TikTok, a social media app known for short videos, has introduced a new feature that allows users to post text-only content. This is a departure from its usual format and aims to give users more space for written creativity, such as comments, captions, and longer text posts.
The company announced this change through a blog post, highlighting that text posts will provide a dedicated space for users to express themselves without the need for background visuals like videos and photos. Previously, users could include text over videos and images, as well as in captions and comments. Some users had already been testing the text-only format since June.
With the new text post feature, users can customize their posts similarly to video and photo posts. They can add music, background colors, stickers, and even tag other users and add hashtags. The text posts are limited to 1,000 characters in length, while video descriptions can be up to 2,200 characters, and comments limited to 150 characters.
TikTok’s popularity has soared, with over one billion monthly users globally, including 150 million in the United States. However, the app has faced restrictions in some regions due to security concerns as it is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance.
Apart from TikTok, other major social media companies have also undergone significant changes. Elon Musk rebranded Twitter as “X” and Meta, the company that owns Instagram and Facebook, introduced a Twitter competitor called Threads. Threads allows text-focused posts but also enables users to share videos and photos. The early success of Threads, with over 100 million sign-ups, remains to be seen if it will be sustained over time.
