Posted by If TikTok’s meteoric rise to popularity based on its catchy short-form video content wasn’t enough, the social media giant is setting it’s sights on another goal – grabbing a share of the longer-form video audience as well.
TikTok recently announced they’re testing a new option to upload fifteen-minute videos, the latest increase from the previous ten-minute maximum.
Since TikTok’s arrival in 2016 launched by parent company, ByteDance, TikTok has upped the short-form video format that sparked its popularity from the original fifteen-second clips to one minute, then three minutes, five minutes, and in February of 2022, increased to ten minutes.
In over 150 markets globally, TikTok surpassed one billion daily users in early 2022. The move to allow up to fifteen-minute videos puts the platform in direct competition with rival YouTube, who also permits up to fifteen minutes of content by non-verified account users.
YouTube still reigns supreme in the online video genre, with over 2.7 billion monthly active users. Combining YouTube Premium and Music, that platform boasts more than 80 million subscribers worldwide.
When YouTube officially launched in 2005, video clips were limited to 30 seconds of content. But the popularity of video as a media remains on the rise, particularly with Gen Z who is credited for much of TikTok’s initial success. In the US alone, over 40 percent of people say they watch online video content daily. Video comprised a whopping 80% of all internet traffic in 2022.
In addition to competing with YouTube, TikTok’s increase to a longer video format theoretically allows more potential for advertising opportunities. Nor did it go unnoticed by TikTok that their biggest competitor on the local scene – a copycat platform known within China as Douyin – recently upped their content limit to thirty minutes.
Where will the video wars lead, and will audiences ultimately decide who wins? Keep reading here.