TikTok is increasing the character limit of its video descriptions to 2,200 characters.
As social media consultant Matt Navarra spotted from an in-app notification and shared in a tweet, TikTok users can now type up to 2,200 characters in their posts’ descriptions. “This allows you to express more details about your creations, describing what your videos show, giving you the opportunity to get closer to your audience, generating more engagement while becoming more searchable and better recommended by TikTok to viewers,” the TikTok update reads. The change brings TikTok’s character limit up to be the same as its competitor, Instagram.
The latest bump in TikTok’s character count is great news for creators, who can now be a lot more descriptive when captioning videos on the app. Prior to this change, TikTokers were only able to work with a maximum of 300 characters. While short captions are ideal for certain types of content such as comedy videos, longer descriptions lend themselves better to others. For example, creators who make videos about cooking can benefit from the increased character count by sharing step-by-step recipes in their captions. Meanwhile, creators whose content focuses on more complex subjects, like personal finance, science, or history, can provide more context and in-depth explanation using longer video descriptions.
The update also reflects TikTok’s efforts to step up its SEO game, as it is fast becoming a preferred search engine option for young people. To optimize your videos for discovery, it’s important to include relevant keywords and hashtags in your TikTok captions. More characters mean more detailed post descriptions, which will allow your content to be more searchable.
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