Over the past few years, social media platforms have vied for our attention and created content for us to consume. Today, we have Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and dozens of other platforms to choose from. But one of the most popular has been TikTok, a short form video app owned by Beijing-based ByteDance that allows users to create, post and share videos. It’s become one of the largest video platforms in the world, with over half a billion users.
However, YouTube has now revealed some staggering stats about its version of TikTok, namely YouTube shorts. It was originally created to prevent people from leaving the platform to get on the bandwagon with TikTok. YouTube Shorts mimicks TikToks video style with short moreish videos.
Youtube said: “YouTube Shorts are now being watched by over 1.5 billion logged-in users every month.”
This is a staggering statistic, especially baring in mind that Youtube only boasts 2 billion logged-in users every month. That means around 75% of YouTube’s users are engaging with the subplatform in one way or another which speaks volumes to YouTube’s counter-offensive approach to losing its userbase to TikTok. There are a lot of people who criticise YouTube shorts for blatantly replicating TikTok’s format but at the end of the day, its working! This goes to show why all the platforms are now copying each other with every new trend that comes out.
Shorts is a massively growing form of media with Inmar Intelligence now reporting that 70% of web users now engage with short-form video content on a regular basis.
Some of you may remember the platform Vine which started the initial short-form trend which TikTok then picked u and adapted. So the question is why didn’t Vine work as a platform?
Part of the reason Vine didn’t work in the long run was because of the Platform itself. A platform suh as TikTok is a lot more tuned-in to knowing what each individual user watches and then showing them content based off of their interests and what they normally like to watch and engage with. Hence, what TikTok call the ‘For You’ Page where you can scroll for hours watching videos that have been chosen by TikTok’s algorithm especially for you. This playlist of videos is constantly being adapted on the fly depending on how you react to the previous videos in the list.
It might also be due to the fact that it was a case of wrong place wrong time. Consumer habits have changed over time and now Short-form video content is a very predominant form of media, suiting a user with a smaller attention span. For the new generation this is an ideal form of media, gaining short nad quick pieces of information attuned to what they want to see.
Those content creators that have been following the trends and adapting their content are definitely reaping their rewards with YouTube declaring that creators that create both short and long-form content are increasing their engagement massively in relation to those only creating long-form content.
The statistics don’t lie and its important as creators and marketers to closely follow these trends, which currently point towards short-form video content.
It might not be the best thing that our attention spans are getting worse due to this new form of media, however you need to add this to your marketing repertoire in order to not be left behind in the dust.
YouTube Shorts is now definitely a major part of the overall YouTube App. Use it or don’t, that is up to you, but I definitely would.
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