Video-focused social networking service, TikTok, has been known to hosts a variety of short-form user videos, from genres like pranks, stunts, tricks, jokes, dance, and entertainment with durations from 15 seconds to three minutes but the users of the app have for a while now be craving for more additional minutes for the videos.
A late January 2022 private presentation by TikTok to business clients reeled out some statistics and one of them indicated that users on the app spend an average of one hour and 25 minutes on the app daily.
The Cloudflare ranked most popular website of 2021 has over one billion users globally, with 100 million of them domiciled in the US, 23 million living in the United Kingdom, opening the app to watch videos on an average of 17 times daily.
TikTok appears to be listening to the yearnings of its users for an increase in the length of the videos, with the platform affirming that its decision to allow users share longer videos will increase the market share of the company, a win-win situation. Aside the possible rise of its market share, TikTok says it predicated its decision on many factors, and one of the significant reasons is competition, as it would be able to compete with YouTube’s longer videos, especially as these videos are the lion’s share of content on the site.
“Longer form content allows TikTok to take on YouTube more directly,” TikTok says. “Given YouTube is the second largest search engine, even capturing a fraction of their viewership could have massive positive ramifications for TikTok.”
Meg Jing Zeng, a TikTok researcher at the University of Zurich, aligned with the company’s statement when she noted that the potential for more advertising revenue also predicated the company’s decision to introduce longer videos.
“The increase in traffic itself brings more profit, but longer videos themselves can be more lucrative,” she says.
“For instance, it allows TikTok to work with institutional partners, including commercial, institutional partners, to produce content with product placement,” she notes.
According to Chinese reports, TikTok earned a whopping $4 billion in ad revenue for the year 2021 alone, even as the company does not share its advertising income, an indication of its penchant for high profits.
With the excitement and positives from the new decision, it should be noted that it has its own disadvantages, as long videos brings some risks, it unsettles TikTok algorithm advantage, a key factor that placed TikTok in a competitive edge over other apps.
One of the advantages of the shorter videos that TikTok is famed for is that the different, shorter videos allows the platform to gain more insights into users’ interests than more infrequent, longer ones.
VidCon founder, and renowned content creator, Hank Green also echoed this submission when he said:
“You get more pieces of data on how people are interacting with more pieces of content. That enables the algorithm to make better decisions,” he stresses.
It should also be noted that longer length of videos remove opportunities that could help commercials between shorter videos, putting the monetization goals the app is seeking at risk.
Since TikTok has made the decision already, it has weighed the pros and cons of longer videos and is ready to take the disadvantaged risk involved.
Ayoola Faseyi, an Abuja based Journalist with interest in Technology and Politics. He is a versatile writer with articles in many renowned News Journals. He is the Co-Founder of media brand, The Vent Republic.
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