We have Spotify for music, Snapchat for photo editing, and Twitch for live streaming. But, there is always a place for innovations. An example is TikTok, which has become an excellent source of entertainment, keeping millions of users glued to it.
How to transform a business idea into profitable applications like TikTok? In this article, we will walk you through a step-by-step guide on how to develop and grow the best TikTok alternatives.
What is TikTok App?
TikTok is a video sharing app for broadcasting live video streams, recording short video clips, add filters or favorite music and share the results on social media.
The idea of combining music, video sharing and social media into one mobile app came from Alex Zhu, a creator of TikTok. He saw teens use different apps to listen to music, take selfies, and record short videos and share them with friends.
He thought that the new generation needs a music application to create short videos, which was an innovative application format.
- Today, TikTok is one of the startups most outstanding valuables.
- The video-sharing app has 1 billion downloads and 500 million monthly active users.
- On average, users spend 52 minutes a day on Tik Tok.
- The app is popular among teens, and 41% of TikTok users are between the ages of 16-24.
- Tik Tok’s main source of revenue is in-app purchases that bring the video-sharing app $3.5 million a month.
- In 2021, it generated $4.6 billion, up 142% year-over-year.
Now, let’s take a closer look at how Tik Tok works and why this video-sharing app has become so popular.
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Most Notable Features for Apps Like TikTok
TikTok provides its users with social networking functionality, including following, liking and resharing New Testament content. But the app also provides users with advanced features that apps like TikTok need to include in order to provide a similar user experience.
Therefore, the best TikTok alternatives should include the following list of features:
Video uploading. As a user, you can upload ready-made video content (up to 15 seconds) to your TikTok account, rotate or crop it, change the playback speed, and share your videos with friends.
Video editing tools. Just like Snapchat, TikTok allows users to edit their videos by applying an impressive set of video effects tools to change eye color and even lip sync videos. There are also lots of stickers, animations, slow motion effects and skins.
Live streaming. With this premium TikTok feature, video creators can live stream and receive virtual goods from their fans purchased with TikTok Coins.
Reactions. TikTokers use the app to create videos with their response to music videos made by others and post them to the feed.
Social sharing. TikTokers share all their edited TikTok videos on their Instagram, YouTube and FaceBook profiles.
Sounds. It allows TikTok users to create short videos by adding favorite songs as background music from TikTok’s built-in library and applying a lip sync feature.
QR code scanner. Users can subscribe to other music video app users by scanning a unique QR code.
Duet option. TikTok users, or TikTokers, can create lip-synced music videos, add a #duetwithme hashtag, and ask other users to duet with them.
Geolocation .Using geolocation, the app displays nearby active bloggers, who create short videos and broadcast streams.
Now let’s see how to create a music video app and make it profitable.
WHAT TECHNOLOGY STACK TO CHOOSE FOR YOUR PROJECT
Five Steps to Developing an App Like TikTok
Here we share the steps to turn your business idea into a video editing app like TikTok.
Step 1. Research your target market
To come up with an idea for a social media app with music videos, you need to do some research and learn more about your target market. As a result, you will receive a clear picture of market dynamics, how customers interact with brands, the main players and the trends to watch out for. Then you need to validate your initial assumptions and adjust your project for business objectives.
But the critical element that requires a deep understanding is your target audience. The first step towards your goal is to receive more information about your target audience. To do this, you need to research:
- Demographic profile. You need to know the average age of your users, their location, device types, and financial status. It would be great to find out how often they have access to a reliable internet connection.
- Behavioral trends. While every app is unique, you may still spot a couple of trends that you can apply to your future app. Such trends include decreasing user desire to download something, rapidly decreasing patience for slow load times, low tolerance for lack of security, high app utility value, etc.
To create a better product that responds to the desires and needs of your users, we recommend creating a buyer persona, a specific portrait of your ideal users.
Step 2. Choose the monetization model
When you know who your potential users are, it’s time to select your future business model for one of the best TikTok alternatives. Below we share various monetization strategies you can adopt for your music video editing app like TikTok.
Fundraising. In the early stage of your project, you can attract investment with fundraising from fundraising. is the process of collecting money as donations from individuals and businesses. Even for TikTok, fundraising is one of the premium modes of earning money. High-end investors recently funded the app with $3 billion.
In-app purchases. TikTok allows its users to support live broadcasters with in-app currency purchases, purchased with real money. Followers exchange coins for gifts and give them to others during their live streams. Coins are available in packs of 100 to 10,000, with prices ranging from 99 cents to $99.99. According to Sensor Tower data, the 100 coin pack is the most popular among users, followed by the 500 coin pack priced at $4.99. You can use the same monetization strategy for your future app.
Advertising is another option for app monetization that includes various types of in-app advertising, such as: p >
- Cost Per Click. Advertisers pay each time users interact with the ads in their app.
- Cost per thousand. The app owner charges advertisers for every 1000 impressions of their ad within the mobile app.
- Cost per action. Advertisers pay only for clicks that lead to a specific action, such as installing an app, submitting a form, registering on a website, or signing up for a newsletter.
Now, when you know your future business model, let’s dive deeper into the app development process.
HOW TO BUILD AN APP: MOBILE DEVELOPMENT LIFE CYCLE
Step 3. Hire a app development team
With your target audience research and business case in hand, you should contact the development team and begin the discovery phase of the project.
The first phase of a software project is the discovery phase which involves business analysis and requirements elicitation, technology stack choice, cost estimation, and project planning.
During the phase of discovery (initiation), we generally carry out the following activities, which These can vary more or less depending on the requirements:
- Define the scope of the project, the main features of future software and business priorities
- Create a development workflow of applications, taking into account the monetization strategy
- Identify the main functions of the application and the roles of users
- Design a future concept of the application
The team will then prioritize the app’s features, create project milestones, and develop the project’s MVP.
Step 4. Create an MVP for a TikTok Alternative
Social video app development is a complex project. Therefore, instead of building a fully functional and expensive app, we recommend launching a TikTok alternative as an MVP or Minimum Viable Product. This way, you can determine how users like your TikTok alternative and consider their feedback to further improve the project.
Below, we have put together a list of features required to develop the MVP of the best TikTok alternatives and the estimate in hours.
MVP Feature
Description
Estimate in hours
Basic UI
Layout includes only home screen elements.
From more than 60 hours
User login
- Social media accounts
- Email and password
Over 60 hours
User profile
Application user can modify
- Profile picture
- Password
- Contact details
- Name
- Gender
- Phone number
From 60+ hours
Geolocation features
Users can share the location where the users took photos or video content.
More than 120 hours
Image and video creation
Users you can post
- Images
- Videos
Users can apply editing tools
- Effects (lip sync, stickers, and text)
- Filters
- Smileys
Smileys
Up to 320 hours:
- applying filters 120+ hours
- creating custom filters 120+ hours
- cropping and rotating photos 80+ hours
Search
Custom search embedded via
- Username
- Hashtag
Since more than 60 hours
Sharing on social networks
Users can share their videos and photos on
From 120+ hours
Total
From 800+ hours
The final price of a video creation application depends on many factors, including regions of development developers and hourly rates:
- Developers in the US, UK, and Australia start at $100 per hour.
- In Eastern Europe, the average rate for Developers start at $50 per hour.
- The average rate for Indian developers is $20 per hour.
HOW TO OUTSOURCE MOBILE APP DEVELOPMENT
Step 5. Grow your app
Below, we’ve rounded up the most effective ways to make TikTok alternatives as popular as the original app.
Optimization from the application store (ASO). With more than 561 million daily app downloads, app markets continue to be the main driver of app discovery. You can use app marketplaces like Google Play and the App Store to attract new customers to your app. But to improve app market search ranking, you need to optimize your app.
The following app marketplace optimization tips are effective in driving a significant amount of high-quality traffic to TikTok alternatives:
- Adding relevant keywords in the app title tag
- Post a catchy screenshot combination
- Create a recognizable icon
- Write an engaging description
Organic Mobile User Acquisition. To increase user acquisition on TikTok alternatives, you can redirect traffic from organic channels like websites and social media profiles to the app marketplace page.
For this purpose, you can use:
- Smart banners. Such banners will take mobile website visitors to your mobile app or page in the marketplace.
- Content Marketing. For this strategy, you need to create high-quality content, including infographics, blog posts, or videos, on topics popular with your target audience.
Paid Advertising . By running paid ads on social media, PPC campaigns through Google Adwords, and cross-promoting with partner apps, you can increase installs of your TikTok alternative by 150%.*. You can create different ads and calls to action to nurture leads from awareness stage to app download.
App Solution’s experience with social media platforms
One of our clients created a mobile social app with public chat that will connect professionals from different industries. This is how the QuePro mobile application appeared. To meet customer business objectives, we have implemented the following features:
- Creation of two types of profiles: for service providers and customers
- Posting inquiries or questions and receiving responses from specialists
- Detect the user’s location through the Google Maps SDK to display relevant professionals nearby
- Send notifications using Google Cloud Messaging
To develop under strict deadlines, we implemented EventBus, an open source event library that simplifies communication between components and improves the performance of UI artifacts. As a result, we built the project with the essential features in just three months.
The APP Solutions – Success Story
CASE STUDY: PROOF OF CONCEPT OF VIDEO STREAMING APPLICATION
In The APP Solutions often receive requests from potential clients for the development of streaming video applications.Clients who consider The APP Solutions as a technology partner are looking for proof that we have experience developing streaming video and social media applications.
We decided to create a proof of concept for a streaming video app to ensure ownership of the technology experience. We also provide a detailed overview of the general architecture, list of features, and the technologies we apply.
Developing the proof of concept of the streaming video application gave us the following experience:
- We integrated the video streaming functionality for the POC using Agora.IO SaaS.
- We implemented authentication and authorization using Firebase Authentication.
- We worked with Firebase Realtime Database, which supports direct connectivity to end-user applications (such as mobile, web, etc.) server-side applications idor.
- We streamline the development process by applying out-of-the-box Firebase functionality.
As a result, we showcase our expertise in developing streaming video applications.
FUNCTIONAL VS NON-FUNCTIONAL REQUIREMENTS: MAIN DIFFERENCES AND EXAMPLES
Developing TikTok Alternatives: The Final Thought
Since social video apps are the most rated among teens, you can use some of the mechanics of TikTok for your mobile video creation software and monetize it. For that, you can adopt business models, as described above.
But, to build a social media app, you need to go through the discovery phase. This phase requires defining the project goals, functional and non-functional requirements, and a project roadmap. As we have said, to create complex projects, such as TikTok alternatives, we recommend developing an MVP with a basic feature set and a simple design. The MVP will help you drive new customers to your app through app marketplaces, organic acquisition, and paid advertising.
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