When it comes to social media channels that have not only maintained a strong viewership but also stayed on the right side of the audience from a popularity perspective, TikTok has done a great job while the likes of Facebook and Twitter continue to be considered fairly toxic environments, both seemingly solely geared to either selling off your data to the highest bidder or setting you up in the middle of an ideology war.
In 2021 TikTok topped 1 billion annual users and generated over $1.9 billion in revenue, and is growing at a tremendous rate in many territories.
Though classically considered the location of choice for the youthful market, the service has actually made substantial inroads into other demographics and is clearly looking to branch out and diversify.
Currently, 28% of the user base is under the age of 18, but almost 20% of their users are over the age of 40, and that number is growing.
All in all, there is a sense that TikTok is starting to rethink the scope of its platform and its audience, and this means a bunch of updates and changes are in the works.
As with all things technical, there is always a clamor to up the game or to make new improvements or additions that further improve the quality of service, and TikTok is no different.
2022 has brought a new bag of tricks that will help the user experience a great deal, and no doubt further increase the amount of time users spend scrolling through video content.
Here’s a look at just some of the planned improvements and updates that TikTok is planning on releasing in 2022.
Visual Enhancement Feature
This new addition helps improve the image of the video you are watching, be it to improve the exposure, add more light, or even color corrections that may be needed, and is available within a single click.
This is great for those who have hilarious videos they want to post but might have previously been concerned about the quality of the footage.
Great Sound Effects
TikTok is introducing a new tool that can add musical instruments or even animal sounds to your video.
This sound effects library is easy to access and use and will add a new dimension to your videos to make them even more entertaining. Simply hit the ‘voice effects’ button to access the plethora of noises.
This addition is great for those videos that may not have sound, and even if you do, you may find these help add to the quality of the content you post.
HD Quality Uploads
You’ll now be able to upload your videos in 1080p HD quality, which will add to the user experience.
This already exists in some territories outside the US but is going to expand worldwide over the course of 2022.
Once again, this is easy to access; simply move to Upload HD in the publishing settings and set to the resolution you wish your video to appear in.
Green Screen GIFs
Of all the updates planned for 2022, this one is sure to be the most used by TikTokers.
This tool will offer you the chance to switch in a background that will effortlessly place your content in a new perspective.
You select from a library of backgrounds and simply apply the effect accordingly.
These Green Screen GIFS will help to really make your videos pop, and they are great fun and loads to select from. We can imagine this being a very popular feature in 2022.
Repost Button
By all accounts, TikTok is planning on bringing its own version of a ‘retweet’ offering users the chance to report videos on its platforms.
This would certainly help to drive reach on the service and would be well received by their users.
The button would be in the ‘share’ area menu, where you can currently share content to your friends via messages, but the planned update would allow you to share the video with your friends on TikTok.
It would not show on your TikTok profile, such as it does on Twitter; it only sends the video to your TikTok friends’ For You feeds.
In this way, it’s more subtle than Twitter and perhaps more in keeping with the platform’s ecosystem.
TikTok Stellar Growth Likely to Continue into 2024 and Beyond
TikTok is now forecast to become the third most popular social network in the world; behind Facebook and Instagram, such is its growing popularity and reach.
Trend predictors believe TikTok will break 750 million monthly users in 2022, which would be a mighty increase.
It’s worth noting that TikTok increased in terms of users by 59% in 2020 and 40% in 2021, and these increases, along with likely similar growth in 2022, put the service well ahead of the likes of Snapchat and Twitter.
On its continued success, Debra Aho Williamson, Insider Intelligence’s principal advisor, stated last December;
“The rise of TikTok is especially challenging for Snapchat, with which it competes head-to-head for the youth audience,”
“Although TikTok does not share much similarity to Twitter, its massive size relative to the more-established platform is a clear reflection of the addictive nature of TikTok’s content,” Williamson added.
It promises to be an excellent year for TikTok, and one imagines they may soon catch up with Instagram when it comes to their share of the social media pie in 2022.
