Why TikTok’s Twitter replacement will be more successful than Threads

TikTok has become the latest social media giant to take advantage of the continued garbage fire going on at Twitter. The company announced the introduction of text-based content overnight, just as Elon Musk began rebranding Twitter to ‘X’.

The news: TikTok introduces text posts

According to TikTok, the introduction of text-based posts will allow creators to broaden their options for creativity. It said it was inspired to make this move due to the way its users utilised comments and captions and wanted to give the written word “a dedicated space to shine”.

TikTok creators will be able to customise their text posts with different background colours, as well as familiar features such as background music, stickers, hashtags and tagging.

This may seem like an odd move, but introducing text-based content could be well utilised to boost the views of some content creators without the need to film. A good example are cooking accounts, where recipes are generally relegated to the comments, or not at all. It can be frustrating.

A text-based option could help these creators double their views by filming the cooking process and then offering a dedicated ‘recipe post’ that is far easier to read.

“At TikTok, we’re always looking to empower our creators and community with innovative tools that inspire self expression. Today we’re thrilled to announce the expansion of text posts on TikTok, a new format for creating text-based content that broadens options for creators to share their ideas and express their creativity,” the company said in a blog post.

“With text posts, we’re expanding the boundaries of content creation for everyone on TikTok, giving the written creativity we’ve seen in comments, captions, and videos a dedicated space to shine.”

Our view: TikTok is a better Twitter competitor than Threads

While TikTok has clearly had this new feature in the pipe for awhile, its timing couldn’t be more sublime.

The release of its text-based posts comes just one day after Elon Musk once again set the internet on fire by rebranding Twitter to X. This debacle started late on Sunday when Musk began tweeting about changing the logo. He was joined by new Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino who tweeted about plans to turn X into the ‘everything app’. This mirrored Musk’s own desire to transform Twitter into a WeChat competitor, which you can read more about here.

Ever since Musk took over Twitter late last year, long-time users have threatened to leave the platform. This has gotten worse over time, as the platform degraded due to mass firings and certain features got locked behind a paywall in an attempt to claw back some of the eye-watering cash that Musk burned on buying it.

While alternatives such as Mastodon and Bluesky have cropped up, none of them have really taken off in the same way. And it is not surprising, it’s near-impossible to capture the essence of what Twitter originally offered to the internet 17 years ago.

Until about three weeks ago.

Meta was also one to take advantage of some timing. At the beginning of July Musk announced that Twitter would be limiting the number of posts people could see to just 300. People who paid for Twitter Blue, of course, would get more than that.

While the numbers went back up relatively quickly, the damage was already done. Users and advertisers alike weren’t happy. And that’s where Zuckerberg swooped in.

Within days Meta launched Threads, a Twitter clone that was linked to your Instagram profile. This meant that the setup process was surprisingly smooth and simple.

And the reaction was huge. Thirty million people signed up within the first 24 hours and they were having fun. It was a mixture of former Twitter lovers, Instagram users who were only just discovering the joys of text-based posts, and brands being chaotic as they experimented on a new platform.

But hype around Threads has since dropped off dramatically with a reported 70% decline in active users. And this is where TikTok may have better luck.

TikTok isn’t asking users to download a new app or split content between two different platforms like Meta is for Instagram and Threads.

Instead, it’s filling the gap for text-based content by offering it as an additional feature to its 1.1 billion active monthly users. If it captures some new people from Twitter, great, but the platform’s success isn’t hinging on it.

Still, the fact it chose this week to launch is savvy and very funny.

And soon we shall bid adieu to the twitter brand and, gradually, all the birds

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 23, 2023

Twitter also isn’t the only platform that TikTok is taking aim at. Earlier this month it began trialing its own music streaming service, TikTok Music, in Brazil and Indonesia. It also plans to expand this out to Australia, Mexico and Singapore.

Taking on giants like Spotify and Apple Music is a bold move, but it does make sense if you look at the audiences again.

In Q2 Spotify reported it had 551 million active monthly users. Apple Music is reported to have 88 million subscribers in 2022. Those are both big numbers, but they’re not 1.1 billion.

As TikTok grows, and other platforms such as Twitter flounder, it’s no surprise that it’s taking advantage of holes left in the market and opportunities to keep users firmly on its own app with expanded offerings.

Elon Musk says that he wants X to be the ‘everything app’, but TikTok is already here. Video sharing, shopping, text posts, music — it’s doing all of it and would have far more planned. And unlike Twitter, it’s not losing advertisers at a rate of 50% or struggling to pay off US$1 billion in yearly debt.

Good luck, Elon.