TikTok Is Exploring Stories & Long Videos: Will Marketers Even Care?

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When TikTok went viral in 2019, pulling in millions of global users nearly overnight, almost every major social media channel quickly pivoted attention to short-form videos.

While Instagram – which notably innovated on Snapchat Stories – launched Instagram Reels, YouTube – known for its longer-form videos – launched YouTube Shorts.

Now, TikTok seems to be taking on its biggest social media rivals yet again by exploring two familiar — but still surprising — features: TikTok Stories and 10-minute video capabilities.

If you love the short-form, in-feed, and non-ephemeral nature of TikTok’s platform, you might be surprised that they’re now launching features that other platforms are famous for – rather than continuing to make their own unique offerings.

You also might wonder, “Will these features make TikTok a more applicable channel for my brand?” Or, “Will TikTok’s Stories and long-form content go unnoticed and eventually be discontinued – just like Twitter Fleets?”

To help marketers try to determine if these features will make a difference in their TikTok or social media strategy, I’ll highlight how they work, why TikTok’s launching them, and if they pose any opportunities for brands.

We’ll discuss TikTok Stories first. But, if you’re just interested in long-form video instead, click here to jump down to that section of this post.

TikTok has expanded its Stories feature pilot after initially testing the feature in a few select countries like Brazil in Q1. While TikTok has not yet published a press release about Stories or pilot results, U.S. users began to see a notification announcing the feature on apps throughout the past month.

As many marketers already know, this pilot comes after most major social media platforms including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and even LinkedIn have launched or explored their own version of this feature.

What’s the Story with Stories?: A Quick History

At the HubSpot Blog, the evolution of Stories features across social media platforms has taught us one thing: When one platform develops a viral feature, other major platforms will follow suit with an incredibly similar option.

Stories began on Snapchat, the first well-known ephemeral app where users could create a series of videos or pictures on their profile – or a Snapchat Story – that would only show up for 24 hours. Users could also send “Snaps” or a series of disappearing Snaps to other users who could only see them when they opened their message.

Soon after Snapchat attracted millions of users with ephemeral content, Instagram launched Stories as a key part of its platform. Then, soon after that Facebook, LinkedIn, and even Twitter launched Story or Story-like features. While Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram still host Stories today, Twitter has disbanded its version – called “Fleets” and Snapchat has steadily lost interest from consumers and brands.