign up using Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or Google.

Is TikTok free?

The TikTok app is totally free. Anyone can download the app and have access to videos on TikTok and their own account on which they could make their own videos.

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If TikTok is free, is it possible to make money off it?

Yes, but here's where it gets a little complicated. Social sharing apps of the past have faltered—Vine and Musical.ly, may they RIP—due to a lack of monetization opportunities. YouTube, Instagram, and IGTV? These platforms make monetizing videos easy and so most content creators flock to those in favor of others. That being said, media brands like Flighthouse and popular influencers make money off of their videos. What's the key to monetary and viral success on TikTok? According to Pace, it's "continuing to empower key creators, figuring out a monetization strategy, and diversification of its content genres." Not sure what that means? Pace breaks it down for us. "First, TikTok working with its creators on the app (those making large volumes of viral content) supports them on the platform," says Pace. You know—TikTok scratches the backs of influencers (people making a lot of popular content) and vice versa.

Second, coming up with a monetization strategy is crucial to making $$$.

"Figuring out a monetization strategy and how the platform will continue to sustain itself and its ecosystem of creators to potentially even make a living from TikTok," Pace says, explaining that it's an important part of creating content when you can earn dough. And third? "Diversifying the kinds of content on TikTok [means] expanding into content that is different than what is mostly seen on the app right now," adds Pace. Evolve, evolve, evolve.

What about sending emojis for money on TikTok?

Say what?! TikTok is completely free, but you may have heard rumors of people paying money to send an emoji, also known as gifts, to users. What's the deal with that?

Live.ly is a separate entity from TikTok, but from the same parent company. Live.ly allows users to "go live" on TikTok, creating videos in real-time like YouTube Live or Instagram Live. When a user goes live, other users can send them gifts purchased with real money. The user that gets a gift can then trade in those gifts for real cash. The whole "gifting emojis" element is easily avoidable. Just turn off your child's ability to make in-app purchases and they'll never be able to spend any money inside the app, much less gifting it to other users.

Is TikTok kid-friendly?

If your child is spending all day, every day on TikTok, it's no wonder you want to make sure it's safe and of course, age-appropriate. This answer, too, is complicated. While a lot of the content is appropriate—lip dubs of Frozen and Baby Shark songs—there are song lyrics that are unedited. Related: One Dad Is Going Viral in His Quest to Protect His Daughters From Social Media—Here’s His Message to All Parents Everywhere

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There's also the matter of users being able to make their own sounds. Like YouTube or Vine, users don't have to "recreate" a sound; they can simply record their own audio. So, are videos of comedians all "clean" versions without any profanity or mature topics? Definitely not. "From what I've seen, a lot of it is 'kid-friendly,' but with any platform, its creators will push the limits," says Pace. "For a parent though, it's not a bad idea to check it out for themselves." The short answer? It's all in who the TikTok user follows and what settings are on the app.

How can parents make TikTok safer for their kids?

Though TikTok is full of all kinds of content—family-friendly, mature, and otherwise—there are a few things parents can do to make the app safer and more age-appropriate for their children. First off, you can enable the Digital Wellbeing setting. Digital Wellbeing is a feature in TikTok that reminds users (who've been on the app for a certain period of time) to put the phone down and take a break. #NECESSARY, seeing as all signs point to this app as 100 percent addictive. In addition to encouraging app users to take breaks, Digital Wellbeing also flags inappropriate content. Another option, of course, is making your own account, like Witherspoon did (you can follow her at @officialreesetiktok). TikTok is a bonafide phenomenon amongst teens and kids and it doesn't look like it's going anywhere at the moment. If you're able to poke a little fun of yourself like Witherspoon, then, by all means, be the cool parent who downloads TikTok. Just don't be surprised if every time you hear a song come on the radio or on a Spotify playlist, you start to recognize it as, "Oh, that's a TikTok song!" Curious if you should or shouldn't share your kids' faces on social media? Experts weigh in on the safest strategy here.

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