TikTok has been in the news lately for their dispute with Universal Music Group over audio use. During this same time, the popular social platform has been making changes behind the scenes. Changes that bring it closer to being more like YouTube than most realize. It is fitting as TikTok is simply following the map that Google’s video platform created. Once you realize that, you can almost foretell where TikTok is planning to go in the future, for better or worse for the users.
Image source: Wallpapers Den
Early on, TikTok limited users to 15 to 30 seconds for their videos. Then one minute was rolled out, then three minutes, finally 10 minutes is available now. Some users are making content claiming they have a 30-minute time limit for content though this is rare. I have not seen any content that length on TikTok so far. This could be because TikTok encourages anything over 2 minutes to be broken up into smaller chunks to increase views on the platform (an annoying practice).
Advertising becoming more prevalent
Anyone that used TikTok prior to 2022 will tell you, it was a wonderful experience. None of those pesky ads like you got on YouTube. You could just swipe and enjoy various content from a wide range of creators. Fast forward to today, early February 2024 as I write this, and the landscape of TikTok has changed, A LOT.
Image source: Marketing 2 Business
Ads, well sponsored content, are running rampant on the platform. Whether it is TikTok Shop or a sponsored video somehow, it is worse than YouTube at this point.
For me, across three different, unique content, TikTok accounts, sponsored or TikTok Shop videos are between every 2 and 3 videos I see on my For You Page (the main landing page of TikTok).
People complain about YouTube placing many ads in videos over 5 minutes long, but those ads are designed to look like ads.
Image source: Tee Public
Not so with TikTok Shop or sponsored content which is designed to trick you into viewing it completely disguised as regular content.
Not only is this annoying to users, but it is also quite deceptive and leaves users with a bad experience overall.
Horizontal Content
In mid-January, I noticed TikTok pushing horizontal content in a big way. Content creators hungry for views were quick to jump on this with “news” videos of their own detailing the virtues and increased views you can expect using this format.
Think of it as a self-fulfilling prophecy, one that, if TT creators follow their historical actions, will flip and complain their views are trash when they start using this format for more than telling others about the format change.
Image source: Pixelied
Making content based on talking about horizontal, or landscape, content is just another trend more than enough people jump on.
Horizontal content fits in with the previous entry, advertising, as the content only occupies one third of the screen. This leaves a black box above and below the content as creators cannot position their content onscreen, at least not in the TikTok app. Using editing software such as Capcut, owned by TikTok, you can position the video.
This means TikTok can easily place advertising above your content. They will probably not run ads on the bottom because that is where the description and username of the creator appear. This is TikTok I am talking about, of course they will run ads there too if top banners are a success financially.
The only thing in the air here is if TikTok will introduce mid-roll ads on content. If so, what would be the cutoff? Would ads play, interrupting that dance trend video, if it was over 44 seconds long, or would they start with content that is three minutes or longer?
I cannot see TikTok passing up this opportunity considering they are pushing longer content.
Anyone interested in purchasing ad placements, I have the top third of 10 videos for $5 available, just get in touch with me if interested.
Getting Rid of Those Ads
It seems every platform today has an option to remove ads. Amazon recently introduced ads-free mode for an additional fee. YouTube has YouTube Premium, Peacock offers an ad-free option, and the list goes on and on.
Soon, we can expect to include TikTok in that list.
Who can blame them? Third quarter 2023 YouTube made over nine billion dollars from ad revenue. Wanting a piece of that pie is just doing good business.
YouTube Premium recently passed 100 million monthly subscribers at $13.99 each as well. Do the math, that is, hold on, carry the one, add the three, $1.4 billion more in YouTubes pocket.
How could TikTok not want in on that kind of action? TikTok has over one billion monthly users globally though less than 200 million are based in the United States. That is paltry in contrast to YouTube with nearly three billion users globally and over 120 million users accessing YouTube on a daily basis (or over 3.5 billion monthly users).
Daily video views, how TikTok counts (they do not track hours watched) is interesting. Around one billion views per day for TikTok while YouTube is reporting around 50 billion views per day.
You may be thinking this is bad for TikTok if they want to start running ads. Quite the contrary. They are in a unique position to market to companies with an ‘early bird special’ and point at their explosive growth. In 2021 TikTok reported around 900 million users, in 2023, they nearly doubled that to 1.5 billion users.
For contrast, in 2023 cable subscribers dropped to just over 72 million.
Cable, and broadcast TV (I cannot find numbers just for cable), advertising revenue in 2023 was around $61 billion. Slightly more than TikTok and YouTube combined.
Charging for Verified Accounts
When Elon Musk finalized his purchase of Twitter, he introduced the “checkmark” subscription plan. Basically, you had to pay to prove you were legitimate and not a fake account. Celebrities and companies were quick to sign up, as well as vain users that wanted that check mark.
Facebook, or should I say Meta the parent company, and Instagram followed suit later.
One problem we see with TikTok is the fake accounts that people create. I know of several people that have over 20 accounts that they cycle through because various people block their other accounts, and they simply must keep up with all the drama of TikTok (and not all the joints in their rocking chair are not tight).
Simply make a fake email account somewhere (Google is a popular option) and sign up for TikTok and you are off to the races. No verification, no checks other than if your chosen screen name is taken yet. Think of it as the early days of public access to the domain naming system – how people domain squatted, similar thing on TikTok.
I see TikTok tackling this problem in the future with a monthly subscription to be “verified” in some manner.
TikTok will have to do something to differentiate their verified subscription from others though. Maybe they will mix in promotion to people even if they are paying to not see advertising or sponsored content. Maybe TT will offer advertising credits as well.
Finally, Background Play
Okay, this one ties into the longer content TikTok is pushing. No one in their right mind is going to pay to play a badly selected seven second clip of a song repeatedly while their screen is off.
Background play is the reason I pay for YouTube Premium. I use YT for my general entertainment throughout the day as well as to learn new things. Background play is essential for me. Not so with TikTok.
With longer content, a push for more educational content as well, suddenly background play can be moved to the forefront for most TikTok users.
Image source: Stelizabeth
This is a recent change that YouTube implemented but I see TikTok pushing their version up in the timeline as they copy YouTube’s homework. It just makes sense, as shown in a previous entry about removing ads, background play ads a lot of potential value.
TikTok is pushing longer than a minute horizontal content. This goes hand in hand with introducing background play later. Considering all content on TikTok repeats, this would make sense for people that listen to content while working out or other activities that might make them miss a part and restarting the video is not an option (hands are busy for instance).
There are five potential changes to TikTok that we can expect eventually. None of these are written in stone and TikTok nor its parent company, Bytedance, have said these will be coming. These are all speculations on my part.
If you know history, you may have a finger on the pulse of the future.