TikTok, Instagram Reels or YouTube Shorts: Who will Win the Short-Video Race — from WSJ
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The 60 second story
The Wall Street Journal ran a story last week
“TikTok, Instagram Reels or YouTube Shorts: Who will Win the Short-Video Race”
They trace the history of short videos starting with the first App: Vine, in 2017 and then TikTok’s rise after Vine was discontinued.
By 2019 TikTok had been downloaded a billion times and then with the lockdown in 2020 TikTok’s usage increased significantly as did the scrutiny over user data and it’s chinese owner Byte dance.
Late 2020, Facebook launches Instagram Reels and Google launches YouTube shorts to compete — they both grow rapidly
More platforms are introducing shorts — Pinterest introduced “Watch”, Snapchat releases “Spotlight”, Netflix — “Fast Laughs” — clips from Netflix shows and Twitter is testing an updated Explore tab specifically for 1 minute video
My Take: It doesn’t matter who’s leading — post everywhere — BUT start doing it: making videos 1 minute or less
Videos have traditionally been the most expensive and hardest content to create. With the demand of short videos and every platform aggressively leaning into these, the tools are getting way easier to where you really have no excuse — just do it.
The full 7:43 Story from WSJ
More from Future Social
Just caught this in my inbox from Future Social:
The head of Instagram has been public enemy No. 1 the last few weeks as the internet (and a couple of Kardashians) angrily yells to “make Instagram Instagram again.” There’s a cultural feeling that IG is just doing a TikTok impersonation lately, cutting back your friends’ photos in favor of recommended video content. We’re living in the Reels world now, where vertical short-form vids feel like the primary content type for two of the largest social networks.
They go on to suggest that this move is a good catalyst for brands to start TikToking. They then go on to remind us what Instagram said their first blog post in 2020
“Reels invites you to create fun videos to share with your friends or anyone on Instagram. Record and edit 15-second multi-clip videos with audio, effects, and new creative tools. You can share reels with your followers on Feed, and, if you have a public account, make them available to the wider Instagram community through a new space in Explore. Reels in Explore offers anyone the chance to become a creator on Instagram and reach new audiences on a global stage.”
Then they go on with the “social media math of it all”:
Let’s be honest, brands: You’re pot-committed to Instagram. Over 200 million businesses are on the platform. You can’t jump off IG just because the format changed—you’ve spent too much time and money building a community there.
If you plan on having business success on Instagram, you better commit to Reels.
If we agree Reels and TikToks are basically the same, you better commit to TikTok.
They then go on to say what I’ve felt which is that Instagram is giving us the gift of efficiency. Two of the largest platforms are encouraging the exact same type of content.
TikTok is a content-recommendation engine.
They then go on to point out how TikTok differs from the other social networks which are “follow-based networks”.
TikTok isn’t like that, though. Users primarily scroll the For You page, mostly comprising content the algorithm thinks you’d enjoy. You don’t need followers—TikTok’s gonna push your content to the right audiences automatically. Brands can dip their toes into TikTok through literally copy/pasting the content.
While I knew that instinctively, until reading this, I had not fully realized the difference. But I did realize that it’s far easier posting a 9:16 video to multiple platforms optimized around the vertical video and that’s a great thing.
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