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TikTok faces a critical hurdle in adequately monetising creator content, particularly for its top influencers seeking direct income and ad revenue from their short-form content clips.
This challenge, reminiscent of Vine’s struggle before its eventual closure, raises concerns about TikTok’s ability to retain its leading creators. Many high-profile figures have already migrated to platforms like YouTube and Instagram, drawn by more lucrative monetisation opportunities.
To respond, TikTok is steering creators towards longer-form content. In a recent private event held at its New York office in late October, the platform urged dozens of creators to produce videos lasting at least a minute. TikTok executives conveyed that embracing longer videos not only increases earning potential but also provides creators with more time to convey their messages effectively.
This strategic move aims to address TikTok’s limitation in revenue generation compared to YouTube, where creators benefit from ad share revenue derived from pre and mid-roll ads. TikTok, predominantly known for its 30-second clips, seeks to reshape user behaviours to align more with longer-form content, thereby expanding its advertising options.
While the success of this shift remains to be seen, TikTok reports that users now spend half their time on the app engaging with content exceeding a minute in length. Over the past six months, creators who share videos longer than a minute have witnessed a fivefold growth rate in followers compared to those posting shorter videos.
The possibility of TikTok transforming into a long-form content destination could be a strategic evolution for the platform, aligning with its self-definition as an “entertainment app” rather than a traditional social network. This move also reflects TikTok’s significant impact on reshaping the focus of social apps toward entertainment, gradually diminishing the traditional “social” aspect.
This shift has influenced other major players in the social media landscape, such as Meta, which has adopted a similar approach with the prominence of Reels in users’ feeds over traditional posts. TikTok’s pioneering use of algorithmically-defined feeds to maximize engagement is now poised to extend to longer clips.
While the incorporation of more direct ad options based on this shift will take time, TikTok’s strategic focus on guiding creators toward longer-form trends indicates a pivotal direction for the platform’s future development.
