TikTok News is taking off

As a format for news content, short-form video is growing fast, driven in large part by the skyrocketing popularity of TikTok. According to Pew Research, 17% of adults in 2024 say they regularly get news from TikTok. A whopping 63% of teens say they get their news from the short-form video platform. The growth has been so rapid, it prompted Pew to write, “In fact, since 2020, no social media platform we’ve studied has seen faster growth in the share of Americans who regularly turn to it for news…”

Publishers are responding by embracing video in all its forms, but especially the short-form videos that are so popular with young people. What are the driving factors behind TikTok’s growing dominance in the news arena, and what challenges do publishers face in keeping up with audience preferences?

Why TikTok? Why now?

TikTok is expected to reach 1.8 billion monthly active users by the end of 2024, but there are more factors driving the uptick in news than the app’s growing popularity. Facebook’s decision to deprioritize news means it’s a less valuable channel for publishers and users alike.

Reuters reports, “In many countries, especially outside Europe and the United States, we find a significant further decline in the use of Facebook for news and a growing reliance on a range of alternatives including private messaging apps and video networks.” In the past year, Reuters research shows news consumption on Facebook has declined 4% across all countries.

That change has meant several other platforms stepped in to fill the gap, and video plays a big role. “News use across online platforms is fragmenting, with six networks now reaching at least 10% of our respondents, compared with just two a decade ago,” according to Reuters. Here is how they stack up:

• YouTube, 31%
• WhatsApp, 21%
• TikTok, 13%
• X (formerly Twitter), 10%

Two-thirds of the people surveyed by Reuters access short news videos each week. Just over half (51%), watch longer form videos weekly. The research also shows that people access these videos through online platforms and not the publishers websites.

The pros and cons of short-form video for news

Deploying short-form video on platforms like TikTok has its advantages — one of which is that it can be easily distributed across other platforms like Instagram and Facebook. The most obvious, however, is its ability to make direct connections with younger audiences. TikTok itself seems to recognize the opportunities for publishers.

Even as other social media platforms dial down their relationships with news organizations, TikTok has doubled down with TikTok Pulse Premiere, which it launched in 2023 to match advertisers with premium content created by trusted brands.

Why is TikTok embracing news content as others run away? In large part, TikTok is a content creation platform. Rather than posting links to their stories, publishers have to create bespoke content aimed at TikTok’s audience and cultivate an audience that may or may never click a link to a news website — which is also a tick in the con column.

Investing and monetizing

Publishers have had to do more than just hire a social media manager for TikTok. While some take the easy route and just repurpose video content from their broadcasts, others, like the BBC, have entire TikTok teams filled with young people who understand the platform and generate content specifically aimed at the audience.

Investing in staff specifically to build an audience on TikTok means monetizing this channel is key. For some, the goal will likely be to capture those viewers in another way, such as by getting them to sign up for a newsletter; however, TikTok has made it easier than most social channels to monetize premium news content. Pulse Premiere partners — which included Condé Nast and Vox Media at launch — split ad revenue evenly with TikTok.

Embracing the short-form revolution

While publishers are surely tired of adapting to every new social media trend, it’s clear that TikTok is here to stay and if they want to reach younger audiences, it cannot be an afterthought. That means hiring a creative team that understands the medium and can embrace all it has to offer.

One of the chief benefits of short-form video is that it’s mobile-friendly — the importance of which cannot be overstated as almost 70% of people watch content on their smartphones. Creating video optimized for this audience can be as simple as ensuring it’s filmed vertically, but goes well beyond that to embrace popular trends and templates to capitalize on what is already working on TikTok.

Power play

The opportunity to reach younger demographics has led some mainstream news media to make massive investments in the short-form channel.

In the lead-up to the U.S. election, the UK's Daily Mail embraced live coverage on TikTok, streaming from both the Democratic and Republican conventions. According to Digiday, “There were one million viewers of the 2024 Republican National Convention in July, and 5.5 million views for the 2024 Democratic National Convention in August.” On election day itself the title planned to increase its video output to 180 posts a day, as well as live-posting to capture results as they came in.

In spite of this enthusiasm for the new format, the investment involved and the limited opportunities for monetization mean that making money from a TikTok presence is not easy for news publishers. Nevertheless, it seems that short-form video news in one form or another is here to stay.