Unfortunately, Squarespace makes it insanely difficult to embed PDFs, but you can read the translated doc HERE. Let me know what you think!

This week, Bytedance (which owns both Tiktok and Douyin) released a 2019 data report on the user behaviors and trends on Douyin. It’s only available in Chinese, so I thought it might be interesting to translate and share with all of you!

Douyin is the Chinese counterpart to Tiktok, and is only available to users in mainland China. For those of you familiar with TikTok, this is a really, really interesting report into the cultural difference between China/ US. Things that trend in these two countries are insanely different.

For example: knowledge-based content is extremely popular in China, and less so in the US. Also- this was wild to me: those creators that did the most dance-based videos in China are users born in the 60s (!!), whereas in the US, it seems that it’s mostly teenagers (Gen Zs) who are creating those types of content. I think that part of this may be attributed to the different ways that US/ China smartphone users behave. The US may have more ‘internet-native’ internet users, but ‘smartphone native’ internet users in China extend beyond GenZs and Millennials. Those born in the 60s, 70s, and 80s in China are intimately familiar with smartphones and apps: using Wechat, using e-commerce platforms, familiar with digital payments, using mini-apps…and so on. So, when you think about it like that, it’s not so surprising that social apps in China are not for the young-only, and is probably why Douyin is able to cross the 400million daily active users mark in China at only three-years-old.

[BTW- I know that Tiktok is available and popular in non-US countries, but I’m using “US” as shorthand to denominate the “global, non-China market”because that is the market I am currently in and am most familiar with. For example, India is also a huge market for Tiktok and has its own subculture.]

The behavioral differences between Douyin and Tiktok also underscore one major thing to me: there really isn’t a ‘one-size-fit-all’ social app that exists. Different regions like different types of content, even though the medium itself (in this case, short-form video) is the same.

Cultural factors (geography, age, local pop culture) play a huge role in how users end up using a product. This sort of reminds me how breakfast items look different in chain restaurants around the world- anecdotally, I remember when the first McDonalds and KFCs opened up in my hometown in China. KFC ended up doing sales that were multiples of McDonalds in the first year there because they were SUPER flexible on their menu items and incorporated a lot of local food items (Chinese soymilk, 油条, congee and the like).

Localization isn’t contained only within brick-and-mortar stores; even with software, it’s uber important to understand who exactly your users are, and leave room to adapt! I think one thing that Tiktok does really well is to innovate very quickly based on the types of content that exists on the Tiktok platform: they frequently introduce more advance video editing tools, interactive filters, better song integrations, etc. in order to cater to the types of content that it’s US-based users like to create.

Quick thought to end this post on: is Bytedance the first company to have created a truly global, viral, social app? I think this is only the beginning for Bytedance. 2020 will be a really interesting year for Bytedance, but also beyond: the larger China tech scene.