ByteDance's TikTok was the most popular website in 2021, according to Cloudflare (NYSE: NET) research, taking away the spotlight from the search engine giant Google (NASDAQ: GOOGL).
TikTok's global traffic ranking reached its highest point on Feb. 17, according to Cloudflare, with TikTok quickly climbing up the rankings from #7 in 2020 to #1 in 2021. The social media platform especially observed a high amount of growth in traffic from the months of March to June.
Moreover, despite of the fact that India has permanently prohibited TikTok and that the United States has spoken out against it, TikTok became the most frequently downloaded app earlier in the year due to the controversies.
According to the New York Times, TikTok has turned into a "holy grail of marketing" so that advertisers can more strongly appeal to the Gen-Z crowd. Hashtags such as "#TikTokMadeMeBuyIt" has led to about seven million posts on this platform, therefore making it much more successful and more popular than platforms such as Meta's Facebook or Instagram. Therefore, investors are more inclined to invest in TikTok than other such platforms.
The primary reason that TikTok has been able to attract such a large volume of Internet traffic is because it has such a wide variety of content. TikTok content can be discovered on any subject, such as memes, life hacks, cooking tips, chemistry, and so on. This broad range of content has drawn in users from all kinds of demographics. In the future, TikTok hopes to go beyond its current scope within the market in order to appeal to further types of audiences.
TikTok has already begun testing its desktop streaming service, TikTok Live Studio, as well as its food delivery service within the market, which will hopefully attract further users and create more success for the company down the road.