A Resurgence of Youtube in a Sea of New Platforms

Still reigning as the second most popular social media platform, following Facebook, YouTube boasts 2.51 billion active users, with one billion hours of video watched daily, and 90% of consumers saying they discover new brands and products through the platform.

Despite still wearing the crown for usership over competitor video platforms, in June 2020,  TikTok overtook YouTube for the first time in minutes spent on the platform, indicating higher levels of engagement. Around this time, the Gen Z demographic began averaging 82 minutes per day on TikTok versus an average of 75 minutes per day on YouTube.

With the knowledge that TikTok was reigning supreme in the social video space, YouTube introduced its own short video offering in 2020 – Shorts. Since its inception, YouTube has been scaling up the offering by expanding its Partner Programme (YPP) to make creators eligible for revenue sharing on Shorts and incentivising creators to share their content on the app.

Now YouTube has put its best foot forward in the race to dominate the video content space, its competitors are creeping closely behind to dominate the space that YouTube first created.

TikTok dips its toes into the long-form pool

Just when we thought that short-form video content had well and truly taken over domination of the social media landscape, that 10-minute long ad from Hilton landed on our TikTok For You pages. TikTok is entering the long-form space, giving YouTube a run for its money.