Diffusion of Innovation: Tik Tok

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TikTok has a credibility problem with Congress - The Verge


According to recent statistics, Tik Tok is the only social media platform in the Top 15 that has been developed within the last 8 years. Technically, the app is still a start-up. However, when one starts to examine the way in which the mass adoption of the app has occurred, some very tactical patterns start to emerge. When applying the theory of Diffusion of Innovations, there are some clear ways in which they overlap that contributes to the massive success of the app:

1. Changes in Stages:
When the app first launched, the general set up of the app was perfectly suited to the needs of "influencers", i.e. the first group of adopters. It allowed them to gain popularity quickly within a small group and generate personalities that would attract the next group "early adopters" to the app to interact with content that was rare and exclusive to the app but provided by already-popular figures. When there was concern that these "early adopters" were becoming to divided in age, they introduced and heavily pushed the expansion of their algorithm. This allowed the next group of "early majority" to feel catered to in a way that was personal, allowed them to participate in relevant trends, and feel comfortable enough to invite the next group "late majority" to use the platform. They are definitely still within the mid-late majority of the process.

2. Smart Grouping:
Due to the insane algorithm included within the app, people are grouped by their interests. Tik tok has been able to discern which groups are using the platform to see influencer content, and which are using to see content from their respective group, and quickly adjusts the user experience to reflect that. While trends still circulate, there remains distinct grouping on the app that closely resembles the grouping used in diffusion of innovation theory

3. Social Element:
The reason Tik Tok grew so many early adopters so quickly was because they made sure to include the social elements that many of their predecessors (such as Vine) failed to do. There are many ways to share Tik Toks outside the app platform, as well as make 'Duets" with other users in the app. This feature was heavily pushed during its roll out through influencer engagement with average users, causing a flood of people to join in order to use this feature for engagement as well as comedic purposes. This enables the massive group of early adopters to maintain that relationship to the influencer category, which is essential for their retained use.

Overall, the tactics used by the app share a lot in common with the theory of Diffusion of Innovations, and I'm very curious to see the ways in which the platform continues to change along these same lines.

https://digital.hbs.edu/platform-digit/submission/tiktok-transforming-video-sharing/

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