TikTok is increasing video description length, giving creators more options to optimize their content for search.
TikTok creators now have more options to optimize their content to users’ search queries due to increased video descriptions.
A notification was sent to users by TikTok stating that the description length is increasing from 300 to 2,200 characters.
TikTok claims that it makes content searchable and uses the description text to determine which videos it recommends to users.
A social media analyst, Matt Navarra, shares a screenshot of his message about the change.
Woah…! TikTok has increased the limit of video description characters to 2,200 characters
This is huge for creators and massive in terms of TikTok’s plans for becoming a search engine
— Matt Navarra (@MattNavarra) September 23, 2022
The message says:
“You can now write up to 2200 characters into your posts’ descriptions. This allows you more detail about your creations and describes what your videos show. It also gives you the possibility to contact your audience. You will be more searchable by TikTok and more recommended to viewers.
Younger generations are rapidly using TikTok as a search engine. TikTok also allows users to make their videos search-friendly.
This shift in search behavior was first documented by me in June when TikTok added links to search results in video descriptions.
Google acknowledged publicly in July that TikTok (and Instagram) are the most popular search engines for a large number of young people.
Prabhakar Raghavan, Google Senior Vice President, declared
According to our research, almost 40% of young people don’t use Google Maps or Search when looking for a restaurant for lunch. They go to TikTok and Instagram.
Users can optimize videos for search terms by increasing the length of their video descriptions from 300 characters to 2200 characters
Local businesses can use TikTok to include keywords relevant to their state and city.
This could increase their opportunities of being found for queries like “Independent Businesses in Downtown Toronto.” They’ll also have ample space to add descriptive text about the video.
Creators can also use the character increase to give context to what viewers see in a video.
Creators often use in-video captions to provide additional information, but this text is not helpful for search engines.
Google indexes TikTok videos. Videos can be made more searchable by using traditional search engines or TikTok by writing detailed descriptions.
Watching what creators do with the thousands of additional characters in a video description will be fascinating.
As in the early days of SEO, creators will stuff the description with keywords.
Will they spam their description area with hashtags like the people on Instagram used to?
It will take a few experiments to find the best TikTok search method to see all of these.
TikTok SEO will be an area that I keep an eye on as more characters are added to the site.
