Tik Tok, You Don’t Stop

Oh great. A new social network. Tell me about it. Tik Tok is a new social network app that sells itself as storytelling from the gut, “video storytelling told in 15 seconds.” Yes, the teens are all over it. China is behind it, but promises your data is secure thanks to recent updates (Tik Tok, 2019). Hashtags are where everybody’s at. Though most are still recommended by mother Tik Tok, the teens keep up with their hashtag chores. Challenges are big. Duets are big, where you sing along and complete or compliment another user’s video. Discovering music and comedy talent drives most of the activity (Cornish, 2019).

No wait, too busy, won’t read.

Tik Tok. All the teens are there. Hashtags are everything. VIDEOS LIMITED TO 15 SECONDS.

Let’s look at that length, though it seems short it is more than twice the length of the 6 second limit on the late video sharing app also popular with teens, Vine. Unlike Vine, Tik Tok videos will endure and not self-destruct. Why 15 seconds though? The tech world is plodding about and testing, trying to decide how much virtue your content has and how much time to allot to tell your stories. The short length raises the stakes. Let me quickly offer belated congratulations to Ann Lupo, changing the face of storytelling. Tik Tok and Film Independent L.A. joined forces last fall to honor Lupo as the first winner of the “Tik Tok Real Short Award” (Tik Tok, 2018). I didn’t see her acceptance speech, but I imagine she went, “I’d like to tha.”

On the other side of the video sharing court, Youtube’s algorithm is rewarding content postings over 20 minutes. Content creators there benefit financially for delivering more than 20 minutes at a time to Youtube, all for the purpose of working more ads in (Peterson, 2018). When you sit down to watch a summer blockbuster in a movie theater (usually well over 90 minutes of entertainment), you can easily sit through more than 4 movie trailers with similarities to the film you paid to see. With such extremes between content lengths, we can only hope that the talent will naturally sort themselves to the length that serves their art the best.

The marketing and advertising industries are still sorting out the best approaches to content length. Tik Tok started an ad platform this year, with Grubhub as the first advertiser, the ad popped up when users first opened the app and they could quickly click right out. Poshmark has one of the first in-feed ads on Tik Tok, where users have the ability to like, share, and comment on ads (Flynn, 2019). This could get dangerous fast for advertisers, since Tik Tok’s environment is designed for mockery. Fear of the negative and mocking advertisers is most likely why Instagram does not allow “using” in-feed ads as your own content. Advertisers will need to deliver their best, native feeling creative to encourage friendly clowning from users.

Another big concern for advertisers is the length again. If a user sits through 4 or 5 user videos then sees an in-feed ad, they are being asked to pay for the pleasure of one minute of entertainment. When over on Youtube, 4 or 5 ads can be slipped into 20 minutes of entertainment, that is quadruple the entertainment. Tik Tok’s platform demands high-stakes and getting the most from every second of storytelling. Length of that ad after a minute of entertainment is going to be very challenging to meter correctly and that ad had better be the best creative. Mother Tik Tok’s challenge to advertisers:  #StellarCallToAction.

References:

Tik Tok Corporate communication (September 25, 2018). Retrieved from:

https://newsroom.tiktok.com/en-us/real-short-award/

Cornish, A., O’Connor, G., and Asifo, A. (July 10, 2019). What Tik Tok’s explosion could mean for music. Retrieved from:

https://www.npr.org/2019/07/10/738533536/what-tiktoks-explosion-could-mean-for-music

Flynn, K. (May 21, 2019). Tik Tok’s ad load has increased, but the quality remains low.
https://digiday.com/marketing/tiktok-ad-load/

Peterson, T. July 3, 2018. Creators are making longer videos to cater to the Youtube algorithm.