Why Do People Return to Video Platforms? Millennials and Centennials on TikTok

Abstract

While some social networks like Facebook are losing interest among digital influencers, TikTok continues to grow, capturing and impacting centennials and millennials alike. This situation highlights the new generations’ increasing interest in short video formats, which are also becoming a new window of communication between companies and consumers. TikTok allows users to create, share, and discover short, user-generated videos in hopes of attracting viewers. But it is necessary to understand the variables that attract and engage users of these particular social networks. This article analyses the variables of continuance motivation, video sharing behaviour, and video creation capabilities, which allow users to enjoy such networks, and service providers and companies to obtain results from them. The aim is to understand how these variables motivate social media users to return to and spend more time on this video-sharing platform. This is measured through the stickiness variable. In this context—and due to the particular relevance of the topic—the authors also aim to reveal any potential differences in the behaviour of centennials and millennials when using TikTok. Therefore, a cross-sectional study was conducted through a questionnaire answered by 2,301 millennials and centennials who use TikTok. The data were analysed through a structural equation model to measure the relevance of each of the variables to stickiness. The results provide guidelines for improving research on video social media platforms, as well as an opportunity to explore the importance of the selected variables to the stickiness variable across different user segments.