Analysis of users of Tik Tok short video APP

In this article, the author analyzes Tik Tok users to see what preferences they have for summary content.

1. Introduction

This article is a continuation of the previous article, which described the product project plan - class representative. Therefore, after the project is established, we need to conduct user research based on some existing high-traffic apps (such as Douyin, etc.) and analyze their advantages and disadvantages.

At the same time, observe their users' preferences for summary content, understand related content through questionnaires and user interviews, and find out some basic characteristics of the user group of the new product (class representative). Interested friends can click on the previous article to learn about the [Class Representative] product.

1. Purpose

• Conduct user analysis and write documents for Douyin products with high traffic, and summarize the current shortcomings of Douyin products through questionnaires and in-depth user interviews;
• Investigate and analyze the opinions of Tik Tok product users on summary content.

2. Product Overview*

Douyin is a music creative short video social software incubated by Toutiao. The software was launched on September 20, 2016 and is a music short video community platform for all ages. Users can use this software to select songs, shoot short music videos, and create their own works. The background will update users' favorite videos based on their preferences.

3. Product positioning*

Tik Tok is a short video app focusing on music creation for the new generation, providing a social community for young people. The creative content is presented in the form of shooting + music = short video, with a clear brand image.

1. Multi-party UGC content products
2. Weakly social products that extend from tool attributes[1]

2. Analysis of Douyin Short Video APP Users

1. User group composition

1) Crowd size

The rapid rise and development of short videos is first of all because the way they are disseminated has greatly adapted to the fragmented lifestyle of contemporary people. At the same time, the low threshold for short video production has also allowed more people to participate in it, and many short video viewers are also short video producers. In addition, the social attributes have also brought more popularity to short videos.

As shown in Figure 2-1, data from iMedia Research shows that the user scale covered by China’s short video industry continues to expand, and is expected to reach 722 million people in 2020[1].

Figure 2-1 Forecast statistics of the scale of short video users in China from 2016 to 2020

In his short video industry development analysis report, Fu Dianjun [2], based on research data from mobtech, found that the number of monthly active Internet users in China remained at around 1 billion from the beginning of 2018 to the beginning of 2019 (Figure 2-2). It can be seen that the user base of short video platforms is large and there is a trend of continued growth, but based on the national population and the number of monthly active Internet users as a baseline, the growth rate will gradually decrease.

Figure 2-2 Statistics of monthly active users of the Chinese Internet from February 2018 to February 2019

According to data from iMedia Research (Figure 2-3), in the monthly active user ranking of China’s short video platforms, Douyin and Kuaishou ranked first and second with 477.323 million and 370.839 million users respectively, while the user base of other platforms did not reach 100 million [2].

iiMedia Research analysts believe that although there are many short video platforms, Tik Tok and Kuaishou have obvious advantages as the leading platforms. The two platforms have a huge user base and are also at the forefront of the industry in terms of content richness and commercial exploration.

Figure 2-3 Ranking of active users of short video apps in China in July 2020

At the same time, Figure 2-4 inputs the keywords of Douyin and Kuaishou respectively according to the Baidu search index, and checks the news and information search information. It is found that before February 2018, the search volume of Kuaishou was higher than that of Douyin, but then a corresponding contrast was formed. This can further verify the above argument. At present, Douyin has already gained half of the market share of short video apps in China.

Figure 2-4 Comparison of Baidu search index for keywords Douyin and Kuaishou

2) User characteristics

Tik Tok’s target audience can be divided into two categories: content publishers and lurking viewers.

Content creation users mainly use this platform to express themselves and satisfy their desire for performance. Their characteristics are: recording daily life, pursuing novelty, having a strong desire to imitate, and gaining attention by expressing themselves. Lurking users mainly use this platform to kill time and get entertainment.

Figure 2-5 Baidu Index Douyin user portrait regional distribution

Figure 2-6 Baidu Index Douyin User Profile Population Attributes

From Figures 2-5, 2-6, and 2-7, based on the relevant data analysis from March 1, 2019 to March 31, 2021, it can be seen that the geographical regions where Douyin users are located are mostly distributed in southern cities such as Guangzhou and Jiangsu, the age range is between 20-39, there are more male users than female users, and the areas of interest are film, television, music, etc.

Figure 2-7 Baidu Index Douyin User Profile Interest Distribution Chart

At the same time, among Douyin users, users from first- and second-tier cities account for more than 50%, which shows that most Douyin users have high consumption and income levels. Users with college or bachelor's degree or above account for more than 50%, which shows that most Douyin users have a high level of education.

Compared with other short video applications, Douyin's user profile shows "three highs": high education, high consumption and high income

From the age distribution in the population attributes, it can be observed that the age distribution of Douyin users is relatively wide. People under 19 years old and over 50 years old together account for about 15% of the total number of users, among which users aged 20-39 account for the largest proportion and are the core users. From the age distribution of the crowd attributes, it can be observed that there are more male users than female users.

3. Questionnaire - Discovering the core issues

A questionnaire survey was conducted on the Douyin short video APP. The goal was to identify the characteristics of the population and find valuable questions. The questionnaire is attached. A total of 56 questionnaires were received, including 16 questions. The estimated answer time is 2-3 minutes. Therefore, when selecting the validity of the questionnaire, the screening criteria are:

1. The questionnaire takes between 2 and 5 minutes to answer.
2. Only users who have used TikTok are selected for analysis
3. Cross-analysis using the questionnaires obtained
4. The content of this questionnaire tends to be summary-oriented.

After screening and sorting the questionnaires, we finally got 32 valid questionnaires. Although the sample size is small, it still has certain guiding significance for the explanation of the following situation. We will continue to conduct investigations in the future and strive to make the survey results more general and better reflect the current situation of the problem.

1. Analysis of core issues

In addition to the basic content, we conducted a cross-analysis of the interactive combinations of different contents in the above questionnaire and obtained the following conclusions:

1) Question: Gender, age, and how long after a video is played will people consider reading the class representative summary in the hot comments.

Figure 3-1 Percentage of male and female tolerance for video length

As can be seen from the above figure, men and women have a high tolerance for videos of 1-3 minutes. When the video length exceeds 5 minutes, women's tolerance for the video is more variable, and women seem to have a higher tolerance for video length.

Similarly, we analyze the tolerance of video length based on age groups. As shown in Figure 3-2, it can be seen that generally, as people age, their tolerance for long videos increases. However, since the survey sample did not cover the 40-49 age group, the survey results for the 40-49 age group are not included in the figure below.

Figure 3-2 Video tolerance among people of different age groups

2) Question: Relationship between the use of Tik Tok functions by age group

As shown in Figure 3-3, people of different ages have different purposes for using Douyin. Overall, people aged 19-39 use Douyin’s functions more flexibly, with more than 5 purposes for using Douyin, and covering a wide range of content, including leisure and entertainment, learning content, and hot topics. They also become content creators to show their own lives. However, people over 40 have a narrower range of applications, only targeting about 2 of the needs.

Figure 3-3 Purposes of using Tik Tok at different ages

3) Problem: When the video length exceeds a certain limit, the user will not continue watching the video after watching the class representative’s speech in the hot comments.

As shown in Figure 3-4, when the video duration exceeds 15 minutes, almost all respondents will directly close the video after watching the summary content and will not continue watching. But for content that is 1-3 minutes long, most respondents would choose to watch the entire content.

Figure 3-4: Whether to continue watching the video after watching the summary content

2. Summary

Tik Tok's user group is young people. Although there are more male users than female users, female users have a higher tolerance for video length and are therefore more likely to accept long video apps. At the same time, younger users have a wider range of purposes for using Tik Tok, while older users mostly use Tik Tok for entertainment.

People are more likely to accept short videos of 1-3 minutes or 3-5 minutes. When the video is too long, people are more willing to check out the class representative mode in the hot reviews, and after checking it, they usually do not choose to continue watching the video.

4. In-depth user interviews

1. Four dimensions define users

When selecting users for in-depth interviews, we have to define the users we need to interview. In this case, we can define users from four dimensions, which will help you better understand the interview users.

1. Basic demographic dimension: including the basic information of the interviewee, gender, age, income, occupation, etc., which can indirectly reflect the preferences of gender, age and other aspects for the platform that needs to be analyzed.
2. Lifestyle and values: including the interviewer's lifestyle and values. The correctness of his values ​​must be ensured to ensure that the interview is effective and can explain certain issues. Otherwise, the interview will be invalid.
3. Usage behavior and attitude: The frequency, duration, function application, and attitude of the platform that needs to be interviewed can reflect whether the user is a lead user and whether he has certain typical principles. By understanding different lead users, it will accelerate the understanding of different user needs.
4. Product usage and attitude: Whether you are a user of this product or a user of a competing product, in-depth interviews will bring great surprises. Understanding the different feelings about using competing products and this product, and understanding the different feelings of users at different levels about the platform will provide more intuitive ideas from users. Figure 4-1 shows the four dimensions of defining users.

Figure 4-1 Four user-defined dimensions

2. User Interview Outline

An in-depth interview was conducted with a user of the Douyin APP to understand the user's needs for using Douyin and discover the shortcomings of the Douyin APP.

1) Preparation of interview outline

When developing a user interview outline, the following should be met:

1. The number of questions should be set at 6-10. Too few questions will affect the "depth" of the user in-depth interview, while too many questions will make the user irritated, which will greatly reduce the effectiveness of the interview.
2. The questions set should be open-ended and can be broken down a lot. Summarizing the content in one sentence will make it one-sided and difficult to reference.
3. The question setting is diverse and hierarchical. Different users should be asked different relevant questions and cannot be generalized. Only in this way can the results obtained be of reference significance.
4. Continuously dig deeper and the overall user interview should proceed from shallow to deep. Setting questions with a certain depth of meaning will make the interview unique.

Figure 4-2 Contents of the outline for in-depth user interviews

2) Practice: User Interview Outline

Clarify the basic contents of the interview, such as time, location, format, personnel, and topic:

1. Understand the basic information of the interview users;
2. Understand the basic information of users' use of products;
3. Gain in-depth understanding of users’ use of product features, including functions used, frequency of use, and duration of use;
4. Have in-depth conversations with users about their experience using the product;
5. Ask specific questions about a certain function (for example, if a survey focuses more on users' tolerance for video length, you need to ask split questions based on video tolerance: video length will affect your viewing of the video, at what length will you not continue watching the video; when the video is too long, what reasons will attract you to continue watching; when watching a long video, will you concentrate on watching it, or use other platforms to view other content at the same time;
6. What incentives will make you use the product more frequently?
7. Ask effective split questions about other content that needs to be investigated.

Figure 4-3 Practical thinking diagram for in-depth user interviews

3. Basic information of interview users

The interviewee is an experienced user of the TikTok app. He is currently a second-year graduate student in a new first-tier city. He has been using the TikTok app for four years, and uses it for an average of more than 2 hours a day. His areas of interest include but are not limited to: technical learning (crawlers quick course), beauty reviews (reviews by big V bloggers), funny and entertaining videos (leisure and entertainment direction) and movie/TV series editing modules.

At the same time, the user has his own channel on the Douyin platform with about 2k+ fans. He updates the channel content from time to time, mainly including life, dressing, meals, etc., which belongs to the category of sharing daily life.

4. User in-depth interview feedback

Based on in-depth interviews, the shortcomings of the Douyin short video APP are summarized as follows:

1) Incoherent learning content

Normally, the length of a Tik Tok video is required to be within 3-5 minutes, which limits the learning content of each video to only 3-5 minutes. When people have not yet entered the learning state, the content has ended. At the same time, Tik Tok content creators usually manage the content in a collection, and most of the time there are problems such as untimely video updates and incomplete content.

2) Too many ads, which reduces user experience

With the rapid development of Douyin, not only major bloggers have begun to accept advertisements, but the platform has also been continuously outputting advertisements. Some review bloggers that I used to follow are increasingly inserting advertisements in their videos, which gradually reduces the user experience.

3) The content review is poor and may contain some vulgar content

UGC content creation platforms have enabled a portion of the user group that watches videos to join the content creation group. However, the platform’s content review is not comprehensive. When combined with a personalized recommendation module, it is easy to recommend some vulgar content to users, causing inconvenience to them.

4) Content search is time-consuming and laborious

In the recommendation section of TikTok, relevant videos will be pushed to users based on their browsing habits. For fans of movie/TV series commentary, the viewing time of TikTok is not enough to support the commentary of an entire movie.

Therefore, more content creators divide the movie commentary clips into three parts. When one of the clips appears in the recommendation section, users need to swipe right to enter the creator's homepage to search for content. For personal homepages with a lot of content, finding the content you want to watch is like looking for a needle in a haystack, which is very time-consuming and laborious.

5. Douyin APP User Demand

Through the questionnaire survey and an in-depth interview with one of the users, it was found that users have three needs when using the Douyin APP: entertainment during fragmented time, quick learning of a skill, and expression of their own life, etc., among which the need for quick learning of skills will be further explained.

1. Entertainment during fragmented time

The daily active users of Douyin have increased year by year, but due to the population base, the growth has gradually slowed down after 2020. Watching short videos has become a new form of entertainment. People achieve the purpose of entertainment by interspersing Douyin videos in fragmented time management. Through observation, more than half of the people in a car use the Douyin APP to watch short videos with rich categories while riding on the subway or bus.

People need to find appropriate ways to entertain themselves during their busy work. The length of each Tik Tok video is about 5-6 minutes, which is completely in line with people's use of fragmented time. TV series are long and have many episodes, and novels and articles are difficult to organize using fragmented time.

At the same time, people can find modules of all categories in Douyin, which makes people use Douyin APP to find their own entertainment methods in fragmented time.

2. Learn a skill quickly

The length of short videos on Douyin ensures that content creators need to consider the time limit of video recording. Therefore, during the video recording process, it is necessary to choose short sentences that can ensure that they contain the main content. The learning videos in Douyin do not have redundant content. They are usually straightforward and "full of practical information". This method allows people to quickly acquire learning knowledge and complete the learning of knowledge quickly.

1) Disadvantage 1: Knowledge is fleeting

During the research process, through in-depth interviews with users, it was found that the time limit of short videos is a "double-edged sword". While people quickly enjoy knowledge, they also have a perception of "instantaneous" knowledge. The rapid acquisition of knowledge usually makes it disappear quickly. Even if you put it in your favorites or click to like it, you will not watch it again.

2) Disadvantage 2: Incomplete and untimely knowledge update

Learning content is generally updated in the form of collections, and a content creator usually updates more than 2-3 collections at the same time. Therefore, in most cases, the content will not be updated in a timely manner or cannot be connected. Users will choose to give up learning and no longer continue to use the Douyin APP, reducing user stickiness.

3. Show your own life

The Douyin APP gathers a large number of content creators. While enjoying the video dividends, they also want to show their lives. This is why the Douyin APP can satisfy users' itch points. After showing their lives, people will get comments, likes and collections from other users, interact with users, and gain a sense of self-satisfaction.

Author: Baba Mushroom

Source: Baba Mushroom