How to Build an App like TikTok
We have Twitch for live streams, Snapchat for photo editing, and Spotify for music. But innovations will always have a place. One such instance is TikTok, which has developed into a fantastic source of entertainment and keeps millions of users hooked it.
How can a business idea be turned into lucrative apps like TikTok? In this article, we’ll walk you through a step-by-step process for creating and expanding the top TikTok substitutes.
What exactly is TikTok?
TikTok is a video-sharing program that allows users to shoot brief video snippets, broadcast live video streams, apply filters or their favorite music, and shares the finished products on social media.
The idea for combining music, video sharing, and social networking in one smartphone app came from TikTok inventor Alex Zhu. Teenagers were using several apps, he saw, to listen to music, take selfies, film quick movies, and share them with pals.
He believed that the younger age required a music app with an avant-garde app format for making quick films.
- TikTok is one of the most well-known and valued startups today.
- The video-sharing software has received 1 billion downloads and has 500 million monthly active users.
- Users spend 52 minutes every day on TikTok on average.
- Teenagers love the app, and 41% of TikTok users are between the ages of 16 and 24.
- In-app purchases, which bring the video-sharing app $3.5 million each month, are TikTok’s main source of income.
- Global TikTok revenue in the first half of 2019 was $39 billion.
Let’s now examine TikTok’s operation and the factors that have contributed to its meteoric rise in popularity.
The standout characteristics of apps like TikTok
TikTok offers its users social media features such as the following, liking, and resharing content. But in order to create a similar user experience, apps like TikTok must have advanced functionality, which the app also offers to users.
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List of the requirements for the top TikTok alternatives:
1. Uploading videos:
As a user, you have the option to upload pre-made films (up to 15 seconds long), rotate or trim them, alter the playback speed, and share your creations with others.
2. Tools for editing video:
TikTok users can edit their movies using an extensive toolkit of video effects, like changing the color of the eyes and even adding lip-syncing to films, just like Snapchat users can. Additionally, there are lots of masks, stickers, animations, and slow-motion effects.
3. Streaming lives:
Using the help of this premium TikTok feature, video makers can broadcast live and accept virtual gifts from their followers paid for with TikTok Coins.
4. Reactions:
When responding to music videos made by others, TikTokers utilize the app to record videos and post them in the feed.
5. Sharing online:
All of the videos that TikTokers edit in TikTok is shared on their Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram profiles.
6. Sounds:
Allows users to add their favorite songs to the built-in TikTok collection as background music and to add a lip-syncing capability.
7. QR code reader:
By scanning a special QR code, users can subscribe to other music video app users.
8. Optional duet:
Users of TikTok, often known as TikTokers, can produce lip-synched song videos and request other users to duet with them by adding the hashtag #duetwithme.
9. Geolocation:
The software uses geolocation to show nearby active bloggers who produce quick videos and broadcast streams.
Let’s now examine how to develop a music video app that is profitable.
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Five steps to creating a TikTok-like app
We outline how to develop your company idea into video editing software similar to TikTok below.
Step 1: Research the target market
You should do out research and learn more about your target market before bringing an idea for a social networking app with music videos. As a result, you will have a thorough understanding of the market dynamics, consumer brand interactions, key competitors, and emerging trends. The next step is to verify your initial hypotheses and modify your idea to meet the company’s goals.
However, the crucial component which necessitates complete comprehension is your target audience. Getting additional information about your target audience is the first step toward achieving your goal. To accomplish it, you ought to:
- Demographic information. You must find out the typical age, location, device kind, and financial position of your users. It would be wonderful to learn how frequently they have use of a dependable internet connection.
- Trends in behavior. Even while every app is different, you can still identify a few trends that you can incorporate into your upcoming app. These trends include a decline in users’ desire to download content, a sharp decline in their tolerance for lengthy load times, a low tolerance for lax security, a high value placed on app functionality, and others.
We advise developing a buyer persona, a detailed image of your ideal users, in order to improve your product and make it more responsive to the needs and wishes of your users.
Step 2: Choose the monetization model
It is crucial to choose your future business model for one of the top TikTok alternatives once you are aware of whom your target consumers are. You can use the monetization techniques listed below to generate income for your video editing music app like TikTok.
- Fundraising: Since fundraising is the process of gathering money as donations from individuals and corporations, you can seek investment at the beginning of your project. Fundraising is one of the premium earning methods for TikTok as well. The app recently received $3 billion in funding from wealthy investors.
- Within-app purchases: With in-app coin purchases made with real money, TikTok viewers may support live broadcasters. During their live streams, followers give gifts to others and trade coins for them. Coins can be purchased in bundles of 100 to 10,000 for between 99 cents and $99.99. The 100 coin bundle is the most popular among users, according to statistics from Sensor Tower, followed by the $4.99 500 coin packages. For your next app, you can employ the same monetization technique.
- Advertising: Another way to monetize apps is through advertising, which includes many forms of in-app advertising like:
- Per-Click Pricing: Every time a user engages with an ad in an app, advertisers receive payment.
- Per Mille Cost: Every 1,000 times an advertiser’s ad appears inside a mobile app, the app owner bills the company.
- Price per Action: advertisers pay for only clicks that result in a specific action, such as an app installation, form submission, website registration, or newsletter signup.
Now that you are aware of your potential business strategy, let’s begin the process of developing an app.
Step3: Hire an app development team
You must get in touch with the development team and begin the project discovery phase once you have the target audience research and business model in hand.
The Discovery Phase, which includes business analysis, requirements elicitation, technology stack selection, cost estimation, and project planning, is the initial stage of a software project.
The following actions are often carried out during the discovery (inception) phase, though they may change slightly based on the needs:
- Define the project’s parameters, the key components of the upcoming software, and the business priorities
- Make a workflow for developing apps that takes the monetization plan into account.
- Determine the primary app features and user roles.
- Create a future app idea.
The team will next set project milestones, prioritize the app’s features, and produce its minimum viable product (MVP).
Step 4: Create an MVP for a TikTok alternative
The creation of a social video application is a challenging undertaking. So, rather than creating a fully featured and expensive app, we advise releasing a TikTok substitute as an MVP or minimum viable product. This will allow you to gauge how well users are responding to your TikTok substitute and take their comments into account for future project enhancements.
The final cost of a video creation app is determined by a variety of elements, including the locations and hourly rates of the developers:
- Australian, English and American developers start at $150 per hour.
- The average developer hourly rate in Eastern Europe is $35.
- The hourly wage for Indian developers is often $15 to $20.
Step 5: Grow your app
The best strategies for boosting the popularity of TikTok alternatives are compiled below.
Google Play Optimization (ASO): Application marketplaces continue to be the top source of application discovery, with over 561 million downloads of apps every day. You can use app stores like the Google Play Store and the App Store to attract new users to your app. However, you must optimize your application to increase its search ranking in the application marketplace.
For producing a lot of high-quality traffic to competitors to TikTok, try the following application marketplace optimization tips:
- Making the title tag’s keywords relevant.
- Post a variety of striking screenshots.
- Making an instantly recognized icon.
- Composing a captivating description.
Organic User Acquisition on Mobile. You can retarget traffic from organic sources like websites and social media profiles to the application marketplace’s page to enhance user acquisition in TikTok alternatives.
You could make use of:
Clever banners: These banners will direct users from mobile websites to your mobile application or the page in the store.
Content promotion: You must produce high-quality material for this technique, such as infographics, blog articles, or videos, on subjects that are well-liked by your target market.
Paid Promotion: You may increase the number of installs of your TikTok alternative by 150%* by launching paid social media ads, PPC campaigns through Google Adwords and cross-promotions with partner applications. Through guide potential clients from the awareness stage to the application download, you can develop various adverts and calls to action.
Social networking site utilization with The App Solution:
A mobile social app with a public conversation that connects experts from various industries was developed by one of our clients. The QuePro mobile application looked like that. We have put the following elements into place in order to help the client’s business achieve its objectives:
- Establishing separate profiles for clients and service providers
- Asking questions or posting requests and obtaining responses from experts
- Utilizing Google Maps SDK to locate the user and display local professionals who are appropriate
- Utilizing Google Cloud Messaging to send notifications
We used Event Bus, an open-source event library that streamlines component communication and boosts the speed of UI objects, to complete the project under pressure. As a consequence, we only needed three months to complete the project with all the necessary features.
Creating TikTok substitutes: The ultimate consideration
You can use some of TikTok’s mechanics to make profitable mobile video creation software because teenagers favor social video apps. You can do that by implementing the business models mentioned above.
But you must go through the discovery step in order to create a social media app. The project goals, functional and non-functional requirements, and a project roadmap must all be defined during this phase. As stated, we advise creating an MVP with a set of fundamental functionality and a straightforward aesthetic in order to launch complex projects, such as TikTok alternatives. The MVP will assist you in gaining new users for your app through paid advertising, organic acquisition, and app marketplaces.
FAQ?
Can I develop a TikTok-like app?
An app similar to TikTok can be made using a variety of contemporary technologies. You must decide on a programming language for native mobile development between Swift (iOS) and Kotlin (Android). Software engineers can use Flutter app development services if they select cross-platform development.
What other apps produce videos like TikTok?
Clash, Triller, Dubsmash, Instagram, Byte, Funimate, Lomotif, Cheez, Vigo Video, KWAI, Likee, Firework, and VideoShow are some of TikTok’s rivals. Social media platforms come and go all the time, despite the platform’s phenomenal development since its launch in 2018.
