The Internet is an everlasting change, and social media is an aspect that mirrors it. YouTube might face some tribulations imposed by their younger rival on the field: TikTok. In this article, we’ll see how this mainstream social media might rearrange YouTube’s future on the Internet.
According to AppAnnie, a market research company, in the United States, TikTok users on average consumed content for 24 hours per month, while YouTube users consumed content for an average of 22 hours per month.
Is TikTok a threat to YouTube’s future?
YouTube has been active since 2005, with 18 years of story, the platform went through a lot of changes influenced by external forces, such as new trends and the creation of new social media. TikTok has been in the discussion as a potential problem for YouTube since it is attracting not only users but also content creators.
Emarketer points out that even with a monthly visit of three-quarters of internet users on YouTube, TikTok is increasing its video viewing statistics, having a large authority over other social platforms.
The platform was created after a dinner party with Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim, all of PayPal’s former employees. The discussion was about the lack of ways to properly access and share video content.
Video, we felt, really wasn’t being addressed on the Internet. People were collecting video clips on their cell phones … but there was no easy way to share them.
Chad Hurley, in an early interview.
On the other hand, TikTok had a different start, it wasn’t created because something was lacking, the initial steps of what would be known as one of the biggest social platforms in the world started from other apps.
In 2015, Musical.ly was launched and broke international barriers, as it started in Shangai but caught the world’s attention. ByteDance a Chinese technology company, decided to release in 2016, a similar project called Douyin, it was a success with over 100M users in less than a year. In, 2018, the tech company did a bold movie, bought Musical.ly, and fused with Douyin, creating TikTok.
Although in 2022, TikTok has become one of the biggest platforms with 1B active users, the platform won’t surpass yet Google’s platform YouTube. Insider Intelligence forecasted that TikTok might overtake YouTube by 2024 in US ad revenues in the future with USD 11.01 B, a 2.80% compared to YouTube’s USD 10.71 B.
Looking ahead to 2025, it is projected that there will be 24.2 M TikTok users in the U.S. aged 18-24, while YouTube will have 26.6 M users in the country. Despite YouTube’s current dominance, TikTok’s growth trajectory suggests that it could potentially surpass YouTube’s penetration shortly.
In particular, younger generations are increasingly gravitating towards TikTok, which could ultimately impact the overall market share of YouTube in the long run. However, it is important to note that YouTube still commands a significant share of the online video space
Not even Google it’s free from TikTok
TikTok’s dominance doesn’t seem to have stopped on the video platforms, Google noticed that the new social platform might be a potential challenger for the user’s attention. TikTok is one of the favorite options for the younger generation as a search engine.
”Gen Zers” or users that were born from 1995 to 2009 represent 60% of the user base on the platform. By the next year, 74M people will be included in the ”Gen Z” category, making it the largest generation.
No one expected this to happen, the platform is taking Google’s main function to be used as a search engine, Prabhakar Raghavan, senior vice president at Google, stumbled across this information that th 40% of the younger users search on TikTok instead of using Google.
Due to the fast-pacing format, with short videos, the platform outplays Google, which offers longer texts, TikTok creates this relatable, quick, and light atmosphere with a few clicks.
Similarities, differences, and strategies between platforms
Borrowing or just straight-up copying features from other social media is a known strategy for growth by companies. As a tactic to attract new users and acquire their attention, it might as well take away each social platform’s individuality.
Both YouTube and TikTok are no different, the social media have their similarities as video-focused platforms. One of the most known and recent efforts to retain its public and keep a fresh image was YouTube’s Shorts.
Shorts, as the name suggests, it is an option for short formatted videos on the platform, a similar feature compared to TikTok’s standard videos. The feature was added in 2021, the videos are recorded vertically, and the user is allowed to choose their duration from 15 second to 1-minute long video. Alternatively, TikTok offers a longer option, allowing 10-minute-long videos.
Another feature is that YouTube allows its users to link products to its video, while in TikTok an upgraded version is called ”Shopping”, with a more wide-option applied to it.
While both platforms have a wide of options in-app, especially for the post-production side, such as edition tools to improve the video’s quality, TikTok still shows it’s advantage in small details on filters and stickers.
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Dealing with social media influencers is not always easy. Actually, most of the time, companies and influencers can’t communicate clearly, as there is a lack of a cultural, linguistic, and social bridge that connects both.
When it comes to Latin influencers, this communication barrier is even bigger. Not only because a lot of people in countries like Brazil or Colombia don’t English, but also because these countries are highly multicultural, with cities with completely different styles, slang, social and cultural movements within the country.
In the case of Brazil, this aspect is so strong that there are even completely different cultures within the same city, in big metropolises like São Paulo or Rio de Janeiro.
It is really hard to keep up with the constant changes in the pop culture and in the internet world, so contacting an agency whose job is to always be updated about what the influencers are doing, how is the stability in the country, and more important information for your company, is the best strategy.