More or less since last year December 20th, TikTok started sending creators (including Italian ones) a notification inviting them to publish videos up to 30 minutes long. Half an hour of video on a platform born and known for 7-10 second content It seems counterintuitive. At least until you understand the meaning.
Which in fact there is, because this It’s not the first step TikTok has taken in this direction: first videos no longer than 59 seconds, then 3 minutes, then 10 minutes. And now 30 minutes. It happens because the social network of Chinese origin wants to compete with YouTube, and wants to compete with YouTube to gain more space in the advertising market. AND more moneyObviously.
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How advertising works on TikTok
According to recent estimates, TikTok has made revenue just under $10 billion from advertising in 2022 and should close 2023 at around 15 billion. It’s a lot of money, but it’s little compared to that made by YouTube, which now consistently exceeds 30 billion dollars in advertising revenue per year. TikTok is today where YouTube was 5 years agoin 2019.
To get there, Google’s video-uploading platform probably has exaggerated with the commercials (we wrote about it a few days ago) but this is the path that TikTok has decided to follow, opening the door to 30-minute videos. But what do half-hour videos have to do with advertising? To understand it, you need to understand how advertising on TikTok currently works (excluding sponsored videos, of course)..
For now, they are only there on the ByteDance social network the so-called pre-roll or post-roll commercials, that is, they are displayed only before or after a video: there are no mid-rolls, those that are in the middle of the contents, which are the most profitable ones and the ones on which YouTube is building its fortunes. They don’t exist because they go against the nature of TikTok: what mid-roll can you put in a 7-10-12 second clip? None, and in fact none are placed. And what happens with pre-rolls or post-rolls on TikTok? That no one simply watches them: scrolling between one video and another, as soon as the user realizes he has an advertisement in front of him, he moves his finger again and moves on. It is difficult for it to stop, and this is a problem twice: it is a problem for companies, because they pay for ineffective advertising spaces; it is for TikTok, because it cannot give companies the same prices that YouTube does for commercials that rarely receive visibility. And therefore he collects less money, in a nutshell.
TikTok’s advertising revenue in recent years (image from statista.com) Stazione Futuro The irresistible rise of Temu, the TikTok of shopping by Riccardo Luna 16 November 2023
The end of TikTok as we know it?
The crux is always the sameand this is what TikTok has not been able to solve for years, despite its efforts: it is largely the most successful, most interesting platform, which works best and on which moderation is also more effectivebut that’s not where you make money.
TikTok ha numbers that other social networks envy2024 could be the year in which it reaches 2 billion users, it gives enormous visibility that is practically impossible to have elsewhere (as they know well Martina Strazzer and New Martina, who we interviewed recently), but it does not allow you to earn directly on the platform. Not like other platforms do. Which is one thing It’s not good for creators or businessesne per TikTok stessa.
I 30 minute video they could reverse this trend, with the possibility for creators and companies to insert mid-rolls within these longer contents, perhaps even making some of them unskippable. So that users cannot avoid seeing these commercials. It could be a success, or it could be the end of TikTok as we know it, because they remain honestly strong doubts on how many people will want to watch 20-30 minutes of video vertically on their smartphone.
@capoema