Influencer
Video View Booster Lures TikTok Users to Post Horizontal Videos Over 60 Seconds
ByteDance-owned short video app TikTok unveiled a new program called “Video View Booster” aimed at incentivizing its creative users to post longer videos in landscape orientation, in a move likely designed to increase time spent on the platform and edge in on YouTube’s dominance for longer-form video.
Spotted by TikTok user Candice Chapman, the program promises creators that videos over one minute long shot in landscape mode will receive an unspecified boost in views from TikTok’s algorithm. The exact number of additional views depends on “many factors, such as video quality and follower count,” the company said.
YouTube has long been the internet’s main hub and search engine for video content over 10 minutes. By enticing its 1 billion monthly active users to not just consume but also create longer videos, TikTok aims to transform user perception that it is an app mainly for short viral clips.
Landscape orientation refers to a horizontal video frame that is wider than it is tall, as opposed to portrait mode which is taller than wide. TikTok’s videos have traditionally been vertical but the company has likely determined that longer, TV-like horizontal videos can translate to users spending more cumulative time watching.
To qualify, users must have had TikTok accounts for at least three months and avoid violated community guidelines around original content, advertising, and lip-syncing. Government and political accounts are excluded.
The boosted views initiative illustrates TikTok’s ongoing efforts to evolve beyond its music-video app roots into a destination for all varieties of creative and informative video formats as it continues to take on Google and Facebook for user attention and digital advertising dollars.