From an entertaining app to a search engine: A case of user-generated innovation in social media platforms

TikTok, a prominent social media platform, facilitates the creation and dissemination of brief video content. Its remarkable success can be attributed to a sophisticated algorithm employing artificial intelligence and machine learning, tailoring user feeds to align with individual interests. Despite widespread application in various research domains, there exists a notable gap in studies investigating TikTok's utility as a search engine. This study aims to ascertain the prevalence of TikTok's use as a search engine among Saudi users and to identify the key factors influencing this behavior. We adopted a survey questionnaire approach to gather and analyze data from 123 participants. The results indicate that a significant majority (89.4 %) of respondents utilize TikTok as a search engine. Our study identified that the perceived reliability of TikTok, along with the quality of its visual content and the opportunity for skill acquisition, significantly influences its use as a search engine. Based on these findings, we propose several enhancements to augment TikTok's functionality as a search engine.