Freelance Your Way to Freedom

20TikTok Goes the Clock

Too many brands treat social media as a one‐way, broadcast channel, rather than a two‐way dialogue through which emotional storytelling can be transferred.

— Simon Mainwaring

There is one social media app that I believe outshines all the rest today. This one app provides more reach, connection, and exposure than all of them combined, or at least that has been my experience. That's why I feel TikTok deserves its very own chapter—it's really the one app you need to download to kick‐start this entire journey.

Over one billion people use TikTok every single day (Dean 2022). When compared to Instagram, which is nearing 1.4 billion users, it's worth considering that TikTok is much younger—only founded in 2016. Instagram has been around since 2010. That is why my pundits believe that TikTok is going to surpass Instagram soon as the most downloaded app of all time.

Why are so many people rushing to download the music‐based video‐only social media app? TikTok does something that the other social media sites don't do—it requires creators to be purely and unequivocally honest. It's a social media app that exposes those who were previously hiding or lying about their identity. As an app that places emphasis on real‐time video caught and edited right inside of their editor tool, TikTok is almost the antithesis of Instagram. Users can't hide behind filters and Photoshop. What you see is what you get.

That's why TikTok users trust their favorite creators with a fierce ...