Esports Staff
Source: www.esports.net, March 2021

Twitter,  Youtube and Instagram have been the major social media tools to attract Esports fans. But none of them are as good as TikTok. Yet, TikTok only gets a fraction of the attention it should, considering the size of untapped audience using the service.

Why has TikTok become such a big thing, and how can it help in the growth of esports in 2021?

What makes TikTok special for Esports

TikTok is short video sharing social networking app. Most content on the app includes lip-syncing and looped videos, which last an average of 15 seconds.

Here are 5 interesting facts that prove TikTok is special:

  • TikTok reported back in November 2018 that it had 680 million active users per month. This number has grown to over 1 billion in early 2021.
  • Over 30 percent of TikTok’s active users are teenagers.
  • Almost half of TikTok’s users are under 34, with 26% of them being between 18 and 24 years old.
  • 40% of active users are male, while 60% are female
  • The average daily time spent on the app is 52 minutes
  • The app utilizes artificial intelligence, to analyze your interests and preferences, unlike other social media apps. This way, TikTok judges what kind of content you’ll see.

At the moment there are few gaming personalities and brands that have more than 1M followers.

There are a few teams in the western part of the world that have gained a great following on TikTok. The top three are:

#1 – Team SoloMid (TSM) with 1.5 M followers,

#2 – 100 Thieves with 900k followers,

#3 – G2 Esports with over 400k followers.

Numbers like these brought the platform’s attention since 2019 when it partnered with Riot Games for the LoL World Championship Finals. The ESL hopped on the TikTok hype train as well by creating a channel dedicated to CS:GO highlights and other esports content. With the help of two branded hashtags (#progamer and #mygaminglife), the ESL channels got 2.3 M video views in four days.

And now, TikTok will be sponsoring the FIFA 21 esports team, Tundra. Their roster includes Musaed “Msdossary” Al-Dossary, the 2018 FIFA eWorld Cup Champion, who has amassed over 900,000 social media followers. They also plan to re-launch the TikTok Cup (sponsoring the Collegiate StarLeague).

TikTok esports opportunities in 2021

The biggest opportunity for esports organizations comes with TikTok’s latest push into eCommerce and in-app shopping. If most of the clean profit for esports organizations comes from merchandise sales, apparel and NFTs, the new partnership with Shopify and plans to ease in-app shopping are a godsend for companies.  Additionally, TikTok For Business and their “self-serve” ad approach make drawing in new users and merchandise sells seamless.

Furthermore, TikTok Q&A is another great feature that formalizes the Q&A process through a new in-app feature. The new addition will be available in TikTok LIVE as well, making those obsolete Reddit Q&A’s a thing of the past.

Overall, the platform is turning more into a revenue generator, than just an engagement creator. The short videos on the app can quickly gain millions of views because of its algorithm, while product placement and engagement are becoming easier with the new features rolling out. The amount of vanilla fans organizations can target is mind boggling.

It seems there is no better time to start on TikTok than now.