TikTok is already a daily routine for over 1/3 of the people in Bulgaria, and the influence of this social network continues to grow continuously, and at an impressive pace. 2.4 million people in the country use the fastest growing social network at least once a month, according to current data released by the CopyVibes agency. With a population of about 6.5 million people, this means that about 37% open the application at least once every 30 days.
In fact, a large part of users use TikTok much more often – this is indicated by the statistics of views and the average number of minutes spent per day in the application. The data can be called amazing, as they speak of about 18.4 billion video broadcasts on the platform within a month! In practice, this means that one user has an average of about 7 thousand views within the period. It sounds fantastic, but still, over 11 million short videos with diverse content are created during the same time period. This indicates high productivity, as well as a strong interest on the part of the audience in the content available on the social network.
Even if the numbers seem bombastic and unrealistic, the explanation can also be found in the time that TikTok users spend on their favorite social network. According to the data cited by CopyVibes, the audience engagement is staggering – every registered Bulgarian in the system spends about 80 minutes per day of their time on this platform. TikTok is literally becoming a habit in everyday life, being opened on average 14 times a day.
Of course, an explanation can also be found in the specifics of the content – mostly short video materials, which can be called easily digestible. They are viewed quickly, are not burdensome and appear as an alternative to longer and for many more boring clips and posts on other social networks. But TikTok is already going beyond its purely entertainment focus.
More and more brands are promoting themselves through TikTok
This social network is gaining momentum and influence in another direction. It is a platform that is proving to be an excellent springboard for many products and brands looking for a faster and more direct path to the audience's attention. To a large extent, TikTok is already playing the role of a preferred search engine through which users find information about various brands and items. The impact of social media on the development of the beauty industry is significant - one in 4 users interested in beauty and appearance products have made a purchase after watching a promotional video on the topic on TikTok.
But the platform's influence is not limited to this, but is expanding its scope to more and more types of businesses. They literally advertise themselves through this medium, as many users are looking for information about certain products, relying on the experience of other users – the so-called influencers. And the users themselves are looking for this content. It turns out that while on other social networks users tend to avoid advertising content, on TikTok they are often looking for exactly that.
And the claim that this is the platform of young people is not just another cliché. For Generation Z, which includes those born in this century, a platform like Facebook is, if not obsolete, then a virtual territory for the older generation. There is no need to go into the specifics of the data – a look at TikTok’s content is enough to make it clear that in this medium, the materials are indeed aimed much more at the audience under 30. Or at least it was, because things have been different for some time now, and the age limit of the audience is increasing enormously.
To a large extent, these are young people, for whom smartphones are not the latest technological fad, but almost a given. In this sense, it is curious what the distribution is between users of the main types of operating systems on “smart” phones. It turns out that owners of Android devices who use TikTok are two and a half times more than those with iOS devices – 72 to 28 percent. Of course, this is probably also due to the fact that there are fewer iPhone users overall, since the phones themselves are more expensive.
And how does TikTok compare to other social networks? For now, Facebook holds the palm in Bulgaria – the data is dynamic, but it is believed that certainly over 4 million people in the country have opened an account on the leading social network and use it at least episodically, if not constantly. The gap is not small at the moment, but trends suggest that it will increasingly narrow as TikTok's influence on the audience in Bulgaria grows.
