Menu

Skip to content
  • Home
  • About Our Company
  • Contact Us
  • Using Open Source Intelligence Techniques
  • Visit Our Website

TikTok Intelligence & Research

Posted on October 26, 2020October 26, 2020 by eChatter
TikTok

Tik Tok has become the new “hot” social media platform with a huge amount of scrutiny around it. China launched it in 2016 and it grew to the US and UK markets in 2018.

What is it and How Does it Work?

It started as a lip-synch video app but now has morphed into an app where users can upload all kinds of videos clips. In fact, to date, it has a billion downloads worldwide and over 500 million active users. It supports over 15 languages and users in at least 75 countries. That is a lot of growth in such a short amount of time.

In a previous blog, we explained how to use TikTok and the difference between accessing the app via mobile device vs. desktop.

TikTok Demographics

MarketingCharts TikTok data (March 2019) finds over 50% of TikTok users in the US are aged 18-34 – with a nearly even split between 18-24 year olds and 25-34 year olds. Interestingly though, we still find a quarter of US TikTok users are aged 45-64. Statista supports those numbers as seen in the chart below.

Tiktok

Social Intelligence

When it comes to intelligence or social listening, TikTok is still a puzzle to most. Enterprise social platforms are not able to harvest data from TikTok and there is no API. The platform itself encourages users to to keep their content public because that is the very best way for one to get “famous”. Ordinary people doing very unordinary things to gain attention of brands looking for the next social media influencer.

The best way for a user to search TikTok is through their discover feature. Search via hashtags (desktop only allows hashtag searching). Keyword searching is available, however it will mostly capture the text description of videos.

Currently, social media research in TikTok will be very time consuming. It can be useful in the case where a user is very active and has a good deal of followers. Very easy to blend in to those followers and monitor activity.

Employee Misconduct

Fox News Reported:

A Chick-fil-A employee claims she was fired from the restaurant after posting a now-viral TikTok video revealing menu hacks for cheaper food.

The story began in late July, when TikTokker @Anasteeezy shared a quick clip to the video-sharing platform discussing an ordering hack for seasonal drinks. In the time since, the video has been viewed over 2.5 million times.

“I work at Chick-fil-A so I’m here to give you all the tips and tricks on secret menus items, how to get things cheaper and just all that” she began. “And this is only a part one.”

The employee started by explaining that by ordering a large Arnold Palmer drink with four pumps of mango, you can allegedly replicate Chick-fil-A’s seasonal mango passion tea, only cheaper and in a larger cup.”

The Dark Side of TikTok

Like every other social media platform, there is a dark side. Scams are popping up all the time on the platform. For one, there are plenty of bots on the platform impersonating real users. These automated bots either direct you to shady websites to shell out your private information like phone numbers and bank information or infect your device with malware.

Wired Magazine recently published an article, “Does TikTok Really Pose a Risk to US National Security? In the summer of this year, Wells Fargo banned employees from using TikTok on company devices.

TikTok’s fiercest opponents argue that it should be viewed as a dangerous Trojan horse for Chinese Communist Party espionage. 

Share this:

  • Email
  • Print
  • Tweet
This entry was posted in General Social Media Information. Bookmark the permalink.

Post navigation

← OSINT Research & False Positives
The “Must Have” to the “Nice to Have” in Social Research for OSINT →

Recent Posts

  • Chain of Custody & Digital Evidence
  • Can I Fire an Employee for This?
  • The Online Personality of Your Subject
  • Leave No Stone Unturned in Online Discovery
  • Employee Fraud in the Digital Age

Categories

  • Corporate
  • Fraud
  • General Social Media Information
  • Human Resource Materials
  • Insurance
  • Investigations
  • Law Enforcement
  • Litigation
  • Parents Corner
  • reputation management
  • School Resource Officer
  • Security online
  • Uncategorized

Check Out Our Other Blogs

  • Inside the Customer Journey
  • Social Media Management Blog

Get New Posts Via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Connect with me

Link to our Facebook Page
Link to our Twitter Page

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 3,588 other subscribers

Pages

  • About Our Company
  • Contact Us
  • Using Open Source Intelligence Techniques
  • Visit Our Website
  • RSS - Posts
  • RSS - Comments
  • Home
  • About Our Company
  • Contact Us
  • Using Open Source Intelligence Techniques
  • Visit Our Website
Pluto Theme by Viaviwebtech
loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.