TikTok's Tim Edwards Talks Long Form Content, Monetization and the Power of Search By Jo Ruddock, SVG Europe
Wednesday, May 29, 2024 - 2:22 pm
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
How to create, share and monetize content on social media was discussed in depth at today's (23 May) Create Share Engage, with Tim Edwards, sports lead - UK and Nordics, TikTok, providing insight into how the platform is used to attract and engage viewers, and the monetization opportunities available. Edwards revealed that TikTok is opened, on average, 21 times a day by its 1 billion active monthly users worldwide. While there are no hard and fast rules around which content performs particularly well on the platform, and Edwards was keen to encourage people to experiment, behind the scenes videos and those that are athlete-led continue to dominate in the world of sport.
He highlights people looking to find out about debunking sports topics, so education, education around certain sports, finding out about certain athletes or tips about how to do certain sports as particularly popular content.
The popularity of this type of content has driven recent developments at TikTok where the focus has been on search. There's also been growth in users watching longer form content.
As TikTok is seen as a source for different kinds of content, that's been the big driver behind search being a really, really big driver of content discovery, rather than just the For You feed, he adds.
He continued: Long form has been a big growth area for us within the last six to eight months. Our users' expectations, and our expectations really, about what length of video users are comfortable coming to TikTok and watching is massively changing. Over a minute plus is the fastest area of content growth for us. So yes, we are still the place where you might watch the same video 20 times, but we're also the place where you might watch a one minute video, a two minute video, or even more than that. And you might watch that once, but what that brings to you in terms of longer term engagement and retention onto your account delivers very different upsides.
Our users' expectations, and our expectations really, about what length of video users are comfortable coming to TikTok and watching is massively changing
Indeed, users, on average are now watching over 90 minutes of content on the app per day. When it comes to sport, younger users are watching more than three hours of non-broadcast, non-highlight sports content per week.
So, for those looking to tap into that highly engaged market, what tips would Edwards offer?
Really interrogate and break down everything that might be different about your sport, everything that the players might do in a day, everything that might happen on a trip away, for example, he advises. For someone who doesn't fully understand your sport that will probably be something that they don't know. And so think about those and how it can be a hook.
Of course, TikTok isn't a rightsholder so how does it navigate those relationships and add value to those who have paid for rights?
We're always working with broadcasters and rightsholders to maximise the value of those rights and to find a different audience to what they might get within the traditional broadcast. But also if you're taking something like archive, it can also help keep your brand alive, if there's a really large gap between events, he added.
He cites the International Paralympic Committee, which has been a top performing sport account globally in the last few years, all driven by archive footage.
Of course, reaching new audiences and keeping them engaged between events is crucial, but how to monetise that content is still proving tricky. Edwards shared a couple of developments at TikTok that aim to improve this situation.
We've got a lot of different monetisation options that exist for different types of accounts and we are always at any given time testing a lot of different monetisation options for types of accounts worldwide.
He gave the example of Live Gifting and the recently launched TikTok Shop.
TikTok Shop is a really fast-growing area, both in terms of content and in terms of new ways of adoption of commerce. That's definitely an area where you can merge that trending content on TikTok and also make a purchase as well, he said.
The company has also recently announced its Pulse Premier scheme, which is being gradually rolled out for accounts including Sky Sports, BBC Studios and Channel 4, which gives advertisers the opportunity to buy ad space in front of their content.
For those partners, that's also a revenue opportunity that is being launched very carefully. But we're really excited about the long-term potential of that.
He concluded: I think if you are a broadcaster, a brand, rightsholder, team or athlete, and you're looking at what you have across the year, and through your social media content you're trying to grow your audience online and really achieve virality, I think all the audience would point to the fact that TikTok is the place where that's most likely to happen these days.
North America Stories
07/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
07/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
07/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
07/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
07/04/2026
Designed for synchronized multi-stream playback, low-latency delivery, and real-time analytics, MATCH introduces a unified viewing experience for sports broadca...
07/04/2026
Berklee Students to Honor George Martin with Performance of Original Scores The orchestra, led by associate professor Xander Rovang, will perform several work...
06/04/2026
Michigan legends bring a new voice to the broadcast as TNT Sports and CBS Sports...
06/04/2026
From high school sports all the way up to the major leagues, building high-quali...
06/04/2026
Quickplay, an AI company for the media and entertainment industry, has been accepted into the Advanced tier of the TwelveLabs Ecosystem Partner Program. Quickpl...
06/04/2026
Grass Valley has announced the Future Playmakers Program, a global initiative to...
06/04/2026
El l der de operaciones impulsa la producci n en estudio mientras encuentra insp...
06/04/2026
The ops leader helps lead the charge in studio for the Spanish-language broadcas...
06/04/2026
Behind The Mic provides a roundup of recent news regarding on-air talent, includ...
06/04/2026
The National Hockey League (NHL), in partnership with Verizon and the New Jersey Devils, today announced the opening of the NHL Innovation Lab powered by Verizo...
06/04/2026
Rock League, a new professional curling league, has announced that ESPN+ will stream its inaugural 2026 season for fans in the United States. The first Rock Lea...
06/04/2026
Advanced Systems Group has announced the appointment of Andrea (Andy) Cummis as Vice President of Systems Design and Engineering. In this role, she will lead de...
06/04/2026
Backed by Bolt Ventures, the venture brings Bryson DeChambeau, Grant Horvat, and...
06/04/2026
With this environment we can start that collaboration even earlier because we ca...
06/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
06/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
06/04/2026
Dalet Showcases Dalia Agentic AI and End-to-End Media Workflows at NAB Show 2026
Brie Clayton April 6, 2026
0 Comments
Dalet, a leading technology and...
06/04/2026
OpenDrives Shows Off Sports Expertise in Sports Business Hub located in NAB Show...
06/04/2026
Proton to Demonstrate 3D Application at NAB 2026
Brie Clayton April 6, 2026
0 Comments
Yet further creative potential unleashed through innovation in ...
06/04/2026
Autoscript Highlights Voice-Driven Prompting and PTZ Solutions at NAB 2026
Brie Clayton April 6, 2026
0 Comments
Experience Autoscript Voice, PTZ prom...
06/04/2026
Mediaproxy Highlights Significant Enhancements to its LogServer suite at NAB Sho...
06/04/2026
April 6th, 2026
TRIBECA STUDIOS AND LILLY ANNOUNCE WINNERS OF INAUGURAL VITAL...
06/04/2026
Back to All News
Netflix Expands Kids Entertainment Lineup With Playground App ...
04/04/2026
The University of Arizona's Men's Basketball team has only loss twice th...
04/04/2026
1080p HDR arrives, a new generation of storytelling tools takes center stage, an...
04/04/2026
Michigan legends bring a new voice to the broadcast as TNT Sports and CBS Sports...
04/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
04/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
04/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
04/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
04/04/2026
DHD Introduces AI-Based Audio Noise Reduction to XD3 IP Core
Brie Clayton April 3, 2026
0 Comments
The accompanying image shows the rear panel of the ...
04/04/2026
Macnica Redefines ST 2110 Flexibility with Two Speeds on One Card
Brie Clayton April 3, 2026
0 Comments
New for NAB Show 2026, MEP100 SmartNIC now sup...
04/04/2026
Unified Media Workflows for Story-Centric Production
Brie Clayton April 3, 2026
0 Comments
Framelight X unifies field capture, editing and publishing ...
03/04/2026
Michigan's Fab Five will reunite for an alternate presentation of the Mich...
03/04/2026
Avid will exhibit at NAB Show 2026 (April 18-22, Booth N2226, Las Vegas Convention Center), demonstrating its Content Core platform and new AI-driven workflow c...
03/04/2026
Mark Roberts Motion Control (MRMC) has announced the appointment of Nick Barthee as Chief Operating Officer.
The announcement follows MRMC's transition fro...
03/04/2026
Interra Systems has announced that Elite Media Technologies has selected its BATON file-based QC solution for media workflows. Elite Media Technologies speciali...
03/04/2026
Ateme has announced that Moldtelecom has deployed Ateme technologies across its streaming workflow, covering encoding, delivery, operations, and analytics.
Mol...
03/04/2026
Grass Valley will demonstrate Framelight X, its content management platform, at NAB Show 2026. The platform connects capture, ingest, editing, and publishing in...
03/04/2026
Encompass Digital Media and Techex have announced a cloud-native Master Control ...
03/04/2026
Live Vertical Video automatically track the action on the court via AI technology and delivers a fully optimized, 9 16 live feed for viewers...
03/04/2026
As the Illini make their first trip to college basketball's biggest stage si...
03/04/2026
After last summer's Softball National Championship victory and last week'...
03/04/2026
The University of Arizona's Men's Basketball team has only loss twice th...
03/04/2026
Eight games across four tournaments will be played in three venues; accommodatio...
TikTok's Tim Edwards Talks Long Form Content, Monetization and the Power of Search By Jo Ruddock, SVG Europe 
