According to TikTok, Length Does Matter.

TikTok might make every second count, but it will change how every penny counts in December.

Short form videos have taken over the last few years of our lives, accounting for upwards of three hours a day average total watch time. During the early days of the pandemic, TikTok was downloaded more than 50 million times in just one month. The statistics are even higher on video shares, which attributed to a snowball effect that garnered a program issued by the company called the “creator fund”.

I’m a creator myself. I’ve earned about $2,000 over the course of the three-or-so years I have created content within the platform (although I donate this surplus money). My view earnings are mostly from telling HILARIOUS stories of the absurdities I endured during my two-year marriage to a narcissist and promoting my tell-all memoir about finding self-love post trauma and abuse.

But just like what happened with my narc ex, this program is about to get dumped and replaced with new supply. TikTok will be offering a new Creativity Program that rewards videos longer than one minute in length.

Meta has also made some shifts that indicate the trend is on the rise. They announced that reels (short form videos) will be less prioritized, and the focus will be more on compendious videos. What we don’t know is how influencers will be rewarded for these efforts or how they will be calculated by algorithms.

Meta claims that advertisers can’t be completely convinced that short videos take the profit cake. However, as an advertising professional, we constantly produce :06s and :15s because we have been warned over and over that consumers’ attention spans are shorter and shorter.

TikTok started with a 30-second cap on videos. Then, it moved to a model that allowed one minute of content, followed by now 10-minutes of (most likely) garble. There is a debate about whether this swing to longer form videos will result in a “triple win” for advertisers, creators, and the platform itself. Why? Longer videos mean more viewing time (that is, if the audience can stay engaged beyond 10 seconds), more ad space would then be available (higher profits), and a justifiable argument to share ad revenue.

But now, wait, we had IGTV and Facebook Watch. Neither saw the success they intended it to have, so what will they learn from those failures as they move towards promoting long video trends? My thought is with the ever-increasing popularity of LIVE (be it IG, TikTok, YouTube or what-have-you), there is a marriage to be considered (hopefully a healthy one).

People will always enjoy short form videos, and the punchier, the grittier, and the quicker you can deliver your message, the better. The bigwigs who make these kill switch decisions have mounds of data behind them, so the future of long form videos must have some merit.

The consensus, at least for 2024: Longer is better. And yes, that’s what she said.