The psychology of habit-forming products
How has TikTok got the Indian youth hooked?
TikTok currently has 125 million monthly average users in India. Formerly Musical.ly, it’s now owned by Chinese giant Bytedance after its acquisition.
Ask most people in your circle if they use TikTok though and the likely answer would be no. If they do, a justification of how it’s for “research” purposes follows.
For us urban Millenials and GenX, our social media havens are Instagram, Twitter, and Reddit. We’re only occasional consumers of “fun” content cross-posted elsewhere from TikTok, but not the end users.
On a recent trip home last month, I found an unexpected user. My grandma’s caretaker. An 18-year old with her first smartphone. Just as most of us would start our day scrolling through Instagram, Reddit or Twitter, her breakfast was accompanied with TikTok.
That got me curious, how did Tik Tok get so popular in India? How and why has it got users from Tier 1 and even Tier 2 cities so hooked, the likes of which Instagram hasn’t been able to do yet?
TikTok’s primary focus is on users who are between 15–23 years old. It’s a social media platform that curates trending and personalized recommended videos. Anyone with a smartphone can create, share and discover short music videos on the app.
So users fall into two buckets: Content creators and Mere viewers.
In this post, let’s break down how TikTok has captured the attention of millions using Nir Eyal’s habit-forming “Hooked” model.
In his book, Hooked: How to build habit forming habits, he describes the four steps of the Hooked Model and provides case studies for how companies use hooks to build products and services people love.
According to him, Hooks are “experiences designed to connect the user’s problem with the company’s product with enough frequency to form a habit.”
The four phases of the Hooked Model — a trigger, an action, a variable reward, and an investment.
Trigger
The Trigger is the actuator of behavior — the spark plug in the engine. They come in two types: External and Internal.
External triggers alert and capture a user’s attention by using notifications, ads, emails, CTAs or even subtle triggers such as word-of-mouth referrals. They tell the user what to do next.
Over time, users start to associate these external triggers with internal triggers. They manifest automatically and attach to existing behaviors, thoughts, and emotions. Boredom, loneliness, confusion, validation or happiness often serve as internal triggers for users.
TikTok’s triggers:
TikTok’s external trigger is its word-of-mouth viral factor. For creators, it’s the allure of gaining and building popularity. For viewers, viral videos shared by others gets them to download the app and start using it.
Once they’re on the app, the internal triggers of boredom and validation kick in. 15-second videos with catchy audio on top is the perfect content for teens whose attention spans are short. For creators, it’s a simple way of showcasing their talent or expressing themselves and being recognized.
For example, take Priyanka, a 21-year-old woman in Orissa, India. She happens to be scrolling her phone on the bus when she receives a video on a Whatsapp group. It looks like a funny video, her friend says it’s a must-watch. Since she’s bored anyway, she clicks on the link.
Action
Following the trigger comes the action — the behavior done in anticipation of a reward. This phase of the hook draws upon the art and science of usability design to reveal how products drive specific user actions. There are two levers to increase the likelihood of an action occurring: the ease of performing an action and the psychological motivation to do.
While a trigger cues an action, motivation defines the level of desire to take that action. To perform an action must be easier than thinking, and it’s the more important problem to solve for when designing.
Taking an action on TikTok
TikTok makes creating a video on the app as easy it gets. All a creator needs is their phone’s camera. They can create a video by lip-syncing to the audio or just adding an audio piece to an already existing video.
Effects, filters, and edits on a video can be done on the app. For young creators for whom quality isn’t as much a concern over the popularity factor, it works brilliantly.
Content consumption on the app is simple. TikTok aggregates videos in a news-feed format like any other platform. Users can simply scroll and swipe through videos they like. To watch videos, there’s no need to even sign up.
Continuing with the example of Priyanka, once she’s clicked on the link, she lands on a web-view of TikTok. She watches the video and likes it, her attention is drawn to the news-feed next.
Variable Reward
The third step in the Hook Model is the Variable Reward phase. In this phase, users are rewarded by solving a problem, reinforcing their motivation for the action taken in the previous phase.
A hook’s ability is to create a craving. Predictable feedback loops don’t create desire among users. Novelty keeps us hooked.
Users are motivated by three kinds of rewards: social rewards fueled by connected-ness with other people; search for material resources and information; and the search for intrinsic rewards of mastery, competence, and completion.
TikTok’s Variable Reward
TikTok’s feed is a mix of different kinds of videos created by the platform’s users. The scrolling interface gives one a compelling reward to keep finding interesting videos they may like. Users can endlessly scroll in such of a variable reward or video that can relieve their internal trigger or “itch” i.e boredom.
For content creators, the reward of completing and mastering the ability to create popular videos which may gain them more “likes” and “comments” from the community is a compelling reward.
Once Priyanka is on the TikTok app, not only does she watch more similar like the one she enjoyed but is now actively scrolling through the news-feed to explore more. Before she knows it, she’s already spent 30 minutes watching videos.
Investment
The investment phase is the fourth step in the Hook model. It comes after the variable rewards phase wherein users are more likely to reciprocate by anticipating more rewards in the future. They increase the likelihood of users passing the Hook again by loading another trigger.
TikTok’s Investment
TikTok doesn’t need one to sign-up to watch videos. But it lets a user follow their favourite creators and build a personalised feed by doing so. As a user keeps sharing data about their interests, the feed becomes a lot stronger and attuned to their preferences keeping them hooked there.
For creators, posting and sharing more gives them the ability and chance to build a reputation and following in the community. The more engagement they receive, the likelier they are to keep using TikTok.
For Priyanka, TikTok has now become the cure to her boredom. She wants to build her own list of popular creators. By signing up, building her preferences, liking and commenting on videos, she gives TikTok more data about herself. TikTok, in turn, uses the data to build more triggers and continues the loops through the Hooks.
—
And that’s how TikTok has got 125 million users hooked so far. Its next task is to figure out monetisation. But it must do so without losing user’s interest and getting in the way of fun. Short attention spans are what’s keeping users hooked to TikTok, but it can easily become their reason to leave too.
Few other notes:
- TikTok has a “non-elitist” feel or vibe to it, something one could associate with a platform like Instagram. It has a more mass appeal in that it’s creators and content can be nonsensical, fun and be loved. Content on Instagram tends to be more on the aspirational side.
- TikTok is a gold-mine for the typical Indian male given the plenty of videos created by “cute” and popular users created by women on the app. A look through the comments on popular videos shows one this. TikTok also uses this data to create external triggers that are on the unethical side. Think push notifications with misleading thumbnails and cheeky lines.
- TikTok’s popular creators have become a new influential marketing channel. Models, teens with large followings have started being approached by brands and advertisers alike.
For example, a quick way to get a new song out into the market now is by using TikTok. The song is pre-released to top influencers who make videos around it with the given hashtag. Viewers then trace the hashtag to the new song on Youtube and voila! It’s a perfect viral loop. Win, win for all.
It’d be interesting to see TikTok does do next. Let’s see how it keeps India hooked.
