TikTok increases the video description limit

TikTok developers now have more ways to optimize their content for user searches by significantly increasing the length of video descriptions. According to a notification sent out to users, the social platform is expanding the length of descriptions from 300 characters to 2,200 characters.

In addition to making content easier to find, TikTok says it uses text in the description to decide which videos to recommend to users.

Social media analyst Matt Navarra shares a screenshot of a message he received regarding the change:

Woah…! TikTok has increased video description character limit to 2,200 characters!

This is huge for creators and massive in terms of TikTok’s plans for becoming a search engine pic.twitter.com/kGhnL97uUM

— Matt Navarra (@MattNavarra) September 23, 2022

The message:

“You can now enter up to 2,200 characters in the descriptions of your posts: this allows you to express more details about your creations, and describe what your videos show, which gives you the opportunity to get closer to your audience, generate more engagement, and at the same time be easier to find and better recommended by TikTok to your viewers.”

Younger generations are increasingly using TikToak as a search engine, and TikTok is leaning in that direction by allowing users to make their videos more search-friendly.

This change in search behaviour was first mentioned in June when TikTok began adding links to search results in video descriptions.

In July, Google publicly acknowledged that TikTok and Instagram are the preferred search engines for a large number of young people.

Google senior vice president Prabhakar Raghavan stated:

“In our research, about 40% of young people don’t visit Google Maps or a search engine when they’re looking for a place to eat lunch, they visit TikTok or Instagram.”

Increasing the length of video descriptions from 300 to 2,200 characters allows users to optimize videos for more search terms. For example, local businesses advertising with TikTok can include more keywords related to their city and state.

Increasing the number of characters also allows creators to add more context to what people see in the video. Filmmakers often provide additional details in the credits in a video, but this text is not useful to search engines.

Let’s not forget that Google indexes TikTok videos. Writing detailed descriptions can make your videos more easily discoverable in traditional search engines and TikTok.