TikTok is giving influencers and content creators the chance to explain more of their content rather than keeping it squashed into a few lines.
Although many are now accustomed to writing short descriptions, focusing more on hashtags, and video content, the latest initiative will be able to connect with users through their writing too. TikTok has increased the video description character limit to 2,200 characters which are great for TikTok and users to become more searchable.
Here’s the breakdown! For more videos like this check out my last: @jtbarnett #creators#seo#blog#tiktoksearch#searchontiktok#discoverypage TikTok creators have more ways to optimize their content for users’ searches, thanks to a significant increase in the length of video descriptions. According to a notification sent to users, TikTok is expanding the length of descriptions from 300 characters to 2,200 characters. In addition to making content more searchable, TikTok says it uses text in the description to decide which videos to recommend to users. Social media analyst Matt Navarra shares a screenshot of the message he received regarding the change: The message reads: “You can now type up to 2200 characters in your posts’ descriptions: This allows you to express more details about your creations, describing what your videos show, giving you the opportunity to get closer to your audience, generating more engagement while becoming more searchable and better recommended by TikTok to viewers.” Younger generations are increasingly using TikTok as a search engine, and TikTok is leaning further into it by letting users make their videos more search friendly. I first wrote about this shift in search behavior in June, when TikTok started adding links to search results in video descriptions. In July, Google publicly acknowledged that TikTok and Instagram are the preferred search engines for a sizeable amount of young people. Google Senior Vice President Prabhakar Raghavan stated: “In our studies, something like almost 40% of young people, when they’re looking for a place for lunch, they don’t go to Google Maps or Search, they go to TikTok or Instagram.” Increasing the length of video descriptions from 300 to 2,200 characters allows users to optimize videos for more search terms. For example, local businesses marketing themselves on TikTok can include more keywords related to their city and state. That could increase their chances of getting found for a query like “independent businesses in downtown Toronto.” And they’ll have plenty of room to add descriptive text about the video. The character increase also allows creators to add more context to what people see in a video. Creators often provide extra details through in-video captions, but that text isn’t helpful to search engines. Let’s not forget that Google indexes TikTok videos. Writing detailed descriptions can make videos more discoverable in traditional search engines and TikTok. It will be interesting to see what creators choose to do with thousands more characters in a video description. Will creators stuff the description area with keywords, like in the early days of SEO? Will they spam the description area with hashtags, like people used to do on Instagram? Some experimentation will be necessary to learn what works for TikTok search, so we may see all of the above. TikTok SEO is an area I’ll keep my eye on as the expanded character length rolls out to more people.
The jump from 300 characters to 2,200 characters is huge and a way of TikTok showing they have done their research into how they can expand their app even further. The app explains “This allows you to express more details about your creations, describing what your videos show, giving you the opportunity to get closer to your audience, generating more engagement while becoming more searchable and better recommended by TikTok to viewers.”
How to make it work for you
In order to get the most out of the new feature:
Make use of the characters by explaining exactly what is in the video
Make it engaging and snappy
Use the relevant hashtags
Ensuring you have made these above adjustments will increase engagement on your video. Google’s Senior Vice President Prabhakar Raghavan stated “In our studies, something like almost 40% of young people, when they’re looking for a place to lunch, they don’t go to Google Maps or Search, they go to TikTok or Instagram.”
This highlights the impact social media is having even on search engines. To get your DIY tricks and tips, people are finding it more useful to use social media than asking Google for help as we can get the answers in a quick video form that has a variety of ideas. The length of the video descriptions to 2,200 characters gives users the chance to optimise videos for more search terms.
Search Engine
For example, when an influencer or content creator is marketing themselves using TikTok, they can include more keywords now related to their location. This will increase their chances of being found for a query like “influencers based in Dubai” – they will have more space to add descriptive text about the content they have produced.
The extra description also gives users a chance to add more context to the video they watch. If it doesn’t make sense in the video itself, then at least the user can add in more background to the video in the description. Google indexes TikTok videos don’t forget, to writing details in the description will allow videos to be more discoverable in traditional search engines as well as TikTok.
It will be interesting to see whether influencers and content creators will still use shorter descriptions or take advantage of the longer characters. We suggest you use the latest feature for better reach and engagement.
Let us know what you think of the latest feature by tweeting us @itpliveme.
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