While the world of content creation overlaps with the art of filmmaking, they are also very much separate endeavors. That being said, for many of us, shooting videos for ourselves or for brands that pay us requires us to be proficient in creating content for social video platforms like YouTube.

And while TikTok has risen on the scene too, it’s a largely different subset of content creators and contention creation styles. Instead of focusing on more impressive production quality, TikTok has largely been more DIY and focused on content shot in-app and on Smartphones.

However, with reports coming out that TikTok is going to promote horizontal videos with longer runtimes to its main creators, it sure sounds like TikTok is looking to become the new YouTube. And if that’s the case, it’s a question now as to how content creators will adjust?

TikTok Going Horizontal and Long-Form

According to reports from The Verge, TikTok is indeed looking to attract longer-form video creators directly from YouTube. Unlike their traditional model, TikTok is looking to move away from vertical videos that only offer creators the opportunity to “boost” videos that are horizontal and longer than a minute.

There have been screenshots shared online of TikTok creators showing prompts they received from the parent company of TikTok, ByteDance, that says that TikTok will boost the creators’ longer, horizontal videos within 72 hours of posting.

These new boosts are reportedly going to be available to creators who have been on TikTok for longer than three months as long as they follow the usual boost caveats of not being branded ads or from political parties.

@candicedchap

Replying to @Kaloneal #longervideo #horizontal #tiktoktips

TikTok vs. YouTube

As mentioned above, this is big news for a couple of reasons. The first is simply that TikTok and YouTube, while offering a similar product on the surface, are actually quite different. YouTube has built a community, which we’ve all probably been a part of, that focuses on longer-form content and in a more traditional horizontal (often cinematic) style.

TikTok, on the other hand, was more focused on trends and viral dance crazes at first, and is now more diverse. Still, it remains in the vertical format that's tailored to end up on someone’s "For You" page for long enough to momentarily stop scrolling.

If TikTok is exploring a more YouTube-oriented approach to its content, it could, in theory, fundamentally begin to change how content is created and presented for its platform in a way that more closely resembles YouTube.

For content creators, I’d argue that this would be helpful for those of us who are more experienced in shooting “traditional” types of videos for YouTube rather than more DIY vertical content for TikTok as it stands now.

@kenlyealtumbiz

DIRECTIONS 👇🏻 Horizontal Videos on TikTok 1. Film video on your phone's camera, or wherever you always film in Landscape mode (turn your phone sideways) 2. Upload video into CapCut App (it's free) 3. Look at the menu bar at the bottom and change the "aspect ratio" to 16:9 4. Click the video and highlight it (under actual video next to "mute" & "cover") 5. At very bottom menu scroll until you see “transform" and then rotate until you're right side up 6: ADD VIDEO CAPTIONS IN CAPCUT. You CANNOT add video captions or edit in TikTok, it will mess this all up, idk why, that's on TikTok. 7. Hit the arrow at the top right to export your video 8. Upload into TikTok (you can write out a caption like this one and use hashtags, just NOT in the actual video) #horizontalvideo #horizontal #fullscreenstatus #fullscreen #tiktoktips #horizontalvideos @Ken 🖤 | Business Coach 📲

The Future of TikTok

It certainly appears that TikTok has been shifting its focus for some time now. Earlier last year TikTok announced that they are extending their maximum video length from three to 10 minutes long. And, before that, the max limit was only 60 seconds, which was an extension from its original 15 when launched.

In October of last year, TikTok also began testing a new ability to upload videos up to 15 minutes (and according to more reports, maybe even 30 minutes in length as well). Still, while these max runtimes have advanced, it’s hard to say how much of an impact they’ve made so far—at least in terms of becoming more YouTube-esque.

Ultimately, though, YouTube has proven to be an extraordinarily popular and profitable platform. Content creators have flocked to YouTube over the years thanks to high payouts and the ability to build a brand from scratch just within the ecosystem.

TikTok has had its own success too, but it appears that they would ideally like to become more like YouTube and become more of a multi-device home for users. And this might just be the biggest step in their quest to challenge YouTube for its full audience. But we’ll see.

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