Saturday morning cartoons, public phone booths, string headphones, the smell of your grandparent’s house…certain moments in life conjure a deep sense of nostalgia. Have you noticed that social media can do the same? That’s right–we’ve been scrolling for that long.

For millennials, it may be MySpace, for Gen-Zers, maybe it’s Vine, but there is one commonality that makes us all yearn for our younger years: the height of Youtube.

These days, Youtube is having a slight resurgence with the concept of “deep dives”. The confusing part is, TikTok has taken over this resurgence by using the same concept, and perhaps doing it better. A recent study states that “viewership of long-form videos [on TikTok] has increased by almost 40%” in the last year.” An example of this phenomena is popular creator Reesa Teesa’s series, “Who TF did I marry?”. The series itself was 52 parts, with each part capping at 10 minutes. The series exploded, and many other long-form content on TikTok has followed suit.

In the world of YouTube, short-form content is on the rise. Viewers are in favor, proven with this statistic: “YouTube Shorts have an average engagement rate of 5.91%, which is higher than all other short-form content channels (TikTok, Instagram Reels, and Facebook Reels).” Google is taking advantage of this, boasting that “in their Q1 2024 earnings call, Google revealed that the number of channels that post Shorts has increased by 50% year-over-year”.

The question here is: how does the content differ? It seems that TikTok long-form content is full of engaging storytelling, educational analysis, or pop culture opinions. Youtube Shorts, on the other hand, are chalk full of AI (thanks to Google’s new AI video model that allowed creators to input 6 seconds of AI-made content), sponsored content, or UGC. A few bells may have rang for you just now as marketers, and you’re right for hearing them. We can actually use both of these platforms to our advantage.

Did you know that “one in three marketers have embraced YouTube Shorts in their strategies, with 18% considering it a key component”? Youtube Shorts are extremely successful as an advertising tool due to its reach to viewers of all ages, the trustworthy nature of Youtube being a successful platform for decades, and longer view times.

As for long-form TikToks, the benefits aren’t quite as cut and dry. Organically, long-form TikToks can build a long-term relationship between client and audience, activating trust at the bottom of the funnel. For example, say your client is an opera singer, and they tell a 10 minute long story about an audition gone wrong. At the end of the story, they reveal that they still booked the show! When followers learn of such a tumultuous journey to the stage, they are more likely to follow through when the client plugs tickets at the end of the video.

Make sure to try out some of these tactics now, and keep your eye out to see what changes in the next few months. ​​We know the digital world moves fast, with a lot of noise! If you need further help or consulting, please get in touch at [email protected]. We’ll be happy to connect!

(PS if you’d like an example of musical “deep dive” content, take a look at Omar El Jamali’s “Firebird” analysis here.)

Learn more:
The marketing potential of YouTube Shorts
TikTok is going longform — marketers aren’t
YouTube Shorts to integrate Veo, Google’s AI video model