How would you improve TikTok?

TikTok is a social media product that allows user to upload 15 sec, 60 sec, and 3 min videos. Users can search for users and videos, like and comment on videos, save videos, or send them to friends.

Doubt	Clarification (Assumption)
Are there specific metrics you would like me to focus on?	No

Users	Personas
Content creators	Uploads videos to share with users, wants to gain more followers
Content consumers	Enjoys watching random videos or searches for categories. They save videos for later or send them to friends. Are not interesting in posting videos of their own
Companies that advertise	Run ads on TikTok, pay influencers to help promote their products

User Journey

Open app → scroll through videos → like/comment/share their favorite ones → search for videos or hashtags that they want to see more of

User Needs / Use Cases

Consumers need a way to organize their saved videos for later reference
Consumers need a way to search for a video that was sent to a friend in-app
Consumers don’t want to miss seeing the most popular videos and be out of the loop

BUC Method = (Business benefits + User benefits) - Cost

User Needs (2-5 Scale)	Business Benefits (B)	User Benefits (C)	Effort (D)	Priority (B+C) - D
1	4	5	2	7
2	3	5	3	5
3	5	4	3	6

User Solutions

Similar to Pinterest, allow users to save videos to specific folders on their profile page. For example, I want a folder for cooking videos I see that I want to try later, amazon or other shopping videos that I might want to check out and purchase later.
This is currently unavailable, and users have to try scrolling back up to find the specific video. These vidoes already have hash tags associated with them, users should be allowed to search their DMs using hash tags to locate specific videos faster
Users can opt-in to notifications when there is a really popular video circulating, say 3M likes or more, and they can click on the notification and it will open the app and bring them to that video
Implement ML image recognition to search for videos in DMs, say a user wants to search for all videos they sent someone that included dogs, user searches based on keyword ‘dog’ and those would be returned
Users could select categories of videos that they most want to be notified of, and TT will notify them of popular videos within the preferred categories

RICE Method = (Reach x Impact x Confidence) / Effort

User Solutions (2-5 Scale)	R How many people will this impact? (Estimate within a defined time period)	I How much will this impact each person? (Massive = 3x, High = 2x, Medium = 1x, Low = 0.5x, Minimal = 0.25x)	C How confident are you in your estimates? (High = 100%, Medium = 80%, Low = 50%)	E How many ‘person-months’ will this take? (<1 Mo = 0.5, 1-2 Mo = 1, 2+ Mo = 2)	Score *RIC/E*
1	1B	3	100%	1	3B
2	1B	3	80%	2	1.2B
3	1B	1	80%	0.5	1.6B
4	1B	3	80%	2	1.2B
5	1B	2	100%	0.5	4B

Risk / Trade-Offs

I would still like the availability to search messages, but it doesn’t align with our business goals of increasing engagement as much as the solutions I have highlighted
Users could potentially stop scrolling TikTok and only set up alerts for their favorite categories, but this is unlikely to pose a large or even medium threat. It is more likely to pull users back to the app and once there, they will continue to use it

Success Metrics

% users who clicked on the tailored notification when it popped up
Avg notifications set up by each user
Avg # of folders created by user
Avg # of vidoes in each folder
Time on screen

Summarize

To improve TikTok, I would suggest implementing the highlighted solutions above.

Utkarsh Binay Singh · Answer 2 · 2021-03-04T10:35:38+0000

Step 1: Explain your understanding of the product

Tiktok is a social media application that allows users to make small 15 second videos and share it with their friends. Over the past couple of years tiktok has gone on to become one of the most widely used apps in the world.

The main goal of tiktok is to ensure users spend more time on the platform to discover and engage in new content.

Step 2: Ask clarifying questions to narrow down the scope of the product/question

-Are we focussing on tiktok as a whole or a part of tiktok?

-Mobile or web based app? (mobile app only)

-Android or Ios (ios)

-Any particular region or country we are targeting to begin with? (Users in NY)

-What do you mean by improving? It can be/mean any of the following things

1) To Improve User Base- Target new markets, target new customer segments

2)Improve user engagement- Ensure users spend more time on tik-tok

3)Increase Retention and reduce user churn rate

Step 3: Choose and define the goal of the product

For the scope of this question we will be going with improving the user engagement on tiktok as the main goal as this aligns directly/very closely with the mission of tiktok that is to increase the time spent by users on the platform.

Step 4: List down the user groups.

Now there are 2 sets of user groups here since it's like a market-place model, creators and viewers.

A) Creators: These are the people/users who create content on tik-tok. Based on their usage they can be further categorised into the following categories

1) Power users

2) Casual users

3) Social media influencers/Celebrities

4)Brands/Businesses

B) Viewers: These are the people/users who don't create any type of content, but view other people's content on tik-tok. Based on their usage they can be further categorised into the following categories

1) Power viewers

2) Casual users

3) Brands/Businesses

For the scope of this question we will be going with Power users from the creators category and casual users from the viewers category. As more and more content generated on tik-tok more the number of options viewers will have. Thus for this reason we have chosen these 2 user groups

Step 5: List down the user pain-points

Power creators:

1) Don't know what kind of content will work and what won't

2) Coming up with captions for their content is oftentimes a very difficult task.

3) Want to reach maximum number of people through their content, since they have put a lot of work behind tik-tok creation

4) Want to know what kind of tik-toks their friends are creating for inspiration

Casual Users:

1) Often times the recommended videos doesn't match their interest, want better recommendation feature

2) Better search experience, as searching for the tik-tok they want to see is a very time consuming process

3) Many-a-times they don't know what to watch

4)If they like a video they want to be able to recommend it to their friends.

5) Don't have any incentives to watch these videos.

6) Want to know anytime their favorite creator has put out a video

Step 6: Prioritise the user pain-points based on meaningful criterias like: Impact to end user, Impact to business value

Creators

Pain Point #	Impact to end user	Impact to business value
1	H	H
2	M	M
3	M	M
4	H	H

Viewers

Pain Point #	Impact to end user	Impact to business value
1	H	H
2	M	M
3	M	M
4	M/H	H
5	H	H
6	H	M/H

Thus based on the above criterias we have prioritised pain-points #1,2 and 4 for creators and pain-points # 1,4,5 and 6 for viewers

Step 7: List down the solutions for these prioritised pain-points

Creators

1) Don't know what kind of content will receive more engagement (in terms of likes, comments etc)

A) What's Hot feature: Contain an article of a list of top 10 types of tik-tok that is trending right now based on engagement.

2) Coming up with captions for their content is oftentimes a very difficult task.

A) Auto content geneartor- Uses ML and NLP to come up captions for the video based on the content of tik-tok

4) Want to know what kind of tik-toks their friends are creating for inspiration purposes

A) Friends feature: Shows list of tik-toks that the user's friends have created in the past 1 week

Viewers

1) Often times the recommended videos doesn't match their interest, want better recommendation feature.

A) Friend based recommendation: AI tool analysing and recommending users the most watched/viewed tiktok videos in the past week based on the user's interest and based on what their friends are watching currently and watched the past week.

B) Survey Tab: Every-time a user thinks that their recommended videos doesn't match their interest, they can go to the survey tab answer a list of questions and then they'll be able to see a more defined and fine-tuned set of recommendations

4)If they like a video they want to be able to recommend/share it to their friends.

A)Friends chat feature: Users can connect with their facebook friends who are on tik-tok by logging in through their facebook account and thus directly send all the videos and links of tiktoks that they like through the chat feature

B) Social feature: Users can create list of tik-toks that they like and share it with their friends and even general public

5) Don't have any incentives to watch these videos.

A) Gamified Model: Every time user watches a full tik-tok video and recommends videos to their friends and the friend watches that video they get points for it and the friend gets points to watch these videos.

6) Want to know anytime their favorite creator has put out a video

A) Push based Notification feature: Send a notification alert to the end user when their favorite creator has uploaded a tik-tok

Step 8: Prioritise the solutions based on meaningful criterias like: Impact to end user, Implementation effort, implementation cost

Creators

Solution #	Impact to end user	Implementation effort	Implementation cost
1 A	H	L/M	L
2 A	M	M	M/H
4 A	H	M	L

Viewers

Solution #	Impact to end user	Implementation effort	Implementation cost
1 A	H	M	L
1 B	H	L	L
4 A	M/H	L/M	M
4 B	H	L	L
5 A	H	M	M/H
6 A	H	L/M	M

Based on the above criterias we have categorised the solutions

1A, 4A for creators and 1B, 4B, 6A for viewers

Step 9: List down the metrics that you'll measure and track for these features

Creators

A) What's Hot feature: Contain an article of list of top 10 types of tik-tok that is trending right now based on engagement.

1) Avg time taken per user to read these articles on a daily, weekly and monthly basis

2) % of users going to this feature before creating a tik-tok

A) Friends feature: Shows list of tik-toks that the user's friends have created in the past 1 week

1) % of total users who check-out this feature before creating a tik-tok

2) Avg number of users who are using this feature even after 6 months of using this feature for the first time

Viewers

A) Survey Tab: Every-time a user thinks that their recommended videos doesn't match their interest, they can go to the survey tab answer a list of questions and then they'll be able to see a more defined and fine-tuned set of recommendations.

% Inc in user satisfaction after launch of this feature

A) Social feature: Users can create list of tik-toks that they like and share it with their friends and even general public

Avg # of lists created per viewer

Avg # of people the lists are shared to per viewer

Avg # of lists that a user checks before deciding to add it in their list

Avg Time taken to create a list

A) Push based Notification feature: Send a notification alert to the end user when their favorite creator has uploaded a tik-tok

(DAU,WAU, MAU) of this feature

% of total users that have switched on this feature on their mobile phones

Step 10: Summarize your answer

stashbag · Answer 3 · 2021-02-08T01:51:40+0000

Clarification / Assumptions

What does improve TikTok mean ? --> Increase the user engagement on the app
Is there any particular segment we are focusing on? --> Open for interprerattion
Is this global or US change --> Global

Goals

We want grow engagement on TikTok
We want increase product stickiness i.e. the frequency with which existing users return to the app
We are not directly focused on user acquistion / growth

Lets start by looking at TikTok mission

TikTok is the leading destination for short-form mobile video. Our mission is to inspire creativity and bring joy.

Using this as our North star we want to start thinking about the potential enhancements to the product.

User Segments

Influencers: Users with a large following and actively influence in the community (Famous TikTokers). Create quality content frequently.
Moderate creators: These are up and coming folks on TikTok who produce content frequently. They are trying to build their followers and are producing some type of differentiated and unique content.
Infrequent creators: Seldom posts on TikTok. Occasionally and infrequently send. Not a lot of followers and follow trends
Passive Consumers: Mainly view content but don’t create. View the app as an entertainment source. This is the biggest segment on TikTok

If I had to prioritize, I would look to focus on the moderate creator user segment. Two main reasons for this

Creators are producing content frequently, helping them achieve their goals is likely to increase the quality and volume of content on TikTok. This will drive more engagement and product stickiness
If users continue to see compelling content every time they open the app it would encourage them to keep coming back and voting on the content with their time.

User needs

Outlet for expression and distribution of my creativity, expertise, skills to the right audience
Support or guidance on how to create compelling and engaging content that goes viral
Get feedback on how my content is being received and growing
Build my brand, grow my followers, establish a name for myself in whatever field
Build a revenue stream either primary or complementary through my creations (ads / sponsorship / merchadise sales)

From the above user needs and balancing them against our goals and mission of Tiktok (INSPIRE CREATIVITY AND BRING JOY) I would look at the solving a need which is most closely aligned with growing creators and content on the platform. To that end, I would focus on tools for creators to get feedback on how their content is performing so that they can be encouraged to produce more and improve quality.

Product Features

Quality score: Getting feedback on their content in some sort of quantifiable way i.e. a score. Could be computed using distribution, views, likes, shares, follows, comments. This would help them determine how things are performing, compare their different videos, and learn about how to go on tweaking their videos based on what works and what doesn’t. Could also be things like sentiment analysis on comments
Creator Badges: Creator badges (optionally visible on their profiles of users) with different levels based on the content they create and which take into account items such a frequency of posting content, avg views per video, avg shares and so on —> Creators get recognition for their efforts, good signal for users on whom to follow and also a good signal for advertisers on connecting and partnering with creators
Micro-transactions: Allow users to tip creators with virtual goods that can be exchanged for cash during live event
Creator Channels: Allow creators such as artists, coaches to setup their exclusive channels. In the future the creators could choose to make these channels subscription based where they host premium content

Given that our product is still in expansion phase, I would choose to focus on creator badges. The reasons being

It provides creators a score on their efforts and their content creation prowess and hopefully incentivizes them to improve which in turn increases the quality of content
It signals to users on whom to follow and build connections with creators —> Increases retention and product stickiness.
It lays the groundwork for advertisers to focus on building and creating new tools.

Approach

Would release the feature in a smaller market and tests its impact on achieving our goals
- Increasing content quality
- Growing number of active creators
- Growing user engagement

Metrics

Success Metrics

Badge Creators Content production Vs Unbadged (volume + quality)
Engagement
- Time spent on Badged creator content
- Actions on badged creator conten

Counter metric

To make sure that we don’t impact the Core product.

Drop in creator content creation and retention —> Users might not be incentivized to create content due to added pressure

Summary

To improve TikTok, I would summarize on the moderate content creator category of users. I would create creator badges that give creators signal on thier content creation efforts in terms of quality and how it resonates with the users on TikTok. This is turn would incentivize greater content volume and quality which would helop both creators as well as consumers and drive up engagement on TikTok.

ROHIT SINGH · Answer 4 · 2023-04-22T11:58:06+0000

Tick tock is a social media platform that allow users to create and share short videos.It’s vision is to bring creativity and enjoyment among the users.

What does it mean by improvement? Do you have any goal in your head?

I would choose goal as acquisition and social impact .

User Groups:-

1.advertiser

2.Power user(frequent user basically between 18-35 age)

3.occasional user(age 40+ they either don’t use or use less frequent)

I would like to focus on occasional user as they are a lot of opportunity and if someone elder is using the platform then that incentives youngers also to use the platform.

Pain points:-

1.Don’t know how to surf on it.

2.Can’t choose which category they want to see.

3.Less personalize videos present.

4.poor UI.

5.forget to use.

Solution:-

1.As soon as they finish the onboarding process a tutorial shows them how to surf on it.

2.We can also ask for which category they want to see and after selecting it in future if they want to change then they can change it from settings.

3.Use ML/AI based solutions to provide more personalized solution also provide creators more rewards if they belong to this age group.

4.make digital buttons more engaging eg- big size and colors as per A/B test.

5.send them notifications but not to frequent otherwise they can get offend.

Prioritization:-

Pain points	solution	Impact	Effort
1	1	Medium	Easy
2	2	High	Easy
3	3	High	Medium
4	4	High	Medium
5	5	Medium	Medium

Prioritization:-I would like to choose 2,3 &4.

Success metric:-

1.% increase in signup in occasional user group w-o-w and m-o-m.

2. % increase in signup in power user group. W-o-w and m-o-m.

3.% increase in average time for occasional user .

4.% increase in average time for power user.