Let the eyeball battle begin
Scrolling into a new generation
TikTok, Shorts and Reels
The recent news that TikTok watch time is dominating over YouTube shouldn’t come as a surprise. We saw it coming. Shortened attention spans and the age of anxiety have us coddled up in our rooms. Constant streams of entertainment are a must-have. And if you’re not producing video content, what are you doing on the internet? —you’re watching it!
Nobody wants to read articles that are 1000s of words long. Is SEO dead? Well, no, quite the contrary. The fact is that if you had to choose between watching, to listen or reading something, watching is the least effort. Tiny pixelated letters hurt my eyes. But SEO is how people find you. It would help if you still built a network of keywords into your script and your promotional content. Copywriting is king and always will be.
As a member of the internet audience, I want to be engaged in what you have to say. This means fun transitions, small chunks of text and countless seconds of ever-changing b-roll. But most of all, I want to watch whatever is on-trend. That way, you get views, and I forget what I was meant to be doing.
Who watches Reels on Instagram? The big players here are TikTok and YouTube. The push for short content on YouTube becoming monetised with a “creator fund” similar to Snapchat and TikTok in the past is just the beginning. Should YouTube stay in its niche of long-form videos? Well, not if people aren’t interested.
Having a YouTube channel is hard work, and long videos are hard to make. But shorts on YouTube need to catch up. TikTok videos, in comparison, are easy to record, edit, add music to and include what’s trending. The video consumer communities want an effortless experience. So the better the algorithm, the more you’re hooked.
From personal experience, my YouTube videos get about 20 views if I’m lucky. On TikTok, I get 200 within a few days. Do the math.
