Q&A

United States, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, the United Kingdom, Spain, Ireland, Germany, France, Italy, Brazil, Mexico, Japan, Saudi Arabia

1. September 2016: Drawing inspiration from its product musical.ly, ByteDance developed Douyin in China;
2. May 2017: TikTok launched, with the vision “Inspire Creativity and Bring Joy”;
3. October 2017: ByteDance acquired musical.ly for US$1 billion and merged it with TikTok;
4. August 2018: Musical.ly was combined with TikTok and the TikTok name was kept (the app is known as Douyin in China);
5. September 2019: Citing the collection of user information, the United States put TikTok under review;
6. December 2019: TikTok grew explosively worldwide, with more than 500 million monthly active users;
7. April 2021: TikTok’s local shops in the UK went live;
8. June 2021: TikTok’s UK cross-border shops opened and the US lifted its TikTok ban; TikTok downloads began to dominate the top of the national charts;
9. October 2021: TikTok partnered with Shopify, kicking off its commerce model;
10. April 2022: Local shops went live in four Southeast Asian countries (Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam and the Philippines), joining the UK to make “one shop that sells worldwide” a reality;
11. June 2022: TikTok’s Singapore shop went live, completing e-commerce shops in seven countries worldwide;
12. November 2022: TikTok’s US local shop opened closed-beta spots, with an invitation code required to join;
13. April 2023: TikTok’s US local shop opened up fully — no invitation code needed to join;
14. May 2, 2023: TikTok’s US mid-length video program fully opened, replacing the Creator Fund page, with rewards roughly 10 times those of the Creator Fund;
15. May 17, 2023: Montana’s Republican governor signed a bill banning TikTok downloads statewide;
16. June 2023: TikTok’s US shops took off, setting off a boom in product-selling in the US;
17. July 2023: TikTok’s fully managed model launched in the US at the same time;
18. August 2023: Sellers with US$2 million in annual GMV on Amazon could open an ACCU shop in the US;
19. November 2023: A US court blocked Montana from enforcing its TikTok ban;
20. December 2023: TikTok Shop US single-day GMV exceeded US$33 million, and TikTok e-commerce set a target of US$50 billion in GMV for 2024;
21. January 2024: TikTok’s US user base passed 165 million, with daily time spent reaching 75 minutes — far above Facebook, YouTube and other social platforms;
22. June 2024: TikTok’s US shop can be opened with no sales-volume requirement, and TikTok’s Southeast Asian shops have zero entry threshold;
23. July 2024: TikTok’s Spain shop began beta testing;
24. November 2024: TikTok’s US shop can be opened with just a business license;
25. December 2025: TikTok’s US shops reached US$8 billion in GMV, up 6.8 times, with a single day topping US$100 million in GMV; GMV at TikTok’s shops in six Southeast Asian countries grew 2–5 times;
26. January 2025: TikTok’s Spain shop and Mexico shop went live;
27. February 2025: TikTok shops in Germany, France, Italy and Ireland are about to go live;
28. May 2025: TikTok launched in Brazil;
29. June 2025: TikTok launched in Japan;
30. June 2026: Eight new EU sites joined TikTok Shop — merchant registration opened on June 1 and full consumer sales began on June 15 — in Poland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, the Czech Republic, Greece, Portugal and Hungary.

1. Personal account

Suitable for people who only browse rather than post, using TikTok to learn or simply pass the time for entertainment. No extra features or analytics are needed.

2. Professional account

Suitable for video-creator accounts that need the analytics dashboard, ad partnerships and so on.

This type can be either a personal or a business account. Only after enabling it can you join the TikTok Creator Fund and the mid-length video program.

3. Business account

A business account has lower follower requirements: you can add a direct link to your profile even with zero followers. Business accounts also have analytics.

4. Verified business account (blue V)

A verified business account has an email and also offers analytics, pinned posts, downloadable external links and a direct profile link. It can be run as the company’s brand account.

5. Ad account

An ad account is a virtual account to which you can add selected videos. Opening one requires a certain deposit, and you can run ads without needing a TikTok account.

1. Traffic account (chasing exposure)

A traffic account focuses on the number of views its videos get, mainly to earn from TikTok’s Creator Fund and mid-length video program.

2. Lead-generation account (no restrictions)

Lead generation has two main directions: driving traffic to a main account, and driving traffic to e-commerce platforms.

These accounts deliberately steer users to follow them through the bio, video captions, comment sections and elsewhere; once the follower count is large, they sell ads to merchants.

3. Product-selling account (building hit products)

This type of account is mainly for driving traffic to e-commerce, including marketing accounts and “good finds” accounts, with selling products as the main goal.

Product-selling accounts grow followers more slowly than traffic accounts, but the followers they gain are more precisely targeted consumers, and conversion rates are higher.

4. Entertainment account (gifts and tips)

Mainly earns viewer gifts and tips through live streams, or through affiliating with entertainment guilds, co-hosting, PK battles and so on.

5. IP account (building a persona)

By building a personal brand or persona, you make your video content recognizable, which raises follower stickiness and loyalty.

1) With zero followers you can switch to a business account, but it has no business website link,

2) With 1,000 followers, switching to a business account gives you a business website link,

3) A personal account has no business website, phone number or email address; switching to a business account gives you them

1. A VPS (Virtual Private Server) is a virtualization technology,

2. It splits one physical server into multiple independent virtual servers, each with its own operating system, disk space, memory and processing power,

3. A VPS offers a way to have dedicated resources and control within a shared server environment,

4. VPS are usually provided by cloud service providers (Amazon Web Services, Oracle, Google Cloud, Vultr, etc.); users can choose the configuration they need and manage the software and applications on the VPS.

1. A native IP is an IP address in its original geographic location,

2. An IP address allocated by the global internet governing bodies to a given country — for example, to the UK — is a native IP,

3. When both the IP address and the carrier it belongs to are from the local country, it is called a native IP; business broadband and home broadband both count as native IPs.

Common reasons for bans:

1. Violating platform rules:

Posting indecent, spliced or re-edited, violent or gory content, or using copyrighted music without authorization, can all get an account banned.

2. Multiple accounts on one device:

Logging in to several TikTok accounts on the same device is easily treated by the system as abnormal behavior and leads to a ban. Abnormal network environment: using an unstable network or changing IP addresses frequently can trigger the system’s security alerts and get the account banned.

3. Fake follower activity:

Artificially inflating followers, likes or comments by unnatural means is regarded as a violation of platform fairness and may lead to a ban.

Steps to appeal a ban:

Appeal in the app:

Open the TikTok app and go to the “Settings and privacy” page.

Select “Report a problem”, then tap “Need more help”.

Describe in detail how the account was banned, and submit the appeal.

Appeal by email:

Send your account information and unban request to TikTok’s official support email (you can ask the Leadify team for it).

The email should explain in detail how the account was banned and the reasons for your appeal.

Preventive measures:

Follow the platform rules:

Before posting, make sure your content complies with TikTok’s Community Guidelines and Terms of Service.

Keep your network environment stable: use a fixed IP address and avoid changing your network environment frequently.

One device, one account: avoid logging in to multiple accounts on the same device to reduce the risk of being banned.

By understanding why bans happen and taking preventive measures, you can effectively lower the risk of your account being banned. If a ban does happen, appeal promptly following the steps above to improve your chances of getting the account restored.

1. The underlying logic of TikTok short videos is watch time and engagement,

2. If users keep watching, the platform pushes traffic; if users engage, the platform recommends the video,

3. Watch time is what we usually call the completion rate — whether your video’s completion rate is high decides whether the platform gives you traffic,

4. Engagement means likes, comments, saves and shares, and the order of weight is: completion > shares > comments > saves > likes.