The world’s most recent trend in viral videos is short-form video. Billions of dollars are being poured into these platforms in an attempt to increase their reach and value for advertisers. It’s no secret that social media platforms have been raking in the money in recent years. And they’re only going to get richer in the years to come. But TikTok isn’t the only player in the game for now – Instagram and YouTube have both recently launched their own short-form video features, Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts, respectively. So, who will win the short-video race?
Vine, a popular Twitter short video service, existed before TikTok. Vine was one the first short video platforms that really caught the attention of young creators. It was discontinued by Twitter in 2017. TikTok was able to capitalise on this gap. TikTok was able to grow rapidly in countries such as the India and America. A significant change took place in 2020 when all of the world started locking down as a result of coronavirus. Individuals started spending significantly more time on TikTok. As more people began using TikTok, perceptions of the platform grew as well. The app was downloaded more than three billion times by February 2020, according to market intelligence company, SensorTower.
President Donald Trump voiced concern over the possibility that user data on TikTok could be shared with the Chinese government through the app’s parent company ByteDance. He said that TikTok and its Chinese parent ByteDance never really reached resolution during his presidency but had a really huge destabilising effect on the app’s position in America
TikTok stated at the time that the user’s information was stored on Singapore and America servers, and would not be shared. In June 2020, India declared that it would ban TikTok due to “sovereignty and integrity of India” during the clash with China.
TikTok had reached a point at which users had their preferences mini-bites videos and ready to adapt to this kind of short form video. So naturally when Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts were released, they inundated with users almost immediately. On Instagram Reels, Meta has not revealed the number of active users. Nevertheless it is clear that Instagram Reels has passed more than 2 billion monthly active users last year and in 2022 April earning call. Reels has also made up 20% of the time people spent time on Instagram.
Google stated that over 1.5 billion people watched YouTube Shorts in June. TikTok claimed that in September, the app had more than one trillion monthly users. Youtube Shorts also offers a unique advantage. YouTube’s analytics tools allow creators to access data about who is watching their videos. These tools are useful for creators to collaborate with brands and demonstrate the effectiveness of their sponsored content. YouTube Shorts has not yet offered the same special effects options like Tiktok. In spring it added new features, including the ability to convert snippets of old Youtube videos to Shorts. But it still lacks tools such this that lets creators combine their video from another user.
The short video craze has also inspired Pinterest to create Watch. This feature allows users to scroll through short videos and photos. Netflix also introduced Fast Laughs last year which plays short clips from various Netflix shows. Twitter even stated in December that it was testing an updated explore tab which allows users to scroll through short video tweets. LinkedIn also join the short-forms videos trends and scrapping Stories features.
TikTok has recently partnered with business platforms like Shopify to help businesses promote their products directly through their Shopify dashboards. Now, in an effort to entice more advertisers, the software Tik tok first introduced third-party cookies and enhanced Expanded first party options.
TikTok seems to be the furthest along in turning on advertising on the service. This year the company intends to make about $12 billion in advertising revenue up from $4 billion last year. Based on the viewer data that Google released in June, it seems that Google Shorts is growing faster than TikTok. Shorts began rolling out ads worldwide in May and Google claimed it would eventually permit companies to make their ads shoppable like on Reels and TikTok.
There’s no doubt that TikTok has taken the social media world by storm. With most active users, it’s become the go-to platform for short-form videos. All three platforms have their own unique strengths and weaknesses. TikTok is the most popular of the three, but it doesn’t have the same reach as YouTube or Instagram. YouTube Shorts is still in its early stages, but it has the potential to be a big success thanks to YouTube’s vast user base.
