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What Does It Take to Make a Tik Tok Like App?

8324 Views | 1 min | Published On: February 19, 2019 Last Updated: September 24, 2020
create an app like tik tok

TikTok – a strange blend of Snapchat and the defunct video app Vine – is a rejuvenating invention in the social media universe. There are no ads. There’s no news. All that users get in the app is entertainment, fun and a chance to show their talent to the world.

Known as Douyin in China, it is a media application for making and sharing short videos. Launched in September 2016 in China, the app was introduced to the world as TikTok one year later. With more than 500M users around the world, it has 17 Million followers on Instagram. It seems like Vine and Snapchat met Musical.ly and luckily Tiktok happened which gave more than 500 million users over the world “15 seconds” for achieving the fame they desired.

TikTok the most downloaded app

According to Sensor Tower, TikTok was the most downloaded app worldwide on Apple’s app store in the first half of 2018; its number of downloads were more than that of better-known networks like PUBG, YouTube, Whatsapp and Instagram.

With too much under the hood, what do you think will be the secret sauce behind the success of the app? The technical aspect, user experience it provides, funding it had or the idea behind it? Let’s find how the application is ruling the world while setting new norms in the Entertainment app industry and how you tik tok like app can do the same.

musically likes app

Is There Still Room for Your App in Entertainment Industry?

Well, the answer is a big YES. There is no uncertainty in saying that TikTok has put itself at the highest point of the market acquisition pyramid. But, this doesn’t imply that it will be the only application that will lead the industry in the years to come. Mobile applications come and go. Some get the love of users and many get failed. Also, there is always space for new ideas that provide unique features and a nice experience to the users.

Before TikTok, applications like Funimate, Dubsmash, Viga Video, were already giving users a nice experience in the media industry. Still, Tiktok managed to make its mark on the users and has defeated various superstar businesses of the world with its revenue numbers and engagements.

In a similar way, your tik tok like app too can make an impact. To disrupt the industry, all you need is a great idea, a powerful tech team to build an app like TikTok and a great marketing strategy.

5 Essential Features You Must Have In Your Tik Tok like App

Tiktok – the most popular video-sharing application – has broken every one of the records set by Facebook and WhatsApp. If you want to develop Android or iOS application in a similar category, then here are a few features of Tiktok that are essential to make your app a successful one.

User Application Features

1. Allow Users to Watch Engaging Content

Making a powerful tik tok like app is just possible if you provide users something special, unique and in variety every single day. When it comes to video sharing applications, you should give content that enables users to have lots of fun.

Tiktok allows its users to watch the unlimited number of video clips by other users and that in turn encourage them to create their own content. This leads to excellent user engagement in the app which is the critical concern of app developers nowadays because of the high churn rate of applications

2. Lets Users Shoot Short Video Clips

One of the fundamental features, which you can’t miss, is to allow users to shoot short video cuts for fun. It is critical that you enable users to shoot even if they don’t want their videos to post. That will again give them a chance to indulge with the application.

If we talk about TikTok, it provides the following options to shoot the video clips:

  • Post Video/pictures

The users can shoot and share their videos and pictures in the application.

  • Add Special Effects

This feature enables users to choose background music and make magical clips in an easy manner. You have to incorporate eye-catching and simple special effects so that users have a fabulous time and make engaging videos all the more effectively. Special effects that Tiktok incorporates are shaking, shivering with hip-hop and music, 3D stickers and props.

  • Utilize Original Sound

TikTok allows users to utilize their original sound too while making the video, which enables them to exhibit their full talent in front of the world.

  • Special Tools

With numerous filters and AR effects, Tiktok app is pretty amazing. In addition, what makes this app extraordinary is that it empowers the creator to make snappy cuts, edits, slow down the speed and much more.

To make a powerful short video sharing platform like TikTok, you have to develop such features that create a buzz among youngsters.

3. Let Users Share in Multiple Social Platforms

Tiktok allows users to make short lip-synchronizing music videos and share those videos on numerous social platforms like WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger. Enabling users to share on various platforms is the must-have feature to consider before developing a music or video-sharing application Tik Tok like app.

Duet is another energizing social feature offered by TikTok. Here, the maker can start by recording a video on a particular dialogue. Now the other TikTok users who check the very popular #Duetwithmehastag will see this and may take a stab at putting their own turn on that.

4. Notify Users in Real-Time

The application sends real-time notifications to the users with respect to likes, shares, addition in followers and so on just like Tiktok. The application also uses push-notifications to keep users notified about the current happenings even if they are not using the app at any particular time.

5. Leverage Hash Tags for Better Experience

This is another innovative concept used by Tiktok. Hashtags are very much effective among the people and the TikTok application allows its clients to make the most use of them.

Admin Panel Features

Administrator side of the TikTok application will allow the admin to do the following tasks – content and user management, notifications management, handle reports and manage the flagged videos.

Now that we know the technical aspect of the tiktok app, let’s see what technology stack you will require to build a powerful app that can handle millions of users at a time.

Our Preferred Technology Stack for Developing an App like Tiktok

TikTok is one of the finest apps of entertainment sectors with millions of users using the app every single day. Absolutely, no amount of funds and features can help in such a scenario if your app doesn’t have a strong tech stack that can make absolute wonders with the app development process. For this reason, we prefer the following tech stack:

  • Frontend: Native; Kotlin for Android and Swift for iOS.

  • Backend: Node JS or Python

  • Database: Cassandra or Mongo DB or Postgre or SQL

  • Cloud: AWS or Azure

  • For emails: Mandrill

  • Media Service Configuration: HTTPS, RTMP

  • Payments: Paypal or Stripe

  • Voice & SMS Verification: Sinch or Firebase

  • Push Notifications: Push.io

  • Video Audio Transcoding: FFMPEG, Amazon Elastic Transcoder

How You Can Earn Money With An App Like Tiktok?

There are a number of ways using which you can earn money from your mobile app like Tiktok and they are:

In-Application Purchase

TikTok gives users the option to purchase emojis and stickers to respond to live videos that get streamed on the platform. The in-application purchases themselves got the brand around 275% in user spending and roughly 3.75 x year-over-years revenue, bringing the revenue amount to over $3.5M globally.

Fundraising

You can connect with the investors to raise some investment for your application. Raising money is a top notch method of earning even for TikTok application and the application managed to get funds of around $3 billion from the SoftBank group in October 2018..

Selling the Application – Exit Model  

Make a music application and once the application is famous among targeted user base then you can get the buyers easily. Make connections with potential businesses and entrepreneurs. Make a deal that is the most beneficial for your application and earns the money.

Advertisement

If you don’t find these previously mentioned ways fascinating, then you can even show commercials advertisements in your mobile application. Target ads to your audience according to location, age groups, Likes-Dislikes, and so on. In the meantime, advertisements can be of numerous types, similar to Cost per install or click, and so forth.

What is the Cost of TikTok Like App Development?

A few factors that can be useful to find the expense of TikTok-like application development are number of Platforms (iOS, Android or both), Design Complexity, Development Region, Requirement of developers, number of hours required to develop the app multiplied by the cost per hours.

In general, the TikTok application development cost will come somewhere around $25,000 to $30,000. While this is just the base amount, the cost will increase as you include more features in the application like High-End Animations, Artificial Intelligence and so on.

Wrapping Up

The main feature of TikTok application is the ability to create short videos and share them on the app for other users to view and react to it. But, when you jump into it from a business front, there are various different features that you need to add to it so as to make the entire experience vivid and engaging for the users of the app.

To kick start your journey of making a Tik tok like app, what we would suggest to you is making an MVP first that would contain all the must-have features and then you can gradually add some new features in it. To know about our experiences of developing an app like Tiktok, you can talk to our business development executives here.

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